Butt vs. Board of Education, by Joy

This is “The Rod,” commonly referred to in the Boyd Household as “The Board of Education.” Though perhaps not awe-inspiring on this web page, if you were staring down the barrel of this paddle at 5 or 6 years old, you’d be terrified (I speak from personal experience). As you can see from this picture, one side of the Board of Education has “The Rod” bored into the wood; the other side, however, featured a Bible verse: Proverbs 22:6. This verse is an oldie but a goody: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Trust me, the verse side of The Rod is quite worn and faded, as Phil and Syl trained us a whole lot. And if you think that The Rod is a paddle Phil and Syl just swung by and picked up at the church bookstore, you’d be wrong. This wooden piece of art was specially designed and commissioned by Phil and Syl, who doubtless envisioned molding and shaping their growing brood into little Christian soldiers, two cheeks at a time.

Some of us were on the receiving end of the Board of Education more than others. Phil and Syl beat James so early and often that he did not commit a sin after the age of three. Jemina got beat early, often, and late into her childhood. I don’t think the bruises on her bottom ever healed—if they did, they were quickly replaced with new bruises. Ironically, Josh (aka “the black sheep”) saw the least of the The Rod (he did not really get into sinning a whole lot until his teens), and I fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between Jemina and Josh.

When we committed an offense worthy of corporal punishment, Phil or Syl let us know that we would be facing the Board of Education. Justice was not swift in the Boyd Household, however. Upon witnessing the corporal offense (or learning of it from a tattler), Phil or Syl would pronounce sentence and send us upstairs to their room to await our fate. Some of my siblings would trudge up the stairs (aka the Green Mile) and sit patiently on Phil or Syl’s hope chest awaiting their arrival. Not me! By the time I reached kindergarten, I had devised a plan to make my encounters with The Rod less painful. I saw the five-minute delay between the infraction and the imposition of punishment as an opportunity to shore up my line of defense—to protect my most precious asset, if you will. I sprinted up the stairs and made a beeline for my room, grabbed every pair of underwear I owned and put each pair on, one over the other. When I head Phil or Syl coming up the stairs, I’d scamper over to their room, take my licks, muster up some crocodile-sized tears to signify pain and regret for my actions, and skip back to my room, satisfied that I’d pulled one over on the ‘rents.

You’d think the fact that I haven’t been on the losing end of Butt v. Board of Education in a couple of decades would make me less fearful of The Rod. Not so. To this day, I can hardly bear to look at The Rod, much less talk about it, so I hope you can appreciate the courage it took for me to stare at this picture of the Rod and write about it. While my siblings and I still tiptoe around The Rod as if it were the Ark of the Covenant, Phil and Syl continue to take great pride in their creation. They will seize any opportunity to show The Rod off to their friends and fellow parents whenever the issue of children and/or discipline arises in conversation. “I just can’t seem to get little Suzy to eat her peas and carrots,” their friends might say. “Give her the Board of Education and see how she likes her veggies after that,” Phil and Syl would reply, exchanging knowing glances at one another and smiling at their friends’ child-raising incompetence.

If any of you parent-readers out there have a particularly unruly kid or kids in need of an attitude adjustment, I’m sure Phil and Syl will gladly loan you their precious paddle for a small fee (so far, both James and Josh have declined to use The Rod for their disciplinary needs). Heck, Syl will come down and whup your child for you if you want—I think she kind of misses it!

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