I was never in my life "beaten" by anyone.

When I was four years old, I saw my father resting on the sofa after work, while my mother made supper. I thought it would be a funny joke to sneak up on him and hit him. So I did. I whacked him in the face. He reached out, grabbed my little arm and pulled me over to him. Then he returned a nice little slap on my little face. Without any anger whatsoever, he said, "How do you like it?" Well, I was quite stunned. I felt like a perfect little fool. I remembered thinking, "I don't suppose I'll do that again."

It still makes me smile to remember the incident. I had been somewhat spoiled and didn't think my father would ever in a million years hit me. (He never had before.) I learned two big lessons that day. 1) Don't do to others what you don't want done to you. 2) Don't make assumptions about what other people will, or won't, put up with. They might surprise you.

A few years later, I was sitting at the table, teasing my brother, while my mother was putting food on our plates. I had a knack for upsetting my younger brother and he was getting flustered. Our father wasn't there. I thought I was real clever being obnoxious and needling my brother. Suddenly I got a sharp little smack on the face from our mom. She said, "That's enough out of you." Well, again, I felt like a perfect little fool. I was stunned. I never imagined that she would do that. I came to the conclusion that my mom did not feel under any obligation to put up with much crap from me. I never acted like that at the table again.

I suppose that in both those instances, my parents could have reasoned with me. Somehow I think that what they did communicated much more, much quicker that a bunch of talking would have done. In both those situations, I was being a little smart alec. The best antidote to that kind of attitude is a swiftly administered dose of just the right amount of humiliation. That's what I got. Seemed totally fair to me at the time.

The fact that these smacks totally surprised me was actually a good thing. I decided not to ever take my parents good will for too much for granted. Parents shouldn't have to verbally advise their children of a million different behaviors that might be infractions of the household code of conduct. Children should feel motivated to try and anticipate what those undesirable behaviors might be. I sure did with each of my parents after those two instances. It's amazing how much a kid can figure out independently, with a bit of incentivization. I think it helped develop my mind.