Spare the rod and spoil the child

A little boy once stole his playmate’s ball and took it home and showed it to his mother. She looked at it with delight. “What a lovely red ball !” she said. “Put it away safely and be careful how you play with it.”

She was indeed a strange and peculiar mother. Not a word of reproach that the ball had been stolen. Never a suggestion that he should return it. Praise for the ball, instead of a scolding for the way in which it had been taken. A bad mother.

That was how it went on through the years. The boy stole from his small companions. He stole books and pencils and pictures from his classmates at school. When he grew up into a young man he became a regular thief, and stealing was his job. And all through these stages when the boy stole for fun, and later when he stole for gain, his mother praised and encouraged him. Not even once did she whisper that to take what belonged to others is wrong.

Then one night the thief was caught. He was led away to a cell for the night. Later he was tried and condemned to be executed. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was led up to the gallows. His mother followed weeping and wailing and beating her breast, behind him. He took no notice of it.

When the noose was around his neck, the thief asked for permission to whisper in his mother’s ear. She went up to him eagerly, and he bent down and taking the lobe of her ear in his teeth, he bit into it fiercely.

“Oh my, Oh my,” cried the mother loudly, “not only is he a thief but he hurts his mother too.”

“Keep quiet, woman,” said the thief. “You are not my mother, but my undoing. If you had not encouraged me, I would never have become a thief. I am to be hanged just now because of you.”

And then the thief was hanged.

Moral of the story :- Embrace the Discipline before the Regret of Pain.