Punishment

 There was a story this week about a parent punishing their child by having them smash their phone with a hammer. A lot of people rightfully called this out as emotional abuse. I did not watch it, because just the bare story threw me back to a punishment from my toddlerhood. 

I've written about it before. (third paragraph)

I was pre-school age, around Christmas. I was told not to go in my parent's closet*, an under the sloping roof room that fascinated me. Well, playing hide-and-seek with my mother, I forgot - as little kids do. It was just a great hiding place. I wasn't intentionally disobeying, I wasn't an inherently naughty child. 

And one of the Christmas rituals was that when I was good, I would put a piece of straw in the crib for babyjesus, to make it soft and warm for the baby - who was put there on Christmas Eve. At that age, everything is literal and concrete, and I took this duty with utter sincerity. 

When mom dragged me out of the forbidden closet, the punishment was to remove one of the bits of straw. This week, it occurred to me that she made the baby my whipping boy. "Behave or the baby gets it." May not have been her intent, but without being able to put it in words - that is exactly the lesson I took from it. It was cruel, to be made to hurt someone else. 

It was, I think, a foundation upon which I built both my sense of duty, and my rejection of imposed obligation. And my sensitivity to coercion, especially if they wanted to use me to hurt someone else. 

*Obviously, the presents were stashed there. I never noticed them. I was punished for potentially spoiling the surprise.