Uncategorized 23:37
My dear Friends,
as I am spending christmas and new years eve with my family, I will now leave for the next weeks. I wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year.
I will be back the week starting on january 8th.
Yours,
Stefanie von Platen
P.S.: The current series about c.p. implements is going to be continued then.
Uncategorized 03:02
Today, we come to an implement that unlike those mentioned before was not commonly used as tool for school discipline. It is strict, traditional mothers who have used (and quite probably still use) this tool to administer quite thorouh punishments (often on the spot) to unruly boys and girls: The wooden Spoon.
There is not a kitchen that I know of which has not at least one wooden spoon. They come in various sizes and, so it seems, are not always used for cooking food. As I am told by a lot of people it was and is also used to heat up bottoms.
I did not ever get it with a wooden spoon while growing up, my mother preferred other implements. However my good friend Christina did get the spoon on more than one occaission. Here is what she can say about it:
“My mothers wooden spoon was something to fear. I tell you, she broke quite a few of those on my bottom until quite some time into my teenage years. You were one well-chastised girl after a dose of the spoon, so much for sure.”
The spoon would see its use mainly in quick, on the spot punishments, delivered over the mothers lap, or maybe curbed under her arm.
Christina describes the spoon as a hard implement that, if applied with force, left the bottom well bruised. It hurts even through thicker layers of clothing and can be almost unbearable on a bared backside. “I feared the spoon more than the beltings my father dealt out.” Christina says. “If she gave it to you good, you were sore for days:”
It can be attributed to the quick availability of the wooden spoon that it has become an implement felt and feared by many. In this, it can probably be compared with the hairbrush. Both are also alike in that they are paddle-like implements. In any way, the wooden spoon is almost a symbol for maternal discipline, especially in european countries.
Wooden Spoons still are available at most homes. It can be taken as a fact that its use as a means of correction will not vanish either.
Uncategorized 01:48
We have already discussed the cane, certainly a very common implement in the UK, europe and probably most of those parts of the world that were once or are still today part of the british commonwealth. What I am going to write about today is the switch. In many ways similiar to the cane, there are yet a few grave differences.
First, it must be said that there is no such thing as “the switch”. Switches come in a wide variety of sizes and material. What they have in common is that they are made out of (or simply are) a branch from a tree.
Willow, Hazel and birch branches seem to have been common in Europe, while I have heard of hickory being used in north america. As for the length and diameter, I’ve seen everything from small and thin switches to long and somewhat thicker branches which can genuinely be called sticks (As was done in my family, the hazel I received was called the Hazel Stick). However, in general switches are not as thick as a standard cane.
Switches are also even more flexible than a typical rattan cane, and the wood is more dense. This has several effects on its use: for example, a switch often is lacking the capacity to penetrate thicker layers of clothing (although one of those heavier switches could). As a switch of the same diameter would be heavier than a cane (rattan is less dense), it would bruise more. However, as most switches are thinner than canes, they are normally of comparable or lesser severity.
Part of the rituals that are associated with the switch is that sometimes the person about to receive it has to cut his or her own switch. Although the hazel stick I received was always already waiting on my fathers desk, i can easily see how this is an effective additional punishment.
The switch, not unlike the birch, was a predecessor of the rattan cane in many european schools. It has also been in use in families, especially in rural areas where trees were of course in abundance. It was (and is) an effective means of discipline.
Uncategorized 23:53
Corporal punishment always comes in various forms. Be it a motherly handspanking, administered knickers-down over her knees while she sits on the side of your bed, a primary-school slippering or ones father really teaching you a lesson with the hazel, knickers down and bent over his cherry-wood desk. This is part one of a series i want to write about the rituals and legends asscociated with some implements commonly used for corporal punishment. We will begin, of course, with the cane.
The cane, being a very traditional and once very common implement for correction, of course comes with a load of special punishment rituals attached. Standing at attention in front of the headmasters desk, being told to bend over or to “touch your toes”. Or holding out your palms for the stinging vicious rattan, while the whole class is watching. To recieve a genuine “six of the best” across a tightly streched pair of uniform knickers. Perhaps having to count out aloud the number of strokes, or having to thank the disciplinarian for your much deserved punishment.
The word “cane” alone (or “Rohrstock”, as it is called in my native german language) evokes a lot of pictures and fantasies. It is almost a synonym for “school corporal punishment”.
I did not get caned growing up, but my brother did. My sister had one taste of it, too, and some friends of mine also did, some even quite regularly.
When I use the cane today, and I only use it for the gravest offences, I relish in the thougt of using such a time-proven device of correction. Even those who have only one single time tasted the bite of the rattan will not ever forget it, nor will they forget the lessons taught with its help.
The cane, even with its current demise in most parts of europe and the UK, does still see widespread use in asia and africa, both in parental and school discipline.
