Cuss Words on The Kitchen Wall and Peach Tree Tea

would readily agree that punishing a child is wrong on several levels. According to these experts in Sociology, punishing a child, or disciplining a child can damage their creative spirit, give them a low self-image and put in lasting crack in their psychological make-up.

So according to (these) child care experts, when a child breaks rules that were set down by their parents, children should never receive any punishment. I have even heard news stories about liberal-thinking parents in bigger cities being sued by the area D.H.R. (Dept. of Human Resources) and charged these parents with assault.

(I) feel that a certain amount of sensible discipline should be administered when a kid disobeys. That can apply to any kid. I was a kid and it came natural to get into trouble when my parents were not looking. It felt good. I can assume that this may be attributed to the "Cain Syndrome," that teaches that the two sons of Adam and Eve were working one day and when both sons took a sacrifice to God, Cain's sacrifice displeased God--thus causing Cain to get highly upset then killed Able for accepting God's sacrifice. This was the very first known act of murder found in the Bible.

Time was, when a child was in the rough areas: "Terrible Twos," these children got into everything within their touch. No, these kids were not really meaning any harm. They were just kids being kids. And even the most-patient of parents when they would issue a verbal threat to a misbehaving child a number of times without results, these parents knew then that something had to be done in order to teach these children early for they knew if the child continued to disobey and never receiving discipline, this pattern would continue and what was scary was if these parents were to hold off until the child reached 15 or 17, issuing discipline would be futile.

In the 1970s, Benjamin McLane Spock, May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998, was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-sellers of all time. The book was controversial right out of the gate. Spock's book had it's good and bad points--and some eager parents ran across some of his information that was just too tough to understand.

from personal experience that my parents had their own styles of discipline when it came to me disobeying their rules. My mom always said her attention-getting phrases: "you are showing out!", "acting up," and "I'm not telling you again to stop." Most times these warnings worked. Sometimes not. Then mama would "bring up the big guns," when she issued the ultimate of threats that was guaranteed to stop any child who was "acting up," in their shoes: "when your dad gets home from work, I am going to tell him what you did," and simply went about her business.

Now depending on the time when my mom issued this most-fearful of warnings, I had time to do one of two things: Admit my transgression truthfully to my dad and throw myself on his decision on whether or not to pull off his famous leather belt that was used to "tan my hide," a very famous rural phrase when parents were fed-up and ready for their kids to "straighten-up." Or . . .create one of my famous slick "Save My Butt" speeches (complete with fake tears) and hope that my dad was too tired to punish me and just give me a stern talking to.

Times like this is when I first learned the true value of prayer. I am serious. I did some of my most-serious praying to God when I knew that I was headed for trouble. But God, being the all-knowing God that He is, would sometimes engineer a reprieve for me to go free or allow my dad to use his leather belt to get me to really act right.

when mama, who was born one of the most patient women I had ever been around, would get her fill of my childish "monkey-shines" and . . .then tell me in a very serious, stern tone: "you get yourself to the edge of the yard at that Peach Tree and bring me a LIMB." To you city dwellers, a "limb" was a rural term that stood for a male or female parent to administer a dose of discipline or (in another rural term): "Peach Tree Tea."

And if you ever even heard that chilling phrase used by determined parents, "Peach Tea Tree," you were not going to sit down with mama (or daddy) and sip Lipton tea and nibble Sugar Cookies. No, sir. You, not your mama or dad, were made to walk that longest of walks to a Peach Tree and get a young limb from the tree for your parent to "stripe" your butt or legs to teach you that writing ugly words with a permanent marker on the kitchen wall was really one of the worst things that a child could do.

When my mama first told me, "Kenny, you head out to the Peach Tree and bring me a good dose of 'Peach Tree Tea' . . .NOW!" I knew that I was busted. But I had a trick up my tee-shirt sleeve. I made myself walk extra slow to get her that Peach Tree limb, but I pulled out another clever trick that I knew would prevent me from getting that much of a whipping: I would pull the youngest, shortest limb from the Peach Tree and begin to apologize wide-open and just maybe my sincerity mixed with my choice of a Peach Tree limb might set me free.

Mama's were given by God a special sense of teaching kids that is not found in any child care book--not by Dr. Spock or any pediatrician worth his sheep skin.

"you call this a Peach Tree limb? Huh?" Mama said with her expert eyes inspecting my puny limb.

Mama didn't have to say another word. I just walked back to that same Peach Tree and found what I thought would be a pretty dangerous limb. But I had one more chance of mama "letting me off the hook." Are you reading all of these free rural phrases that I have given you in this hub?

Upon returning my good-sized Peach Tree limb, she looked at it carefully and then I started in my Reverse Disciplinary Act. "now, mama, I've told you that I was so sorry for writing those ugly words on your kitchen, but dear mama, I am only three and I didn't know that these words were ugly. Honest. I just heard daddy say some of these words when he was talking to the man with the pig that he was selling and I heard (that) man say a few of these same words--so beat me with that rough limb. I deserve it. But may I ask you this one question: Are you going to use this limb on my daddy when he gets home from work?"

Mama halfway smiled. Then a look of ponder surfaced on her face.

Do you really want to know what happened?