Standing IN The Corner... (Not in Winslow, AZ)

NOTE: Another post on our board triggered some memories of my own with its topic. Not wanting to hijack that thread, I wrote this little story for a separate post.

Standing IN The Corner… (Not in Winslow, AZ)

Funny about trends in child discipline… I just happen to have some first-hand experience with that area of ‘human progress’… thanks to my earnest parents to whom I owe so much…

Dad had been raised in an ‘old school’ environment, and the bed-rock traditions of “Spare the rod, spoil the child” and “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” were very much the dominant themes. No ‘molly-codling’, wishy-washy, or halfway measures would even be considered when it came to doing ones solemn duty in raising young’uns right… Nosiree.

Mother, on the other hand, had come of age in a single parent household well-removed from extended family… her father having died when she was only three, the youngest of five. Her mother had remarried, but her stepdad had also died when she was still quite small. Grandmother basically raised five kids pretty much on her own while working fulltime outside the home to support them all.

Grandma was an incredible person, whom I still hold in absolute awe and genuine admiration to this day. While grandma was no slouch when it came to wielding a switch, she was more inclined to rely upon other forms of guiding influence upon young kids who crossed the line… Indeed, she didn’t wait to simply ‘react or respond’, she took an unusually pro-active approach to positively guiding the behaviors and thinking of her 'chicks' all along the way. In other words, my mother had been inclined to be a wee bit more open-minded and willing to experiment than dad had been predisposed to be…

Throughout most of my upbringing years, though, mother deferred to dad and the more ‘traditional means’ were employed… liberally, robustly, and often. However, there was this one brief interlude when mother took the lead and an alternative was tried. It wasn’t particularly effective either, but it did have the unanticipated side effect, because of the curious coincidence of timing, of providing me with my very first introduction to politics.

Long before ‘timeouts’ or ‘grounding’ were the latest and greatest breakthroughs, the newest ultra-modern rage at that time was ‘standing the child in a corner’. Yep, that was going to be the miracle tool to lead parents out of the dark ages, away from the toxic effects of violence, and into the new, improved, enlightened world of happy children who willingly obeyed and complied… “Use this method, and your problems will vanish!” Naturally, I was completely oblivious to this newest ‘wonder-solution’… right-up until the moment it was sprung on me from out of the blue…

There I was all resigned to receive heavy ‘in-coming’ immediately following the dreaded panic-inducing report of dad’s belt clearing the loops on his trousers… just having been busted, yet again, for some infraction or other. Gawd, I did hate that ominous, fearful ‘flutter’ sound! But, I didn’t hear it this time… Nope, I was simply ordered to report front-and-center, which, of course, I nervously did. “Go stand in that corner and put your nose up against the wall.” Huh?

I was then escorted to the dungeon corner, my head was gently guided to the proper location, then my nose ‘lovingly’ pressed up against the wallpaper. “Stand there until we tell you to move…” But, but…?

“What the heck is this,” I wondered in complete bewilderment? In practically no time, I was fidgeting, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, wondering how long this torture might last… beginning to speculate that just maybe that flutter sound wasn’t part of the worst sequence of things that could happen after all… “This punishment stuff sure is getting tiresome… and very confusing!”

This latest assault on my delicate young psyche was unfolding a couple months before my tenth birthday. By then we already did have a TV, and it was often ‘on’ when my parents were home… as it had been at that time. I was just idly standing there languishing in a confused, dazed fog during all of this, but… it turned out to be instructive, nonetheless…

Dad, a veteran of the most recent great war, was keenly interested in government and the direction of our nation. Yep, like so many who had quite literally sacrificed so much and risked everything in its defense, my parents took good citizenship in this land of ours to be an honor-bound, sacred duty of all its members, and one that should be pursued sincerely, faithfully, and diligently… “What’s the right thing to do for all concerned” was the mantra, and certainly never simply, “What’s in it for me?” Yep, that was indeed a long, long time ago… or so it seemed…

As luck would have it, the 1956 Democratic National Convention was being televised at that moment; something never before seen by my people, so my parents had been glued to the TV watching every development with bated breath. Would Adlai Stevenson be re-nominated to run against ‘Ike’ again, or would Estes Kefauver be drafted…? The suspense created by the huge gravity of the consequences of either decision had them both gravely concerned…

Still nine years old and having lived my entire life in small town Dixie with my most recent formative years in the relatively cloistered world of small town north Alabama, I had no awareness at all what concepts like political parties, campaigns, and ‘adult suffrage’ might mean, let alone what things like ‘spontaneous demonstrations’ or ‘draft movements’ to replace the front runner on a political party’s electoral ticket with another candidate might possibly entail…? I received my inaugural introduction to all of the drama, pageantry, posturing, and pompous pontificating of ‘spontaneous’ role-playing by the various ‘actors’ who aspired to become our ruling elite…

It was all so confusing… How could either guy be so totally good, while the current president, ‘Ike’, be so bad and incompetent? Is it really possible for someone so wrong to actually become the top leader in the first place? This was scary stuff! Those folks are all grown-ups, right? No way any of them could be exaggerating or lying, so… Boy, if I did something like that, there would be no corner treatment for this bad seed! No sir, straight to ‘whelp city’ for this bad boy for sure!

“Do grown-ups really get to act like that,” I asked myself in utter disbelief as the noise on TV elevated and the rhetoric intensified …? Heck, those folks were rowdier than my classmates and I ever were! Why is it just me who’s having to stand in a dungeon-corner? And so it was that I was first exposed to a couple of important lessons; things that would later contribute to the adult I eventually became… much to the surprise of both my parents… and, frankly, to yours truly, as well…

DDT