Top 5 Punishments Latino Parents Give Their Children
For those of us who have grown up in a traditionally Latino household, there are a number of things that our Caucasian friends will never understand. Take our respect and reverence to the humble flip-flop, for example. NPR News stated that every Latin American, after all, will have stories to tell about "La Chancla (The Slipper)."
For today, we will be looking at the Top 5 Worst Punishments that our Latino parents gave us as we were growing older. Now that we are or will be parents ourselves, we do realize that a little disciplining is necessary, right?
5. Evil Eye
The evil eye might be the most subtle form of punishment that our parents gave us when we were kids, but boy, does it have an effect, remarked We Are Mitu. After all, one glare from mami or papi and we knew we were in very serious trouble.
4. Church Pinch
The Church Pinch is that really discreet, yet really painful pinch our parents (our moms, usually) would give us when we are in the presence of other people. This is done to avoid too much embarrassment for the child. When a Latino child feels that stinging feeling, he/she knows that he/she has gone too far.
3. Free Throw
Every Latino child eventually learns how to duck at exactly the right moment. When growing up in a Latino household, it is not uncommon to find yourself on the receiving end of a very well-thrown plate, or any other household item for that matter. The silver lining here is that Latino parents usually calm down after the throw, leading many to believe that the throw was just a reflex.
2. Wet Slap/Double Slap
This particular punishment is something that is so ingrained in our culture, it practically defines the types of punishments Latino parents dish out. Usually, the wet or double slap happens when we mess up so bad, mami would stop doing the dishes and just slap us with soapy hands. Twice.
1. La Chancla/La Cinturon (The Slipper/The Belt)
This is, of course, the mother and father of punishments Latino parents give their children. Any child who grew up in a Latino household has probably been on the receiving end of the feared La Chancla, or worse yet, the even more painful La Cinturon. When we end up with this punishment, we knew we messed up reallly, really bad.
As controversial as corporal punishments are, they do, at some point, keep us in line. And with that comes that notion that Latino children are always very well behaved.
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