Wooden Spoon

Proverbs 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (diligently).”

Proverbs 19:18: “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.”

Proverbs 22:15: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”

Proverbs 23:13: “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.”

Proverbs 23:14: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell (Shoel).”

Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

I was raised in very conservative christian household where god was the ultimate flying monkey.  Showing any perceived disrespect for my parents was disrespecting god and would earn me a seat in hell.  Per my parents religion, I was to be spanked for any perceived disobedience or failure on my part.  The amount of physical abuse I received as a boy pales compared to what others have had to endure, however, I believe most of the ‘correction’ that I was forced to endure physically was performed out of rage and not out of love.  Spankings would be handed out for things like getting a bad grade on a report card or wetting my bed.  Getting a bad grade or wetting the bed was a family embarrassment and I needed to be punished.  Did I get the help I needed to improve my grades?  No, I was lazy and I needed to be spanked.  Did I get the help I needed with my bladder issue?  No, I needed to be spanked for being passive aggressive and intentionally wetting the bed to ‘get back’ at my parents.  I remember being spanked every morning for a week when I was about 7 for wetting the bed the previous night.  I could hardly take another spanking my behind was so sore.  Why on earth would I continue to wet the bed if I had any control over it?

My father would spank me with an open hand and my mother’s weapon of choice was a wooden spoon.  I was required to remove my pants and underwear so the spankings could occur on my bare behind.  It was my parents belief that it had to hurt ‘enough’, which is why spankings had to occur on my bare behind.  Spankings were planned events, and I often knew about them hours in advance.  I often remember being somewhere with my parents and being told that I was going to get spanked when we arrived home.  My mother spanked me much more often than my father did, and the wooden spoon on my bare behind was quite painful and would leave welts.  I remember my mother often hitting me so hard with the wooden spoon on my bare behind that the spoon would break.  Frustrated, she would push me away, get up, and hasten to the kitchen to retrieve another wood spoon to continue my spanking.  All the while I was required to keep quiet and ‘accept’ my punishment.  If I cried or screamed she would hit me even harder and tell me now the spanking would ‘double’.

I distinctly remember one spanking episode where my mother had broken the spoon:  My mother, frustrated at the broken spoon, became angry at me because she “had hardly any wooden spoons left” and would need to get more.  Her running out of wooden spoons was my fault, because I needed to be spanked.

Stephen Bach