Spanking and respect: What is our purpose?

By Lumepa Hald 13 November 2018, 12:00AM

The problem with ideals is that we are disappointed almost every time. 

So to wish for better things is to be hopeless too. 

But there is better living in hoping than there is in wanting to be more than something you are really not. 

You do know though from living many years that there are truths and then there are partial hopes for truths. Like the spanking children to be respectful ideal. 

Well, we could hope all we like for that to eventuate whether we rely on the parents, the teachers or the saints even. 

But if the pattern of life spells a rising aggression, a violent despair between husbands and wives, a mourning for simpler times, a wild growth of idle youth, then we can sing our lungs out only to be heard like an echo is in the hills of our childhood. 

If there is a deep loss to note here, we should remember the heartbreaking time when a vulnerable child is punished for no reason. We should admit to the injustices of going too far to discipline, to control, to make someone better than they already are. 

But we know from the escaping culture in our hands, that we are not ideal guardians of our heritage either. How then can we judge the children whose hopes are fervent and fresh in our trembling hands? It seems we are forgetting the difference between a child and an adult, unless, adults these days are still in stupor from their own wounds as children too. 

Perhaps it is not uncanny to remind of the open access to alcohol here. Like the open prison, we have the same excuse for the increasing intake of alcohol as the escaped prisoner does. “ There is just nothing better to do.”

So, there is indeed a bridge to build between the spiritual providers, the educators and the home guardians as far as raising children and a sane country goes. 

Maybe we could cut down on free data to close out the other busy influences from the nether world. They are just as lost as us when it comes to finding our purpose in this world. If it is true that we come from God then what is our purpose? 

Well, dear reader, if we do not start to notice the children’s loss, then we should pack our bags and go back home. Even angels may have better things to do than to listen to us bickering at each other for our misspent days.

And of spanking and respect, maybe we should not ask ourselves,” From where do we get our disrespect?” Instead we should as grown people ask of respect, “How do we earn it?” 

God knows he did not send us children to teach of the thing. I believe he sent us children so that we can learn to live life out of respect for those who have given it to us with kindness and freedom. 

Maybe then we will understand the meaning of true generosity and we will see where we fall short as a result. 

By Lumepa Hald 13 November 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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