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In Ghana every washing powder is Omo, every tooth paste is Pepsodent, all newspapers are Graphic and all forms of child abuse are discipline. His favourite quotation was; "Spare the rod and spoil the child." I don't know if he deliberately overlooked or never read the part of the same bible which says; "use the rod, but with tenderness and loving care- make their training a matter of prayer. As a child, my only happy days were when my father traveled. The truth of the matter is that I never had that love for him because his only solution to every mistake I made was to beat beat beat. He beat me if he called and didn't hear me respond. He beat me for bad handwriting. He beat me if I didn't lay his bed. Everything was beating. My last major beating was when I drew Africa and forgot Madagascar. I only grew up to understand that he was trying his best to bring me up in a certain way. That was when I began loving him "small small." But my question is; was beating the solution? Most people want to become teachers not because of the joy of passing on some of what they had studied to younger ones. Rather, the power to also beat just as they were beaten fascinates them. When does discipline become child abuse? Isn't it amazing that in some schools, canes that are used to lash kids is part of their annual budget? Why is it that children who are beaten in schools in the name of discipline grow up to become professors and doctors who can only read and explain but cannot invent or manufacture even a cigarette lighter, but on the other hand children who are not beaten in schools grow up and find their way to the moon....? I think something is wrong somewhere. Is beating really the solution....?