Minions of My Mind

Did Your Parents Ever Hit You?

11- 2- 04

My lunch table consists of mostly other Asian kids like myself and for some reason, we got into this conversation about parental punishments when we were little. Most Asian parents are pretty big believers in "Sparing the rod spoils the child" - and our parents seemed to had fitted along just fine with the majority. Now that we're older, we seemed to find more amusement than bitter resentment in our past punishments - and I guess that's partly because even though we got punished a lot, we knew that our parents loved us and that it wasn't some form of cruel, unusual punishment - it was simply a matter of how they were raised with these beliefs. (Not that I'll ever punish my own kids in a similar manner - it really does hurt. I just don't believe in physical violence. No TV and no desserts would probably work just fine. )

Our Conversation at Lunch:

"I wonder who will be our guest speaker at graduation. Maybe it could be Oprah – I heard she gives out tons of free stuff! I want a laptop! Or a TiVO! She gave that out before at her show!"

"No, no, how about someone really funny – like Conan O'Brien or Jon Stewart?"

"Oh! What about Chris Rock?"

"Pfft. No way. He's too crude."

"But he's funny!"

"Yeah, well, so is Margaret Cho but I don't think our speech should be about sex jokes."

We laughed. "Hey, imagine if one of us became a stand up comedian and started making fun of our parents like Margaret Cho. I don't think they'll take it as well as her parents did. My mom will probably run up on stage and slap me stupid."

"Hey, did your parents ever hit you?" Beatrice arched her eyebrows at me and Catherine from across the lunch table.

Catherine shrugged. "Hell yeah! All Asian parents believe in physical discipline, I think."

"I get slapped," Beatrice said.

"Whoa – well, my parents didn't go that far. Never touched the face. Just some spankings and such."

"Did your parents ever use those feather dusters thingies? And I don't mean the feathery soft end."

"Oh yeah! Feather dusters, chopsticks, clothes hangers – you name it, she used it." I grinned, finding some sort of warped delight in lording my history of colorful corporal punishments over my friends. "I used to hide them all. Then she brought out the vacuum cleaner."

Beatrice and Catherine's mouths gaped. "Whaaa??"

"Well, she couldn't find the things, so she got pissed off and whipped out those vacuum cylinder attachments and used those."

"Oh!" They laughed. "I thought she just like swung the whole vacuum cleaner at you –"

"What? Like a golf club or something?" I chuckled. "My mom may be one stern parent . . . but she's no WWF wrestler."

~ Maeven