WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1987 PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson Advise and Dis sent OUR KIDS - OUR LEGACY A number of news items, all related to children have caught my eye in the last few weeks. Although not connected, they all relate to the manner in which we handle, discipline, treat and mistreat our children. There is no question that we live in a very permissive society compared with only about twenty years ago. Children have more, expect more and contribute less than ever before. Christmas in particular has become a noisy barrage of promotions for new-fangled toys and the latest fads. But this permissiveness is only the backdrop for my subject. In our modern urbanized western society, kids run their own lives - parents feed, clothe, and house them and see that they get an education but the output seems to have very little to do with the input. Life is a process of desensitization. Remember the exuberance of your own childhood and how as you got older there were greater responsibilities and expec- tations - and less fun. When you were five, you started school, your first ex- perience with the great adult world of bureaucracy - you got used to standing in line and waiting your turn and doing things you thought were stupid and useless but which somebody bigger than you told you was important and good for you. A hundred years ago, schools were painfully strict with the use of the rod (and worse); however, our grandparents survived and prospered. Gradually through the years, the degree of physical discipline has declined to the point where teachers can use no physical punishment at all and risk assault charges for any unwanted physical contact. Students who spit in their teachers' faces (both figuratively and literally) get away with it because there is little that the schools can do about it. Why has discipline disappeared from our schools? It is part of an international trend, mainly in western countries towards less physical punishment, more civil liberties, and respect for the rights of minorities and the disadvantaged - all very noble and commendable causes. But something isn't working right - our jails are overflowing, the courts are plugged, our kids lack basic skills when they get out of school, they can't hold jobs, and they can't maintain close relationships. But they CAN make more kids and so a new generation is piled on the problems of the previous one. I have met only a few parents who were against all forms of physical discipline and only one who practised it. I have yet to meet a teacher who wholeheartedly supports the total ban on physical discipline in the'classroom. Our teachers are hamstrung and frustrated - the vast majority of situations can be and are han- dled successfully by non-physical means but the deterrent effect of physical pain should not have been lost. Pain is nature's way of telling us not to do something - if you have a sore ankle, it is the pain that stops you from walking on it; this allows it to heal. The use of physical pain to discipline is a social extension of a natural process. However, our society has become paranoid about pain - compared with only a hundred years ago when there were no painkillers and anaesthetics (except alcohol), We have been lulled to the belief that life can and should be painless and euphoric. (Is the widespread use of drugs and alcohol by young people an attempt to achieve that Nirvana?) The flipside of how we treat our kids is how we strive to protect them from the evils of our society. We are paranoid about the psychos that lurk in the streets waiting to abduct them.' There are special kits and courses and even games to teach kids how to take care of themselves. If they take it all to heart, they will become suspicious and antisocial. We have child identification clinics at which they are-fingerprinted like criminals, supposedly for identification purposes (af- ter they're dead?). There is an organization called Child Find which seeks ab- ducted children; they publicize the tragic cases of Nicole Morin, Allison Parrot and others - what they don't advertise is that 90 per cent of abducted kids have been taken by the other parent. If we adults acted less like children, they might be inclined to act more like adults. The truth is that there are only a very few real child-molesting wackos in this world and short of locking our children up, there is little we can do to prevent those occasional tragedies. To read some of the statistics that have appeared in the press about child abuse and especially sexual abuse, you might get the impression that every other adult is psychotic. One set of statistics had it that 30 per cent of young girls have been sexually assaulted - the definition of sexual assault was any unwanted touching - a pat on the knee, a kiss, etc. These kinds of statistics serve no purpose other than to fan the already enflamed passions of do-gooders who would put kids in plastic bubbles to protect them from the evil world around them. Is it any won- der kids rebel? Accusations of child abuse have now become a common ploy in custody fights between parents. A mother charges the father with "touching" their daughter. The truth is irrelevant - the charge is unprovable but also indefensible - and devastating. One lawyer said that he would rather be convicted of armed rob- bery than acquitted of abusing a child - the stigma would ruin his life. A recent news item concerned the need to recruit more male teachers to the elementary school system - to provide role models and avoid stereotypes. Given the fact that teachers already lack the tools to maintain order and the fact that some male teachers have been accused of sexual assaulting female pupils after apparently quite innocent contact, I doubt that their recruitment will be too suc- cessful. Our permissive approach to children is both their biggest problem and ours - we don't prepare them for the limitations of the real world. Our children see us for what we really are, confused, alienated and somewhat frightened - just liké them. WITH OUR FEET UP By Bill Swan The one thing in life that Lucas Letterpress regretted - he would tell you this in a minute if he had time - lay in his career choice. Not that he wasn't. happy and contented in his dual role as editor and prop. of The Flat Tail, the only weekly newspaper in Beaver, Ont. But Lucas is thinking specifically this moment about botched career choices. He is in the upstairs bathroom, thinking. He always thinks best in bathrooms. Don't we all? Lucas is cursing his Grade 9 shop teacher. Some thirty five years ago Mr. Flush never did get around to that two-week course in basic plumbing. For thirty five years, that omission has been hardly noted. Now, all of a sudden on a Saturday afternoon, it has become terribly important. It began with the hot water tap in the bathroom sink. The problem: a tap that howls. Not gently, either. No Chinese water-torture, drip, drip, drip, drip for this tap. Oh, no. For weeks now the sound bas been worsening. e - Mrs. Letterpress noticed it often one morning at 3 a.m. when she tip-toed in to wash her hands after changing an unscheduled diaper. One minute she was gently washing her hands and the next was gripping the light fixture with both feet. Junior Letterpress, now 18 and six foot four, also noticed it. Like mornings at 4 a.m. when he cautiously made bis way to bed. Stop off to dash water in his face to aid sleep and yowl yowl yowl. The tap made a sound not unlike a machine gun with the hiccups, or a mature male cat with chrone sexual dysfunction. Even Lucas began to notice when bis morning shaves were interrupted with the wild chatter. "Time," he said that Saturday morning,' "to.fix that thing." Even without the benefit of ninth grade shop, Lucas had little trouble disassembling the offending faucet. Having remembered to shut off the water, and drain the line, and having removed the offen- ding faucet, Lucas began. "While I have the water shut off. While I amatit. I will replace the stems of the kitchen sink. And the bath tub." It sounded resolute at the time. So he removed all the stems. Al but the cold water tap in the bath tub. For some reason that would not snap out with a flick of the vise grips as the others did. No problem. Lucas hies he off to the plumbing boutique, proud he is involved in active preventive maintenance. So he had rushed home, installed the stems as needed. Except for that one. The cold water in the bath tub. Which is where we come in. Lucas is bent over the tub, gripping with vise grips and turning. He is saying words that look like the characters above the top row of numbers on a typewriter keyboard. The stem, with its perfect soft metal six-sided nut, won't budge. The six-sided nut now also resembles an over-extended brass yuppie: gnarled, chewed up, softening under torque, yielding up to pressure from the vise grips. Ill-fitting wrenches have roun- ded its corners. "I have to have a shower," Junior orders on his way to his room. "I have to wash my hair," says Mrs. Letterpress. "I have to go to the bath room," says Lucas, finally. What scares him is the thought of the plum- bing bill which undoubtedly will come. He knows it will corne, since Mrs. Letterpress at this very moment talks to a plumber on the telephone. "What is wrong with it?" she says into the phone. "My husband fixed it, that's what's wrong. And he fixed it good, and it wasn't even broke first." That is Lucas' first lesson of the day: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The second is the lesson of career choices. Children in ninth grade should be forced by family to become a plumber's apprentice. The child who failed this couldalways fall back on something less lucrative, such as brain surgery. This lesson taught Lucas that a part worth $4.75 retail is going to cost him $56. 1 fin