What I Call Nonsense

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By

Ogbonnaya Joel Nwanneka

“Spoil the rod and spare the child, spare the rod and spoil the child”

Most parents seem to over spoil the rod and thereby end up spoiling the child more, who will later end up picking up the same rod. They seem to misunderstand this cliché.

‘Sparing the rod’ doesn’t mean they should watch their child lack morals, and ‘spoiling the rod’ doesn’t mean they should dehumanize the child or create a kind of fear in the child that would make him/her feel inferior to others while doing certain things with them.

Over spoiling the rod over a child only makes the child stronger if they (parents) aren’t doing the needful (embracing their errors with lovely corrections), as long as the child doesn’t die.

Most children, now grown men and women, we have out here and there are hardened, violent and fierce people who are products of a spoilt rod, because they later come to realize that the rod spoilt over them hadn’t killed them but in one way or another made them tough and tougher. This is the story they would tell their children thereby the trend would continue, spoiling the rod, and BOOM, the trend passes from generation to generation; and you expect everyone not to be violent and hardened in thought?

Few children, men and women are the product of the spared rod, the fact that the rod was spared over them doesn’t make them lack morals and morale in doing things. You can’t stop a child from doing what he/she is doing by being fierce and creating fear in him/her. He/she changes by being loved (sparing the rod for a while). But no, the opposite is the case, when a child goes wrong, we hate or isolate him/her from others so as not to pass the same act to them. Yes, this is new age, almost everything of old is past, new things being in existence. You don’t spoil the rod anyhow now! “Spoil the rod less, save for other days;” a rod mustn’t be spoilt in a day over a child, everyday shouldn’t be to pick a new rod;” “Spare a child, not watching him/her lack morals.”

Children now, unlike then, are so much more inquisitive, searching and pressing all the buttons they can to get all they can. Now, there’s no way you would like to hide something from a child that he/she won’t eventually see or know about the thing, if not from you, it would be from others. It would be very bad if not from you, because you would be moved to anger when you find out the child knows what he/she is not supposed to have known. It would be better from you.

There’s no way you would like to stop a child from doing something that such child won’t eventually do, either in secret or in public.

Children now, unlike then, would be so much more enthusiastic towards that particular thing you don’t want them to do. That’s why now, 60% of intelligent children here and there are children who are exposed to things. You, who do not know much, can’t convince them on what they know.

Consider also children of the rich to the poor.

One wonders why, if not all, but some of the children of religious leaders turn out to be the opposite of what their parents preach to other children. Of course, it’s still because of the lack of exposure and inquisitiveness to know more about what they are being derailed from doing.

In conclusion, old clichés and expressions brought into the new age had contributed in worsening things for humanity. There’s no way a child you train with the cliché in the present discussion won’t in one day pick up the rod with you, standing toe-to-toe with you, as long as he/she won’t die by the rod being spoilt; thereby I call this NONSENSE because the trend will continue. A child trained to be fierce will do so to his/hers.

Ogbonnaya Joel Nwanneka

Ogbonnaya Joel Nwanneka is a poet writing from Osun,Nigeria, an indigene of Ebonyi,Nigeria. He’s a student and a budding lawyer who believes in changing the world positively through creative writings.