Have you heard the latest from that congregation of wise heads who are busy formulating the new Children’s Act? Apparently if I should inadvertently (hypothetically speaking, of course) roundhouse-kick my son in the jaw and knock his back-chatting behind out, it will cost me R300.

I hate hearing news like this because I’m never sure if it’s good or bad news. Not to trivialise the serious matter of child abuse or anything, but I find myself with much internal turmoil here. On one hand I’m glad that our legislators are taking the issue of abuse against children seriously. On the other hand I have to wonder if any of these people are in the reproductive section of the population.

I hate ambiguous situations personally. I prefer things clear-cut and inside neatly labelled boxes. This is why I hate fuzzy laws that are impossible to police. Take the law that says women cannot sleep with men in return for payment. What constitutes a payment — cash only? Dinner? Entertainment? Movie tickets? Was my entire youth one long, sordid transactional sex period?

I fear that this clause of the Children’s Act just might cause a lot of confusion — let alone having the opposite effect. You see, I have an al-Qaeda operative masquerading as my soon-to-be-three-years-old son wreaking havoc in my own house. Now, I don’t believe (like my father did) that I brought him into this world and I reserve the right to take him out if I want to.

Here’s a scene from last night on which the parliamentary welfare social services portfolio committee might want to give me guidance. The midget terrorist gets hold of my Pulp Fiction DVD and decides to use it as a steering wheel for an imaginary truck that is ostensibly filled with explosives for his latest suicide mission. Fair enough; I can always wipe his grubby fingerprints afterwards.

We started having a difference of opinion when he started bending the disc in an attempt to snap in half — maybe he wanted to turn his suicide-mission-mobile into a F1 car? So I protested:

Me: Hey, midget! Give me that.

Midget Terrorist: Mine!

M: No, that’s Baba’s DVD.

MT: No! Midget’s DVD! (bending it even further)

M: Hey! Honey! Your child is ruining my stuff here.

Midget’s accomplice: (from the kitchen) Ag, just grab it from him.

So I did as I was told by the head of the household. I grabbed his destructive little hand, twisted it behind his back, placed his neck in an arm lock, careful to keep my legs far apart (the dwarf has a vicious back heel to the shins, I have learned) and wrestled the DVD from his vice-like claws.

So, parliamentary committee, should I pay R300 here? Oh, the young man was distraught, I admit. He wailed from a place deep inside his evil soul. If he’d had the Childline number, you’d best believe there would have been telephonic contact between my house and that august organisation. For the record, I never delivered an actual blow on his insolent little behind. I just used a little … er, leverage. So should I pay?

While we’re on the subject, is this R300 across the board or is there a sliding scale, with R300 being the maximum? I’m talking about:

1. Two-fingered tap on their little fingers — R10
2. Use of open palm on their hands — R20
3. Smack on the bottom — R50
4. Backhand aimed at back-chatting lips (bhibi!) — R100
5. Left hook aimed at the solar plexus — R300

I foresee problems whether it’s a standard fine or a sliding-scale system. If it’s a standard fine, the judge who fines me R300 for my deft WWE stunt last night would have some explaining to do if he fined a vicious brute who’d kicked his three-year old in the groin. I might even accuse him of having had a double tot of “tea” before coming to court. The problem with the sliding scale will be all the marginal calls — is pinching his ear better or worse than a smack on the bottom? Is it R100 or R20?

Plus, in our nation, with the incredible economic disparity between the rich and the poor, what message is this sending? Some people are so poor they can’t even afford to stuff their kids up? What next? Township dwellers starting I-can-moer-my-own-kids-if-I-want-to stokvels and then having a stuff-them-kids-up orgy when the official December 16 stokvel payout season kicks off?

If you think I’m being ridiculous, then you do not understand human nature. The moment you put a monetary value on anything, human beings believe it is up for sale and will start budgeting. I have a friend who has a monthly traffic-fine budget. By his reckoning, he is a busy entrepreneur who has more to lose by getting to meetings late than paying a R1 500 fine for driving in the yellow lane on the M1 north. I wish I was making this up.

As I’ve said before, physical abuse against helpless children is an abhorrent, repugnant crime against the most vulnerable members of the human race. There is nothing vaguely funny about hitting a child. We cannot, tragically, rely on the sensibilities of parents and guardians to exercise the power they have over children judiciously. While this Act has good intentions, if the reports are true, instituting a fine system seems to me to be a classical case of painting the car red to make it run faster. R300 is not going to deter a brutal Neanderthal from delivering a vicious beating on a child. I do not personally feel that I’m getting my tax rands’ worth from this particular committee. Do you?

Of course, none of this applies to me. I know what I’m doing, unlike all those other poor parents. In my house, I have been able to maintain skilfully the balance between having my kids think I’m the greatest dad in the world and respecting and fearing me just a little. I take cash, major credit cards and whisky bottles — if you want my method.

I believe that the scene needs to be set for when my 12-year-old gets to age 15 and joins the “whaddup-mah-niggah” crowd what with all that spiky hair, 50 Cent T-shirts, pants around their ankles and tattoos. I want to be able to bark at him to modify his behaviour: “PULL THOSE GODDAMNED PANTS UP, YER PUNK!” And I want him to tap into his sufficient reserves of fear respect for me to clean his act up. My dad got it just right with one judicious ass-whuppin’ on my behind.

I do believe he owes the state a retrospective R300 plus interest.

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  • Once upon a time, Ndumiso Ngcobo used to be an intelligent, relevant man with a respectable (read: boring-as-crap) job which funded his extensive beer habit. One day he woke up and discovered that he had lost his mind, quit his well-paying job, penned a collection of hallucinations. A bunch of racist white guys published the collection just to make him look more ridiculous and called it 'Some of my best friends are white'. (Two Dogs, ISBN 978-1-92013-718-2). Nowadays he spends his days wandering the earth like Kwai Chang Caine, munching locusts, mumbling to himself like John the Baptist and searching for the meaning of life at the bottom of beer mugs. The racist publishers have reared their ugly heads again and dangled money in his face to pen yet another collection of hallucinations entitled 'Is It Coz 'm Black'. He will take cash, major credit cards and will perform a strip tease for contributions to his beer fund.

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Ndumiso Ngcobo

Once upon a time, Ndumiso Ngcobo used to be an intelligent, relevant man with a respectable (read: boring-as-crap) job which funded his extensive beer habit. One day he woke up and discovered that he...

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