ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

JUST WAIT

My mother used to flail us
With anything at hand
Duster or the wooden spoon
Her calloused open hand

She'd chase us round the garden
or out in the back yard
If you started complaining,
she'd whack you twice as hard

The saying that most feared us
That shook us to the bone -
'If you think that stung a bit
Just wait till Dad gets home'

Copyright (C) Allan Cropper February 2015

Well done! Thanks Allan.
So true and we learned very quickly to keep our mouths shut. How times have changed - just listen to the kids today. My brother once back-chatted Mum and she happened to be brushing her hair at the time and he copped the back of the wooden hair-brush around his legs for his trouble. I stood by and stayed quiet.

Cheers

Dot

And wasn't the fear of "when Dad got home" worse than the actual punishment more often than not? Times do change because it's not something I ever said to my kids.

Never got in trouble when I was a kid.



Bob

Thanks Dot (also my mother's name - she hated Doris). We used to hide wooden spoons down the back of our old upright piano.

Heather - too right. I only have one memory of my father actually hitting me, but the fear was very real.

Bob - never got into trouble as a kid, more than made up for it in adult life?

Allan I had six sisters Trouble was my middle name.


Bob

Nicely done Allan - you painted the picture. Seems our generation might have been the last one that was properly hauled into line when we misbehaved. My Dad kept a razor strop behind the door - we never actually got it but we were threatened with it enough. My son got the wooden spoon and fly swat when required - wait till your father gets home didn't work with us as Dad was a Navy man for many years and more often than not wasn't home - but when he was we mended our ways really quickly

Hey Maureen I threatened my kids with the wooden spoon - don't remember hitting them with it but years later they told me they buried it in the sand-pit; no wonder they never got hit with it I couldn't find the thing!!!
Dot

I still keep mine handy Dot big as he now is (and old) it still comes in handy sometimes

I still have fond memories of the time Dad decided to sell the old upright piano 'cause it wasn't playing too good, only to find around a dozen wooden spoons wedged in the strings when he gave it a clean up.

I reckon mum busted a few spoons on my backside over the years, but there was plenty of love in the home as well.