Remember When....

Do you remember when you were afraid of your parents, especially your mother? Shit, I do and my moms was only about 5'5". Do you remember when you had to get good grades in order to get anything new or before you could go anywhere? Hell yeah, I remember in order to get any type of new shoes, (unless the ones I had at the time were full of holes) nintendo game, I had to get at least all B's on my report card. Moms wasn't the type of woman that was gonna work her ass off to buy me some Jordans either. I know you remember the ass whoopings and I'm not talking about spankings either. I swear I got whooped with everything under the sun, literally. I've been whooped with, just to name a few items: fan belts off of cars, extension cords, clothes hangers, belts, switches off of trees with a couple of thorns still on them, broom handles, and the list goes on. One day after a nice long ass whooping, there was a knock at the door, it was the police. In my mind I'm thinking why in the hell would the people who lived below us call them, they are trying to get me murdered by this woman. So the officers ask me "Son are you ok", my mother gives me this look which blatantly says if you say anything other than you are fine you will die. As soon as they left, another ass whooping ensued. Do you remember when you did something wrong in the hood if any adult was around they would tell your mom or dad. After you got a verbal thrashing from them you were scared to go home because a physical thrashing would occur. Better yet, getting in trouble with your best friend and your best friends' mom would beat both all y'all asses. I say all of that to say this, I grew up in a single parent household. I was raised by a no-nonsense woman who was quite little in stature, but looked like a giant when faced with any type of dire circumstances. I was raised in a community where even if our parents were not the closest of friends we knew that they had the power to beat our ass if we stepped out of line. We worked hard for the things we were rewarded with, and if we wanted more than our parents could afford to give us, we got a job. Hell, I had my first job at 13. A couple of years back, Bill Cosby was ostracized from the Black community and became the subject of much ridicule. Maybe he didn't give his criticism of the Black community in eloquent words, but in hindsight he was right. Dr. Cosby may have been harsh in his criticisms, but he made some valid points. Parenting has become very laxed. Community has been lost upon us. The value of hard work has been replaced with  a do it the easy way mindset. And education, well that is a topic reserved for later times........