I was raised before the world was throwing their hands up in panic over spanking your children. Nowadays, you will find a lot of people who are completely against it and frown upon the idea of laying a hand on the behind of bratty child. These days, kids are just grounded or have their cell phones taken away from them. But not me, I was never grounded. I was spanked. If I broke something in the house while goofing around with my brothers, we knew we were in for it when out Dad gets home. We would spend the next few minutes thinking of a decent excuse or explanation while also preparing our pitiful walk to our rooms in search for one of our belts.

I told myself growing up that “When I become a Dad, I won’t spank my kids,” but now that I am older and haven’t been spanked for about a decade, I have changed my mind. Meeting other people my age has really sealed the deal with this. While I see some kids and how they act and how it is very obvious that their parents don’t spank them and don’t really have a hold of them, it can be more obvious when interacting with someone of the same age as you, like an adult, and you can tell in their personality that they were brats growing up and definitely deserved a good spanking but never received one. I have come to see how valuable a tough love type discipline can be because while it may not have the same effect on everyone as it did me, it has proven to me to be more useful, especially for guys, to get their heads straight.

That being said, there is a good balance to be had with all of this. I had strict parents who at the same time would play with us all of the time growing up. When they got off work, they got on the living floor with my brothers and I to play with Legos or Hot Wheels. They took us to the skate park, we played paintball together and street hockey and neighborhood hide-and-seek at night. I had a good upbringing, but I think what was most important to that good upbringing was being told no and not getting everything I wanted. Getting spanked to teach me a lesson when my ears weren’t listening to the message.

Too many people are raised spoiled by their parents who don’t know how to take charge in the family or raise a child to be respectful or respectable. It is in taking an affirmative action in the role of a parent or leader that will support that because not everything will be rainbows and butterflies.