Democratic Spanking

I’m always looking for hilarious stories for my blog. One day, I remembered what happened to my brother when he was in the third grade.

On that day, Hiroshi (my brother), some other neighborhood kids, and I were playing dodgeball. We all lived in the same company apartment complex, and most of these kids were the children of our dad's subordinates. Being the tallest, oldest, and physically strongest boy—as well as the most socially dominant because of our dad's position in the company—Hiroshi started bullying the other kids for making mistakes. He was screaming and yelling at them until our dad, who happened to come home earlier than usual, grabbed him by the neck and took him home.

I could only guess what followed next. After we came home, I could only hear Hiroshi screaming for help as he was spanked behind closed fusuma sliding doors. Dad didn't utter a word. He hated—and still hates—those who bully the weak. It must have been the way of disciplining children in his generation.

 
I remembered this a few days ago and was about to start writing when I realized I wasn't sure how to describe the situation naturally in English. I knew I could write, 'Daddy, please stop! I won't do it again! (Papa, gomen nasai! Mo shimasen!)' and use a word like smack for the sound of spanking, but there has to be a more common, colloquial way to put it.

As a translator, I searched for proper phrases using the term 'spanking' or the phrase 'I'll be a good boy'—which I happened to know are used colloquially—and found a website. The story on the website was about a mother spanking her son for inappropriate behavior while eating dinner and mostly consisted of a conversation between them.

What surprised me, however, was the horizontal and democratic nature of their relationship. In particular, the mother calmly and logically explained why she had to spank him—a stark contrast to the vertical, authoritarian relationship between my dad and Hiroshi.

Of course, this may be just a single good example. Other American mothers might use corporal punishment like my dad did, or scream and yell at their children. But still, it's amazing that at least one parent calmly and logically explains to her son why he has to be punished before actually punishing him. "That's good old America," I thought. It also reminded me of my sister-in-law, who is Japanese but was educated at a high school and a college in the US. She has never used corporal punishment or yelled at her kids, even though her mother-in-law (my mom) criticized her for being too soft with them.

I was skimming the story for phrases to use in my post when I found a line near the end where a mother asks her son, ‘Do you want to lick my xxxxx?

Posted on 6/26/2019

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