So since I have already related
the incident of the door handle (see blog March 28th 2012) I don’t need to continue with the rest of the
recovery story. I had only brought up this incident because of what the bike
reminded me of. It was definitely significant in my life, and as a freedom. So
the punishment from my father, a combination of physical, mental and then
financial (the taking away of the bike) was pretty extreme. But, I had lied to
my mother, and as was pointed out to me, stolen from my family. Regardless of
the amount being so small (five cents). It was still stealing, and deprived my
family of…… maybe…the ability to buy…. a single carrot? My father never seemed
to view the amount he spent nightly ‘over the road’ at the ‘pub’ as ‘stealing
from the family’, nor the money spent on the horses, bowls, rugby or other
events. He never lied about it…. (except what he really spent on the horses)
and he never actually ‘said’ how much he spent at the pub, nor on any of the
other events, so I guess that was the main difference. He was after all (he
told me), the ‘breadwinner’ a very traditional sense of roles displayed and as
described by my father. So he felt entitled to spend some of ‘his’ money (as he
also described it). The fact that our mother had to work as well to make ends
meet, and to actually put food on the table and clothes on our backs, made me
often wonder why he never cut back on all of the spending of ‘his’ money? Don’t
get me wrong, he was entitled to a little bit of leisure for his work, but there
never seemed to be an equitable division of the money from him towards the
family expenses.
I don’t recall him ‘not’ going
to a bowls game (particularly when trips away were involved) because one of
‘his’ children needed new shoes. I don’t ever recall him not going over the
road for ‘a beer’ after work because one of ‘his’ children needed new school
books. Even on Sundays, when the hotels used to be closed (unlike today), he
always ensured he had bought a few bottles to consume. There seemed to be a lot
of ‘him’ spending ‘his’ money and the children often going without, or
sometimes missing out on something a little better than they could have had,
because we did not have any spare finances. But seriously, it wasn’t because of
me stealing five cents. That was still wrong, no argument.
I had done the wrong thing
again and been caught for it. Did it make me sorry? Did it make me change my
behaviour? I think where I have been going with all of these blog entries, is
looking at whether I learnt from the punishments I received from my father (and
occasionally my mother). Did it make me stop doing the wrong thing? Even when I
knew, that if I was caught, I would receive a punishment of one form or
another. Or did it just make me more aware of hiding what I did, if I did
something wrong?
(Continued tomorrow)
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