How to Raise a Jain Child: Punish the Child or Punish Yourself
By: Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi
I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute
my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South
Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep
in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I
would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or
go to the movies.
One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an
all-day conference; I jumped at the chance. Since I was going
to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and
as I had all day in town my father asked me to take care of
several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When
I dropped my father off that morning, he said, “I will meet you
here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together.”
After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the
nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne doublefeature
that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered.
By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to
where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00. He
anxiously asked me, “Why were you late?”
I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne
western movie that I said, “The car wasn’t ready, so I had to
wait,” not realizing that he had already called the garage.
When he caught me in the lie, he said, “There’s something
wrong in the way I brought you up that didn’t give you the
confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where
I went wrong with you, I’m going to walk home 18 miles and
think about it.” So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began
to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads.
I couldn’t leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove
behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a
stupid lie that I uttered. I decided then and there that I was
never going to lie again. I often think about that episode and
wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children,
whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don’t think so.
I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the
same thing.
But this single Non-Violent action was so powerful
that it is still as if it happened yesterday. That is the power
of Non-Violence.
By: Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi
I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute
my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South
Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep
in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I
would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or
go to the movies.
One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an
all-day conference; I jumped at the chance. Since I was going
to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and
as I had all day in town my father asked me to take care of
several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When
I dropped my father off that morning, he said, “I will meet you
here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together.”
After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the
nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne doublefeature
that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered.
By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to
where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00. He
anxiously asked me, “Why were you late?”
I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne
western movie that I said, “The car wasn’t ready, so I had to
wait,” not realizing that he had already called the garage.
When he caught me in the lie, he said, “There’s something
wrong in the way I brought you up that didn’t give you the
confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where
I went wrong with you, I’m going to walk home 18 miles and
think about it.” So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began
to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads.
I couldn’t leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove
behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a
stupid lie that I uttered. I decided then and there that I was
never going to lie again. I often think about that episode and
wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children,
whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don’t think so.
I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the
same thing.
But this single Non-Violent action was so powerful
that it is still as if it happened yesterday. That is the power
of Non-Violence.
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