By Jim Raykie
Fri, May 16 2008
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I got a real kick out of reading a recent story about the re-introduction of a bill in California that would make it a crime to spank a child. This silly proposal, the brainchild of Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, has been kicked around for several years.
According to the bill, a parent who spanks his or her child would be placed on probation for a minimum of four years and would be forced to attend a “nonviolent parental education class” and the child would receive a criminal court protective order “protecting the victim from further acts of violence or threats” and “residence exclusion or stay-away conditions.”
This bill is aimed not necessarily at child abuse, but tough love, as many of us like to call it, is something that I think generally is lacking in many of today’s families. Kids either have no parents at home to administer it, or they have parents unwilling to give it, but who would rather spoil them.
What makes me laugh about the whole thing is that I view myself as a product of a home filled with tough love. And I mean brimming. If it wasn’t my grandfather and grandmother, it was my father and my mother. It was either the fear of my father’s thin strap on my bare behind (man that hurt) or a threat by my mother to rap my knuckles with the rolling pin.
Kids will be kids, and my parents and grandparents realized that and tolerated minor strays from acceptable behavior with stern words of warning. Sometimes an evil eye would do. But they didn’t tolerate the major stuff, and because I knew that, I tried my best to keep things like belts and rolling pins out of the equation.
Let’s face it, tough love smarts, and most people, especially kids, will avoid such pain at all costs. I’ll always believe that one of the worst things that happened in our public education system was when we bowed to pressure and took wooden paddles out of the hands of principals. When I got paddled in school, by the way, I got it again at home.
Of course, people who were never on the other end of tough love argue that it is barbaric, demeaning and all that bunk. I rarely saw my father cry. Two times were when I graduated from high school, and when I got my diploma from Penn State four years later. But my mother always told me how much he cried after stinging my behind with that belt, and that he always told her that it hurt him more than it did me. (I don’t believe that last part, but you get the point).
When we were visiting relatives or friends when I was a kid, and I started to act up, all I needed was to look at that belt around my dad’s waist, and most times I righted the ship. I think we’re sorely missing such “guidance” for our children today, no pun intended.
The editor’s mailbag
My column last week on the late Julius McCoy generated a great deal of feedback. Here’s an e-mail from Ed Morgan of Cleveland:
“Thanks for the great article on Julius McCoy and Farrell basketball. Only someone growing up in Farrell during those years could understand the ‘mystique’ that you discussed. Being an FHS 1964 graduate, I certainly do, and think about that ‘mystique’ often.
“The McCoy era was before my time, but I can recall being in the Hilltop Inn with my father, looking at the old Steelers team pictures in awe. I also remember being in the “5 & 10” store on Idaho Street with my mother when I was 5 years old, and seeing Farrell students doing a snake dance through the store after winning the state championship in 1952.
“I have been in the Cleveland area for 37 years (still have some Frankovich relatives in the Valley) and will never forget that mystique.”
And this is from Pete Calleja of Sharpsville, a regular at area high school athletic contests:
“You have probably read all the super feats of Julius as a basketball, football and track star. I remember him in a different way.
“In 1951 I was dating my future wife Marge, who lived on Spearman Avenue across from the German Home. I lived on the 500 block of Spearman across the street from another future great, Willie Somerset, but that’s another story for another time.
“In the evening we would walk to Isaly’s on Idaho Street. Many evenings walking back to her house after one of those strolls, we would go past the J.A. Farrell Elementary School and there would be Julius, all by himself in almost pitch darkness shooting a basketball.
“Later when I heard people say he was a born athlete, I would think he sure had a lot of natural abilities but they were honed on the playground.”
Jim Raykie is the editor of The Herald and writes this column on Mondays. His e-mail is jraykie@sharonherald.com
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Jim Raykie