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| Sunday, 27 June 2004 |
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Features |  |
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Of mothers and sons Sunday parable by Sunanda Mahendra Due to the many mishaps our younger generation gets into mostly as
victims of circumstances, parents suffer greatly and shed tears on their
behalf. Once an eminent educationist, Kay James related a "Respect for authority and willingness to accept personal limits are character traits upon which social order is built. The lessons that build that kind of private discipline, so important to public stability, are best taught at home". And now the parable. One day while roaming the neighbourhood, two boys broke into the local school and stole several chickens from the cafeteria refrigerator. Both boys then proudly took their bounty home to their mothers for dinner that night. The first mother cried out in delight. ''Boy, I don't know where you got this, but we sure are going to eat good tonight!'' The second boy came home to a different response. ''Son,'' his mother asked, ''I know you don't have a job, and you don't have money. Where did you get those chickens?'' When she heard the details, she took the chickens by their feet and started pummelling her son with them. She backed him into a corner, and with one hand still holding the birds and the other pointed right in his face, she said, ''Boy I will starve before I let one of my children bring stolen food into this house!'' That was all she said before she turned and opened the back door and flung those chickens into the backyard. ''If you want to help out around here,'' she declared, ''you can get a job''. Kay recounts that several years later, the first mother was left grieving beside the casket of her son, shot to death in a drug deal. The second woman was Kay's own mother. Both she and her brother learned how to lead a disciplined life in a world of chaos. If you are interested in reading more of these narratives of real life, I wish to refer you to Kay James' book titled 'Never Forget' published in 1993. Anyway, teach your children the right way. Do not accept their faults and precarious steps as heroic deeds. Teach them instantly or you suffer on account of it. |
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story from her
own life in order to illustrate how some salient factors pertaining to
social discipline could be taught at home by the parent themselves. This I
deem as a parable of real life. Here is how Kay narrated it, with a
preamble.
