Positive-reinforcement, negative-reinforcement, and punishment.  These are the common methods of training a child.  I think they all work, but who am I to say that?  I don’t have any children.  One thing I do know, people tend to dish out punishment more than any other form of discipline.  Maybe it’s because it’s the easiest, maybe it’s because it jives with the gut instinct to deal with our problems by bashing them.  War, after all, still seems to be the solution prescribed by nations when they get even a little bit flustered.  Nothing really changes.  We may be hurling rockets and bombs instead of arrows and rocks, but that’s about it. We still prefer to answer with our fists, we always have and we always will.

The day after the party– the one where I had my first taste of beer, I woke up and headed downstairs to the dining room.  I rubbed my eyes to get rid of the crust that still hanged in there, and when I dropped my hand, I saw my dad standing in front of me with a belt in his hands.  He told me to turn around and drop my pants.  I asked him why he was going to punish me.  He said that I very know well why.  

Strike after strike came and I felt the back of my thighs get sore and red.  He said that Cindy heard from a friend that I was out by the key yesterday, that I was out drinking.

Tears started to well up and I locked my jaw, wishing I had something to bite.

“And Carol too!” dad yelled, “you had the balls to take Carol and corrupt her!  Just be glad your mom decided not to tell her parents.”

More whipping, and then a pause.  After a second, dad whipped me again, but this time the pain was excruciating.  A burning blunt thud came from that strike.  Dad reversed the belt and was now whipping me with the buckle.  He was still whipping the back of my legs, which was already sore but now started to break.  I could feel tiny drops of blood making its way down to my calves.