Being a parent is one of the best gifts ever bestowed upon humankind.
I grew up with my grandparents, they were both disciplinarians. My Grand Dad was big on being able to speak and articulate English properly, maybe this was due to his experience in the Academic line, who knows?
Back then, nothing froze our blood faster than the words, 'I’ll tell Grandpa you’re speaking vernacular.' It sounded less like a warning and more like a death sentence, one that came with lashes and no appeal (don't worry, I'm African we don't break easily plus beating is a way of making a child have sense in this part of the world.) We weren't allowed to speak any other language aside from English even Yoruba our mother tongue.
On the other hand my Grandma was big on house chores and tending to her little farm that was behind the House. She was a librarian so she taught us the importance of silence. Well, if you spoke too loudly you already knew the consequence, she didn't do much of beating like my Grand father but you see corporal punishments? It was her specialty.
I didn't really think much of either though, probably cos I had fun stuff to do when they were away at the office and we had the opportunity to come back home before they both did. Oh Lord, the nostalgia, I still see the guava tree, standing loyally beside the mango, their branches whispering secrets through the parlor window. We had fun climbing those while growing up.
Many years passed and it was time for me to transition to living with my parents. While they weren't as hard as my grandparents, they were also very stern in their own ways.
My mum wasn't always at home since at that time she was a junior Nurse and she had to do night shifts. By the time she would return home the next day we would have gone to school.
My dad on the other hand was almost always around except when he had to travel for business which he would take weekends and be back the following week.
My parents were both more of the talkers and only spanked us if it was extremely necessary.
I honestly don't regret or have any reservations about how I was raised by either my Grandparents or My Parents because I believe each and every discipline they instilled into me is part of the reason I turned out to be the way I am today.
Moving on to talk about my perspective when it comes to raising a child.
I think the most effective way of raising a child would be a mixture of discipline in whatever form is required and conversations. Why? I've had my Dad spank the hell out of me during the day but come to my room and had conversations with me later that night making me understand why it was important for me to take corrections.
He would say " these things I'm saying to you might not make sense to you now but they will in 10 years to come" and true to his words, they made more sense over the years than I could ever imagine.
Truth is most of the decay we see in the world today as harsh as it might sound comes from parents raising kids with little morals under the guise of I don't want to be too harsh like my parents were on me.
I say this, I will give my kids the discipline my parents handed me while growing up and I will also give them the love I felt was lacking because I know discipline and love go hand in hand.
Our parents may have not said it often but they did love us and every one of their actions as cruel as it might have seemed were born out of love for us and the need for us to be better than them.
Image credits are Mine