Thread: Who did you fear more growing up?

The time I almost got arrested for some ridiculous shenanigans as a Teen, I didn't care about going to juvie for a couple weeks (I'd have been much safer there), I worried about my parents dealing with me before and afterward. I wonder now how I avodided sitting in jail until my parents got there to pick me up, that would have worked fine and punished me mopre then the legal system ever could have, I pointed out our rights had been violated at some point when we were being booked and the senior officer just groaned called our homes (none of our parents were home) and told us to go home.

I feared my parents. I recall getting a paddling when I was in the 10th grade, at school, and knew when I got home there was another one waiting. But this was not child abuse to me. Kids learn early in life that if you stick your finger in a light socket, you won't tend to do it again. I see corporal punishment in the same way. Pain gets your attention, and helps kids to learn what is ok, and what isn't. It's nature's way of teaching. I grew up with kids that had a helluva lot more respect than you see today. There was a good reason for that.

On my mother's side of the family my heritage is off the boat Sicilian and I had a distinct fear that if I ever screwed up too bad I'd be guilted to death. My fathers side is primarily German and Irish. If I screwed up there I had no doubt that they'd not only make sure that they thanked the cops for tracking me down but would give them pointers on how best to kick my ass. In a nutshell, I knew damned well that if I got in trouble it would be my responsibility to either get out of it or pay the price.

Over all my parents were very fair in their discipline and I'm thankful for that. In fact, a few weeks ago when I was talking to my father before he passed away we kind of reminisced about how he'd make sure that I was up and working at the crack of dawn even when I just got home shortly before that time and was in a condition. To this day nothing says "responsibility" to me quite like greasy eggs and bacon while still shitfaced from the night before.

Jesus Christ did i relate to your first line Luther...but my mom's side isn't even Italian! One of my Aunt's daughters married an Italian, and even though she's my cousin, her kids scare the shit out of me! But yeah my parents and their siblings basically - now they are like 40+, in their 50's and so on...so that's the option i'd say, plus my psycho mom, haha.

I could either talk or fight my way out of any trouble with school officials or police

parents, well... they knew me better.

Originally Posted by Mrs. M

The thread concerning youth at play made me think of the differences between my own childhood and the kids today. I'm just wondering who here feared mom and dad more than the police or school officials because many of today's youth don't seem to fear anyone.

If I was being a problem child in school the most effective method for teachers to keep me in line was to threaten to call my parents.

I feared my parents. Not 'cause they were "bad" or anything, but if I did anything wrong, I'd much rather face the police than my parenst ... having said that, I never did anything that even came remotely close to police involvement. I guess that's 'cause despite the fear my parents instilled, they did a great job in raising me. I think too many parents these days delegate the "parenting" aspect of their role to other authorities, and expect others to be responsible for instilling discipline, and approproate values and respect in their children.

How the heck did you manage to make it through life without doing anything worthy of police attention?

No fights? No ridiculous drinking binges? No buying a sack of weed from a friend of a friend? No "confiscation" of construction materials for the purpose of building a bad ass ramp for your bike? No plinking away at your butthead neighbor's dog with a BB gun? No blowing stuff up just because you had stuff that went BANG? No grabbing a boob just because it was grabable and available? No fooling around with your buddy's sister or the neighbor girl down the street or the chick at school or the hot chick at McDonalds or......well....you get the picture? No trespassing at the train yard and peeing off the flag tower? No throwing eggs at cop cars? No launching water balloons across a 6 lane main thoroughfare to bomb the pizza guy on the other side of the street? No "borrowing" of golf carts and driving them into the pond? No use of school time and property for the manufacture of Japanese throwing stars or starting fires by hooking battery cables to spiral notebooks? No letting the air out of cops tires while they're getting coffee and a doughnut? No bookmaking? No package delivery for the old Italian guys at the pool hall?

C'mon...there must have been something!

Originally Posted by lutherf

C'mon...there must have been something!

Boring huh? We lived on a cattle property in rural Central Queensland, and our closest neighbour was about 7 kms away, so there wasn't a whole lot of trouble we could get into. Guess I was just a good old country lad

Originally Posted by noahath

Boring huh? We lived on a cattle property in rural Central Queensland, and our closest neighbour was about 7 kms away, so there wasn't a whole lot of trouble we could get into. Guess I was just a good old country lad

No cow tipping? No moonshining?

Originally Posted by lutherf

No cow tipping? No moonshining?

I did once take my father's car when I was 15 and drive into town. He never caught me though. My sister tried the same thing a few years later ... but was caught. She threatened to "lessen her sentence" by dobbing me in, but she never did.

Hah! I knew there had to be a skeleton somewhere.

So if your sister did drop the dime on you would your folks have actually lessened the sentence or made it worse for being a rat?

Originally Posted by lutherf

Hah! I knew there had to be a skeleton somewhere.

So if your sister did drop the dime on you would your folks have actually lessened the sentence or made it worse for being a rat?

The sentence wouldn't have been lessened; the punishment would have just included me, LOL.