I was eating at this fast food restaurant today when I overheard a conversation between a mother and her baby daughter.
To call it a "conversation" is an exaggeration.
The child did something against the mother's wish, so the mother punished her by slapping her on her palm. The child cried. The mother started to lecture the little girl.
Normal, everyday thingy that you see. I paid no attention to the lecturing-- I is more interested in my fries la. But then this sentence found its way into my ears and I went "Whoa!"
The mother warned (to the best of my memory, which is a little better than that of a goldfish's =D ),
"I kill you also I dare!"
Whoa.
She then challenged the child, "You believe? Huh? Kill you also I dare ok?"
The little girl didn't even sniffed.
Of course it was just a threat. Of course she wouldn't dare. How many of us haven't grow up being threatened by our very dear fathers and mothers?
"If you don't wash your hands, the police will come catch you!!";
or:
"You continue to be naughty, and I'll sell you to the garang guni man!!";
or: "Do that one more time, I'll throw you outta the house!"
or: "You ain't my child! I picked you up from the rubbish chute downstairs. Yeah, you got it right: your father is a utter rubbish."
(Father hollered from the living room, "WHEY!!")
Yeah, threats-- no big deal. But it was the way the mother said it. And the little girl doesn't look any more than 5-years old. I think if it was me at 5-years old I would have took that particular threat very seriously and peed myself.
What I am trying to say is that a child is simple-minded, and parents (besides their toys) meant the world to them. Everything they say matters. My point is, you cannot go around threatening little children the same way as you would do to an adult. An adult would know you are doing empty talk. A child wouldn't. They say people learn to be responsible when they become parents. They didn't exactly say how. But I think, whether you are a parent or not, responsibilty needs to be practised:
Responsibility in Action and Speech.
So you say a child is only a child. So you say you are only doing empty talk and if the child got traumatised nobody can blame you. But a child has a sensitive heart. Responsibility means you don't shoot off something in random and use "ignorance" as an excuse.
"... ignorance is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness" so says John Manly in "Black Beauty".
And how right, too. Terrorists actually do their terrible deeds. When you give out a serious threat, you are only short of doing it-- so how much do you differ from them?
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I totally agree with you on this post. Children have excellent memory, contrary to what adults think. The little promises parents make, and the seemingly not-serious threats they make can have a profound impact on them!
On a lighter note, my parents also told me I came from the bin. But tt was not when I was disobedient, but when I kept bugging them for the answer on whr I came from and how they made babies. haha, see, I told u children have good memory! I can still remember it till today!
And of course, because of my extremely high IQ, i believe I didnt belong to the bin.. hehe!