The day my father caught me with a chaw [of tobacco] in my cheek, I got a thrashing to remember … In the strictures of my upbringing there was no hint of child abuse. While my parents were swift to punish when punishment was deserved, they did not overload me with arbitrary regulations that were impossible to respect. I learned to obey without questioning.
description of his boyhood, as quoted in Philip J. Greven’s Spare the Child: the religious roots of punishment and the psychological impact of physical abuse, New York, NY: Knopf, 1991
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