As we know, a Lady never discloses her age. Well, not unless she is under police arrest or in some equally unfriendly situation, such as applying for private health insurance or public welfare. Ergo, as a Lady, I will not tell you the exact number of years I have endured life on this planet, but I will tell you that it was at some point after the Upper Palaeolithic Period but before the invention of the “cassette recorder”.
As a very ancient artefact, I remember when spanking could not only be administered to children by Western teachers and parents, but was widely considered a useful disciplinary act. This confused me, even as a kid. Did the adult with the wooden spoon not know they were doing nothing but revealing their weakness to my bum? They were saying, via the medium of bottom, “I have lost control. I have no natural authority. Your respect for me is gone, so I elect to replace this with numb physical fear.”
This hurts me more than it hurts you.
Strangely, I am grateful for the occasional experience of spanking, because it prompted a later interest in the tactics of , and, more recently, a great impatience for our prisons and detention centres, which seems to do very little but make money and punish people to the point that they have .
Anyhow, that’s almost enough about my childhood, which is a matter I really should keep for discussion with my therapist. But, just one more thing: during my playground discussion of spanking, Skip children would incredulously repeat a particular thing their parent or teacher might say before such an act of punishment. That is, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
It’s so strange when the person inflicting the punishment claims that they have been driven to do so; that they have no choice in the matter. Eventually, I guess, Western parents got wise to the fact that kids aren’t that silly. They know who is spanking them. They know who made the choice.
I thought, “Malcolm. You’re not being a good parent to the nation”.
This week, I was in the supermarket, minding my own business and swearing at the poor quality of the cauliflower. Then, I saw a young mother striving to wrangle her disobedient child. As little Poopikins began mashing tomatoes with her tiny, sticky fists, I saw the parent raise her hand, just barely, and then put it down again. I am certain that if I were a mother, this is how I would also respond. I might have the brief urge to punish, but I would realise very quickly that this was not only immoral, but ineffective. I would lose the child’s respect.
This happened on Tuesday, the same day I read about that Australians should “put your arms around” LGBTIQ friends who had been hurt as the result of anti-same-sex marriage debate. The debate that has arisen as the direct result of the . I read that he had said this, and I thought, “Malcolm. You’re not being a good parent to the nation".
For months, mental health professionals had been advising that hurt and division would be the inevitable result of this vote. It is not as though our Prime Minister had not heard, possibly even heeded, these arguments. Even if he had not directly heeded them at the time, he has now publicly admitted that consoling hugs are needed.
So, perhaps, at this point, he could do as the mother in the supermarket did, and retract his punishing hand.
You don’t logically get to create hostile, punishing conditions for a group of people—i.e. call a mail vote that many warned would end in tatty, cruel antagonism—and then claim no responsibility. Even say that it is the responsibility of others to “put your arms” around the punishment you have administered.
So, perhaps, at this point, he could do as the mother in the supermarket did, and retract his punishing hand.
You don’t get to come over all “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
Put the wooden spoon down, Honourable Sir. It diminishes your authority. It shows great weakness, and we know, don’t we, who is really hurt the most by this punishing nonsense. LGBTIQ Australians who find themselves, as asylum seekers, Muslims, migrants and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have before, the object of cultural punishment.
Of course, you will be hurt in a different fashion. This old-fashioned parenting just might spell the end of your political career.
