I suppose by those standards, we were abused as kids-when we were 8-12 years old, we had our legs switched with the small branches of dogwood and other flexible bushes, like other ranch kids did for doing stupid and dangerous stuff like going into the pasture with a bull then leaving the gate open, playing war with a real firearm or otherwise using one unwisely-and the gun(s) were taken away for weeks-we survived, too, but that was another time and place...
“I suppose by those standards, we were abused as kids-when we were 8-12 years old, we had our legs switched with the small branches of dogwood and other flexible bushes, like other ranch kids did for doing stupid and dangerous stuff like going into the pasture with a bull then leaving the gate open, playing war with a real firearm or otherwise using one unwisely-and the gun(s) were taken away for weeks-we survived, too, but that was another time and place...”
Funny you should bring up the “Switch”. Brings back a story my Granny was telling my dad about when he and his sibling were young. When they were young she would have to use a switch on them to keep them from wondering on train tracks that were near by. You know the kind of train tracks I mean too, old fashion coal burning steam engines. She did not want them toddling on the tracks and a train run over them. She had to be harsh with that switch and make them stay from those tracks.
I later talked to my dad about that conversation. I noted that Grandma had “fear in her voice” as she spoke of that. Fear as if she could see them as toddlers and was afraid they’d go near those train tracks and be hit.
Point being in “another time and place” parents kept their kids from doing something incredibly stupid and being killed.
Today? No today we see Antifa protesters that walk in front of cars on the interstate!