Despite my vow at age 16 to never procreate, I have somehow managed to sire four offspring in the last 31 years — that I know of.
Don’t be silly, that’s not a commentary on the mating habits of Homo testosterona but an acknowledgement of the general uncertainty around paternity.
Anyway, by the time I had a vasectomy about 14 years ago, I already had four big-eyed mini-mes. The youngest of the lot just turned 18. He’s busy with his matric exams and we’re about to release him to university and ultimately, the world.
I owe society an apology because, despite my strict Catholic upbringing, I opted to ignore the biblical backbone of great parenting as proclaimed in Proverbs 13:24 by sparing the rod, spoiling the child and unleashing potential serial killers on an unsuspecting world. I guess it’s because I’m a weak, poor excuse for a parent. I’ve never quite possessed the stomach to assault my children.
I was fortunate to be raised by parents who also harboured an aversion to corporal punishment. Their preferred method of discipline was using words. Hundreds of words. Sometimes for hours at a time.
My father would sometimes return home to find us seated comfortably and enjoying an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century dubbed into Afrikaans. He would switch off the TV and launch into a tirade about the state of the lawn, the unswept yard, untrimmed hedges, cluttered garage and the fact that he was driving around in a dirty Mazda 626 while he had able-bodied “men” of 12, 11 and eight just sitting around eating up all the food in the house.
To this day, whenever I run into my standard 5C classmates, we talk in hushed tones about that Black Monday on September 26 1983. None of us could sit upright for three days
My mother would join in and they would verbally tag team us for the next hour or so. I remember sometimes sitting there wishing that my folks just beat us like the neighbours did our playmates. At least beatings usually lasted about two minutes. My mother only ever meted out the most pacifist of “lashings”, using the thinnest peach tree twig she could find, maybe two or three times in my life.
My father? He only laid into me once with a leather belt. And I must admit that I had it coming. I defied him and returned home after 8pm covered in dust from head to toe from watching The High Chaparral at a neighbour’s house before we had our own television set.
School was a different ball game altogether. Our teachers were not shy about going full-blown Proverbs 13:24 on our little behinds. When I joined the teaching profession in the mid-’90s, it coincided with the department of education banning corporal punishment in schools. My colleagues used to bleat loudly about how they were “cutting teachers off at the knees” by taking away one of their most effective “teaching aids”, their trusty bamboo canes.
To say that corporal punishment was a tad on the excessive side during my primary school years is like saying some in the top brass of the SAPS have been a bit naughty. Thank God my folks shipped me off to a Catholic boarding school. The German nuns weren’t so keen on Proverbs either.
All that said, it would be a little hypocritical if I claimed all the beatings that came my way at school were undeserved. Shaka Day when I was in standard 5 (grade 7) was a huge celebration in my IFP stronghold corner of Hammarsdale. On the bus ride back home that day, the boys in my class decided to be rebels by singing a very popular Shaka song with corrupted lyrics. The song goes: “We mkhonto, wemkhonto, kaShaka!”. We remixed the song by replacing the word “mkhonto” with ”mthondo“, which is Zulu for penis. Some tattletale girls reported the incident to Mr Gatsheni.
Mr Gatsheni was incensed and blamed this insolence on our minds being corrupted by communist ideas from “amaphekulazikhuni” (terrorists). To this day, whenever I run into my standard 5C classmates, we talk in hushed tones about that Black Monday on September 26 1983. None of us could sit upright for three days.
A favourite refrain is how we were beaten black and blue as children and yet “we turned out just fine”. Given that this is easily the most violent nation on earth outside an active war zone, that claim is a bit dubious. As a 50-something man who sees a shrink, I can tell you that dealing with my Black Monday trauma has cost a few thousand rands.
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