Parenting 101, and work life: making changes to improve
I grew up with parents who taught me how to get stuff done. Saturday and Sunday were chore days. If you got in trouble, it meant chores continued all week after school, out in the yard, or in the house. The punishment depended on what happened at the time, and what we had done wrong in the midst of it all. I remember getting spankings with a spoon and usually being terrified that the wooden or metal would really hurt my bottom. There was nothing scarier than my father smacking each one of us with his hand. As a kid, it sounds awful, but looking back now it isn’t. We learned that disrespecting our mother, or goofing off in class, or causing a ruckus meant no dinner, time out, and no playtime with friends. As siblings, it was understood how much we loathed this arrangement and we made our parents out to be the worst parents in the universe. “Well, their parents let them stay out late, and watch TV, and eat junk food and candy, why can’t we,” we bargained and or pleaded our otherwise...