Corporal Punishment in the 6th Grade

This was not the first time my father threatened to spank me. I can
recall several threats of his belt or of his hand and I am sure there
were many more than that in my childhood. But this time was different.
I was 11 years old and I had been caught, along with several of my
friends, playing with matches and smoking cigarettes (or trying to), at
Shannon M.'s sleepover party.

I will point out that I was not one of the instigators. Bigger girls
like Shannon B. and Ajana were leading the evening. They, along with a
few other girls, were more advanced owing partly to hormones and partly
to older sisters. If I remember correctly, even at that early stage
Shannon B. wore a D-cup bra. That fact alone convinced those of us who
were undeveloped that she was our leader. And according to those who
lead, the cool thing to do was shoplift.

And they lifted anything they could. When Sannon M.'s dad busted in
demanding to know what smelled like smoke I figured I had encountered
the most serious moment in my life. I was wrong. Life didn't get
serious until it came out where all the lighters and cigarettes and
candy and gum and shoelaces and batteries had come from

"But Dad, I didn't take anything!"
"Were you there when Shannon did?"
"Yes, but&;#8230;"
"Then you are just as guilty!"

I suppose he expected me to turn her in. Fair enough, but he could
never, ever understand the battlefield that was 6th grade: battles for
friends, for boys' attention, for popularity.
We lived in Mont Vernon. We went to The Village School. This was a
small town elementary school very close to what people, not from there,
call The Backwoods.

Needless to say, there was not much to do. So the more adventurous
broke rules and sometimes laws and the less adventurous ones followed
and observed lest they be left with no one to speak to, nothing to do
and a daily barrage of ridicule from the group who stuck
together.

Shannon M. was one of my best friends. She and I were on the same level
in the social hierarchy. She and I were about the same height, no boobs
to speak of, and we still loved our stuffed animals

Once a week I would walk home with Shannon after school and we would
stay at her house until her mom or dad came to get us for ballet class.
On the way from school we would stop at the General Store and buy
ourselves a snack. A few weeks before her sleepover, I noticed Shannon
had worked out a plan. She did not hesitate when we went into the shop.
There was only one person working behind the counter and he couldn't
see us in the back. For Christmas, Shannon had gotten a giant stuffed
ET doll, which she brought to school everyday zipped into the front of
her jacket. I guess everyone figured she was pretty attached to this
thing as it went everywhere with her. But the truth was ET was just an
accessory.

The strange shape of ET's body created a hidden cavity inside Shannon's
jacket. Just enough room to hide several large bags of peanut
M&;M's, a Hostess apple pie, some glow in the dark shoelaces and a
bunch of gum. When we got to Shannon's house she unzipped and the day's
take was revealed. Yes, I ate the M&;M's and without much
guilt.

It may sound na?ve, but I was shocked when I found out that it was not
just the General Store Shannon stole from, but almost every store she
went into over the course of that school year. She was obviously an
expert long before she revealed her skills to me. Once it all came out,
which it did quickly as she had kept a pocket notebook - stolen - with
a running tally of everything she took and from where, her parents made
her face every storeowner and apologize. That was certainly a
punishment to fit the crime.

And, that was all I was asking for. So, although I agreed with my
father that I was guilty and deserving of punishment, I had to stand up
for myself against the humiliating, and childish, punishment of a
spanking.

I explained to my father that I was not adverse to punishment, but I
wanted it to fit the crime. Spanking was for little kids who don't
understand and need a shock to get a point across to them. I, on the
other hand, had committed an adult crime - withholding evidence. My
skills as a negotiator were sharp. I was given a choice: corporal
punishment or hard time. I opted for 1 month grounding and 6 months of
no sleepovers.

Funnily, my dad does not remember why I was being punished, but he does
remember me asking him to sit down and discuss my punishment. I did not
suffer too badly from the grounding, although by the time it was over,
everyone else's parents seemed to have forgotten the incident.

The trend in school that year was to wear our hair long and pulled back
with fancy clips with coloured ribbons weaved around them. The longer
the ribbons hanging in your hair, the better. Lots of girls knew how to
make them, but I did not. I had only one pair, red and blue. They were
beautiful and the colours shown in my straight blond hair. I had, of
course, worn them that ill-fated evening. And in the rush of being bad,
one of my ribbons was burned. I did not notice until after the
commotion of being caught and punished had died down. The feelings of
remorse and shame I felt for ruining such a prized possession with my
own stupidity were more intense than anything I felt about being
punished. My efforts to fit in on one level jeopordized my ability to
fit in on another.

In retrospect, I suppose getting into trouble was part of the package.
If I had managed to convince my parents I was innocent, I would have
only succeeded in setting myself apart from my friends - which was
exactly what I was trying to avoid. I faced a very adult dilemma:
choosing a side. I knew other girls were in to stealing as well, but I
didn't do it. I couldn't do it. I always figured it would show on my
face too much. I weighed my options and went with what I thought was
the lesser of two evils. Having no friends and being seen as a "goodie
goodie" or watching my friends steal. The latter, even with the
resulting punishment factored in, was far less painful. I served my
time.