9/20/2014 salon.com: The racial parenting divide: What Adrian Peterson reveals about black vs. white child-rearing: Black parenting is often too authoritative. White parenting is often too permissive. Both need to change - Brittney Cooper

Child discipline and corporal punishment have nothing to do with being black or white.

Ms. Cooper is representative of the progressive mindset. She uses the extremes at both ends of an issue to validate her argument. In her mind unchecked unruly behaviour in a child leads to the child believing the world as a place that they can explore, a place in which they can sit, or stand, or climb at will. The world, they are learning, is theirs for the taking. While stern discipline curtails creativity, inculcates a narrative about "acceptable" forms of violence enacted against black bodies, and breeds fear and resentment between parents and children that far outlasts childhood.

I'm having a bit of a problem wrapping my head around this article. Can't quite decide if its focus is about race or corporal punishment. Based on her premise, however, one thing I'm lead to consider is that I might be black, although that is certainly not reflected in my skin color.

More than once I was made to strip the switch from the willow tree at the side of the house. Never for the same offence twice, however. One time was all it took for me to learn something was a no-no.

Only once did I have to pull off the road and spank a child for unruly behaviour. Thereafter a stern "settle down" was enough.

As for the grandchildren, a swat on the butt in the middle of Walmart was sufficient to achieve the desired behavioural modification.

In my world corporal punishment was, is and will be used as an effective parenting tool.

To my bros in the hood, keep up the good work. Some day our progeny and those from the Dr. Spock school of child-rearing just might meet in the middle and have a party. Hopefully they'll have a live blues/zydeco band and let the beer and whiskey flow. Not sit around a camp fire and sing Kumbaya while making smores.

October, 2014