The Slice
The Slice
After asking in print about bribes that worked on children, I got a phone message.
“Back in my day, we didn’t have bribes,” snarled a man responding to my column. “We had discipline.”
Right. I’ve heard of that.
But can’t bribes be considered discipline?
Consider the case of Pullman’s Sylvia Hutton.
When her two youngest sons would act up in the back seat of the car, she would say: “Better settle down, or I’ll start singing.”
Worked every time.
So would you consider that a bribe or a threat?
Not having heard Hutton sing, it’s hard to say.
But either way, doesn’t it constitute discipline?
Maybe it’s just one of parenting’s many gray areas.
Paul Turner