The current debate at the heart of Australian society concerns the wooden spoon: Specifically, should you be allowed to beat your child with one? Victoria's Claire Davidson, cautioned by police after her nine year old revealed that she was subject to harsh utensil-based discipline, is unrepentant.
"We only use the wooden spoon and that is only when she is being naughty and we give her fair chance to rectify the situation and we talk her through it," she told the Herald Sun.Elsewhere, other Prison Islanders recall their own run-ins with wooden spoons. It really does sound like the most magical place on earth.She said her daughters gets three warnings and, then, "it is spoon time."
Is this an Australian thing? My mom used a wooden spoon as punishment and I grew up in Buffalo... I thought it was just an Italian thing.
Polish parents in Michigan.
I think that the wooden spoon was my parents' go-to disciplinary implement because it was more painful than an open-handed spanking and less painful than an over-the-top belt lashing.
Ethnic families - so practical!
Extra points if the spoon in question was actually being used in its original capacity when a quick break for a spanking was needed.
my mom hit me with a wooden spoon once and it broke.
Leo Shanahan argues against the effectiveness of the wooden spoon:
"The scarier option was actually my father’s ninja like ability with a rubber thong..."
My mom's weapon choice - a fly swatter! Hmm, this could explain my dislike of flying insects.
My mom used her thick wedding band right on top of my skull. One hard smack on the head that reverberated down my spine. This usually happened on the piano bench when I'd sulkily sit and scratch the varnish off the piano with a my thumbnail. I didn't play piano for much longer.
Aw, memories. I'm one of eight kids, and Mom broke many a wooden spoon -- as well as a host of other utensils, trying to chase us down. After awhile we'd laugh as soon as we saw her reaching for a spoon.
I have the same memory. My mom swatted my brother over the head with a wooden hairbrush and the brush broke. Instead of him crying, all four of the kids bust out laughing. I think that was the last time my mom used corporal punishment - when it became funny.
My mom used wooden paint-stirrers. She was known to stop by the paint store on the way home if my brother and I were bad, march in, and come out brandishing a new one. She would even tell the paint store people why she needed one, with a laugh! Those fuckers were thin and stung like hell. The current paint stirrer was always kept on top of the fridge, and we (the whole family) called it "the spankin' stick" with just enough humor to be even more disturbing. But I turned out okay.
ha! one time my mom threw a book at me, missed, and made a whole in the wall.
hole. d'oh!
My Austrian father locked me in a basement for twenty years.
(too soon?)
Why am I laughing? Why?????
I was kept in a tent in the backyard just outside of Lake Tahoe.
That actually sounds kind of nice...
Good thing it wasn't sledgehammer time.
I remember burying the wooden spoon in the compost heap of our garden in South Africa - my reasoning was that if I got rid of the spoon then there'd be no more spanking.
This was around the time that my sister and I used a rubber plunger to pull half the ceramic tiles off the bathroom wall. Oh, we got the spoon for that...
I know I LOL'd.
You know, between my parents' choice of discipline (endless guilt trips about 'how disappointed we are in you') and the wooden spoon, I'm tempted to choose the spoon. I'd have saved a lot in therapy bills.
My mom beat the crap out of me with wooden utensils throughout my childhood and I've spent (and will doubtless continue to spend) plenty on therapy, so don't be too sure.
Balk you braindead fucker. It's ok that your war mongering country ask us of AUSTRALIA to fight side by side in every war you get involved in.Balk you fuck-faced goose try something you Yanks are not known for,research.Founded predominantly by free settlers,unlike you lot who think trading of human flesh was excetable.At least when your on a flight with a Yank if anyones going to be shot then the Yanks will be first.It' all in your arrogant attitude.It might work in the US but it will get you in trouble OS.