Although I admit to doing this with my own child, it wasn’t as true when I grew up, and friends of my own age agree. Any misbehavior was met with “the look”, a promise of terrible trouble “once I get you home”. The Look was generally enough to throw the fear into me!
Mom was more often the disciplinarian than Dad, because any southern girl knows this is the first male she gets to practice her charm on, and he can generally be counted on to go much easier on girl children. Boys did not have this advantage with fathers, of course. On the rare times The Look did not work, I got what we referred as “a whipping” or “a switching”. (Note: I once horrified a girlfriend from New Jersey, when I talked about getting a “switching”” – she thought I meant I was attacked with a “switchblade”!)
I’ve heard many stories about being misbehaving children being sent out to cut their own switches, with the terrible promise that if you brought in one too flimsy, you’d be in 10 times more trouble. Mom had her own implement: the flyswatter that we kept under the sink.
I don’t think it was the pain of the switching that bothered me, but the thought of getting fly guts all over my legs was horrifying!
