We were out on a strenuous early-morning walk recently when, out of the blue, my stalwart friend Jacques declared how much he was missing the shrink.
"A shrink?" I asked, quite surprised.
For the life of me I can't picture old Jacques on The Couch, clutching a box of tissues and snivelling about life being unfair. He's more of a take-it-on-the-chin kind of guy. A fitness pro and black belt karate sensei with heck-knows-how-many dans.
And the father of two boys aged eight and 10.
"Not ‘a' shrink," he corrected me. "The Shrink."
Turns out that's what his late mom called her Discipline Device.
"When I was little," he elaborated, "we still had concepts like ‘no'. And ‘because I said so' and ‘go play and be quiet'. And you better have listened, hey, because when Mom and The Shrink came around the corner, you'd deeply regret your mistake to disobey."
"These days," he grumbled, "you're forever explaining stuff. And reasoning and negotiating. I dare you to try and negotiate with two tweens; it's like negotiating with terrorists. You always lose.
"And thou shalt not shout or scold, for there will be a public hanging. No, you do positive affirmation, ‘calmly guiding' the little terror to discover his ‘true inner self'. Now I ask you: to what ‘inner self' was the little angel ‘true' when he was rubbing chewing gum into his brother's hair?"
I could offer absolutely no help, having been raised on The Shrink method myself.
Ours was called "Old Flip". My father had fashioned it from a wooden handle to which he attached a thick rubber strap with brass tacks.
Dad adhered to the Old Testament edict of "spare the rod and spoil the child". It's from somewhere in the Book of Proverbs. I'd often hear him mutter it through clenched teeth in the lead-up to a spanking.
My little brother and I once ‘kidnapped' Old Flip and formally buried him in a bed of marigolds in a far corner of the garden.
We went all out with prayers and singing, with Boetie adding some wailing for authenticity.
But when Dad dug over that bed at the end of summer, Old Flip arose from his grave like a reborn Lazarus, alive and kicking - as if he'd been interred on a Red Bull drip.
Speaking of energy drinks, Jacques laughed, his mom could switch hands once she and The Shrink got going - like some ambidextrous Energizer Bunny. And when both arms grew tired, she'd often ‘catch her breath' with a quick menthol ciggie and carry right on.
My mother, I suddenly remembered, often grabbed a wooden spoon - which tended to break on the first blow. Then she'd stand there, rather foolishly, holding the broken handle and finishing the job with some creative shouting, my brother and I suppressing our sniggering.
Afterwards, I'd collect the broken spoons and give them little faces, for my dolls. Some of those very spoons were guests at Old Flip's funeral.
A friend from school once told me that his mom used to lay into them with her Froggie sandals, leaving neat little frog imprints on their behinds. Afterwards, they would brag about who got the most frogs.
Back then, every household had its own little lexicon for dishing out the discipline, varying greatly from whipping to walloping to whacking or paddling, and many others.
Same goes for the variety of instruments that parents used and the names they chose for them, ranging from "Dingaan" or "Kaptein" to more ‘humorous' ones like "Jan Braai" or "Turn-or-Burn". And then there were downright cuckoo ones like "Pop Eye" or "Skattie".
These days, however, there's no more slapping or smacking. Even the Bible texts have been sensitised. No child gets beaten in the new versions of Proverbs. At most, they are "admonished".
The "rod" has moved right off the map. Ditto for "beat him on the sides while he is a child, lest he be stubborn" from Ecclesiasticus.
So, I asked my friend Jacques, are we raising happier children?
He laughed. "I don't know about the kids. But I can tell you a lot about how happy I am!
"Take something like kicking a ball in the lounge and breaking a vase. I explain. I guide. I negotiate. I channel Dali Mpofu full-on (the khaki pants version). I talk until I'm hoarse. And then yesterday they do it again. The wife's Ouma's antique Venetian mirrors shattered into a million pieces.
"And right there and then, I tell you, I sorely, dearly, sincerely long for The Shrink!"
- Translation: Gillian Eva
