Discipline Through Doubt

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 135, 23 January 1942, Page 5

Discipline Through Doubt

Te his children a father’s face no longer represents the menace of the great unknown as in the days of whiskers and wrath. The jungle has been cleared, disclosing a map which shows exactly how the land lies. This gives the child an enormous advantage over his elder, who has plenty to conceal but little ta

conceal it with. This was not the case when man was in the flower of his whiskers. And it is a significant fact that child-psychology only came in when dad’s whiskers went out. Prior to that, an insight into little Willie’s deepest emotions was considered unnecessary. If dad’s whiskers failed to touch them, dad’s slipper usually did. Child psychology became the

7 means of saving father’s face when it lost its natural defences. As one who remembers the brooding mystery that lurked behind a set. of paternal red whiskers I can say definitely that man lost much more than his whiskers when he said to the barber " Take away those baubles!" and allowed the world to judge him on face value. Whiskers, in addition to aiding parental authority, were capable

of producing the fiction that deep wisdom lurked behind them. A set of Dundrearies, a black Ned Kelly, or even a pair of mutton chops, lent a face a certain something which went a long way towards maintaining discipline through doubt.-("The Influence of Whiskers--and Other Home-Fire Problems," by Ken Alexander, 2 A, January 3.)