The Rhyme before the Spanking1

I grew up in South Africa during the 1970s and corporal punishment was a normal part of everyday life across the ethnicities. Us youngsters knew that spanking went on both at home and in school,  and no one thought much about it, apart from the odd bit of teasing for the unlucky culprit. I was an only child, and my mother was typically strict for a Boer. I got my first smacked bottoms when I was only little, , though I can’t really remember being over my mother’s knee for discipline until I was a little older. From six years upward, my mother’s favored implement for spanking me was a wooden paddle of the type most often seen in the US. This was delivered over Mum’s knee in the time-honored fashion, and it stung unbelievably. After I had been given the paddle, my bottom would be stinging for hours afterwards.