One of the biggest problems we have today is a lack of accountability. When somebody says or does something wrong too many people want to come up with an excuse as to why they don’t deserve any fall out from it. As if somehow the “Christian” thing is be empathetic and group hug and give another chance.
I am all for second chances… AFTER you serve your sentence. Forgiveness does not mean you don’t hold accountable. It does not mean you avoid any measure of pain you have coming to you because of something you did.
I guess that is a lesson most learned by those of us who were actually raised by fathers. When we had a whoopin coming, mama usually did it in anger but dad did it out of principle. And there is a difference.
When dad whooped us, we knew exactly why because he never came out of his feelings with it. It was never personal except to drive home the point. There was no hug later. There was instead an expectation that he would not have to do it again.
For all the things I appreciate about my single mom friends, I can tell you first hand that it is the missing balance of that kind of discipline that messes up most people when they get to adulthood and the reason why I give so much time to their kids who actually crave that level of correction.
I saw it even in the military when young men got broken down for the first time in their lives. The adjustment was easier for me because I went in understanding expectations and accountability.
The same thing happens on jobs when people fail to respect the authority of a boss or a system as if they believe everything is open to discussion and they wonder why they get fired. Much of it stems back to parents who raised their children as their friends. My friends will tell you, I will give my last dime and my last breath if any of them are in trouble. But I am also as tough love as you will find. I don’t sacrifice for foolishness. I leave that to pastors and everybody else who has that calling.
I had a friend’s son who went to war and he wrote me a letter that said “I was confused at first why there was so much yelling and what I thought was meanness in boot camp. But then I came to this war and I realize they were preparing me to live through the craziness of it.”
You see folks life is not always about explanations. That comes with hindsight. I never worry about who hates me for what I do as long as what I do keeps them alive long enough to grow up. Because we all eventually come to understand the reasons.
I was taught by a real man, what a real man is. And unless you know first hand what that experience is like, best stay clear of the suggestion box. Because most of all of these “real man” lists online are written by people who have never known one.
Neo, after reading “The Seeds of Forgiveness are Rooted in Accountability”, I had a serious flashback to an incident that occurred 40+ years ago that I never forgot, nor fully understood because my sister’s anger at my interference in her “whooping” my nephew continued puzzling me up until the moment I read and understood your article. One day I’d walked in on one of my nephews getting a “whooping” when he was a child. Observing him crying tears of pain was a heart wrenching moment for me. So after the whooping I grabbed him away from my sister’s grip and hugged him. He cried as he clung to me, and I too had tears in my eyes because I couldn’t bear to see him suffering. My sister glared at me in a state of shock, disgust and anger. My action had rendered her speechless. I’ve never forgotten the look in her eyes. But now Neo, after reading your article I suddenly realize why she looked at me that way. And I also understand that not only was what I’d done wrong, but I’d actually put my nephew’s future life at risk. I’d robbed my sister, in my moments of compassion and therefore need to rescue my nephew from physical pain and wounded feelings, that I’d actually tampered with one of the powers she had over her son as a parent. I’d actually robbed her of the point that her whooping him was designed to teach him, which was that there are consequences to one’s actions. Especially when a child proceeds to do wrong things in spite of having previously having been told “No”, or “Stop”. I didn’t even know, at the time, why he’d gotten a whooping, I just knew that he was in physical pain, so I comforted him.
But I get it now Neo: My sister having whooped him for running into the street was the result of her fear for his wellbeing, as well as love for him and obligation as a parent to keep him safe and prepare him for survival in the outside world. She was being accountable for one of her stewardships. And the most important stewardship, of course, was over her child or children. It is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. I had in a sense undermined my sister’s trustworthiness in the eyes of her son because my actions had not only questioned her actions, but had challenged her authority. She was trying to teach my nephew accountability before he went out into a world that would not teach him as LOVINGLY as she would. Yes, I now realize that her whooping him was being LOVING, and compared to what the world could do to him, the whooping was actually a form of LOVINGLY disciplining him. In this instance she was trying to not only teach him accountability, but in so doing she was holding him accountable for his choices. He needed to understand about making choices and the consequences of them. Because the choices he’d make in life, especially as a child, played an important role in who he’d become.
I would think that part of my sister’s fears, especially as a single parent, a woman raising sons, was what might happen to him in a world prepared to try and destroy him merely because he was a Black child, and most especially a Black boy. Her whooping him was part of her desperate need to not only discipline him, but her need to teach her son that there are not only consequences for one’s actions, but, that as a result there are necessary boundaries that have been put into place. Because life can be rough and unapologetic, and part of one’s coping and survival skills is to know when to, stop, look, and listen, or listen, stop, and observe. And after so doing to have the presence of thought, through having been disciplined, to determine whether or not to proceed. And if one does proceed, to do so with caution. But at the time of my nephew’s whooping he was too young to have developed what it took to, look and listen, and then to reach a conclusion, so she was apparently trying to teach him to just “Stop” and not go near the street. And he should have stopped merely because she said so, perhaps coupled with the fact that he didn’t want to get his little legs spanked. And he needed to immediately “Stop” without, at the time expecting an explanation from her. He needed to know to “Stop” even in her absence from his view. He needed to stop at the memory of her having said “Stop” before, or at the memory of his little stinging legs after he’d previously disobeyed. Because a child could run into the street and be distracted by marveling at his own skill at dodging a fast oncoming car approaching him, but be completely oblivious to the fact that another car is fast approaching him from behind, and perhaps cars from every other direction. A “Stop” was a form of saying “No”, and he should have immediately been obedient to her merely because she’d said so, regardless of whether or not he understood why. In the immediate danger my nephew had put himself in, the result of his disobedience, there was no time for discussion.
Well, I now understand why my sister got so mad at me that day, because as soon as I’d comforted her son after he’d been “whooped”, I had actually undermined her authority as his steward/mother, protector and disciplinarian. Wow, I owe my sister not only a delayed apology, but perhaps I need to ask for her forgiveness. Thanks Neo, for the education and enlightenment, the result of which I am no longer puzzled at why over 40+ years ago my sister got so mad at me that the look in her eyes was one of being disappointed in me, and at the same time a look of her wanting to wield the belt in my direction. Bottom line: I was wrong for having interfered. And if my sister had whooped me, I would have deserved it. They say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, well I don’t know about that but I do believe that you are never too old to be enlightened, or to say the words, “Please forgive me”, no matter how much time has gone by. Sounds like I owe my sister a phone call.