row!" I begged.

"No, " she said. "Go now! If you come back into this house without those groceries, I'll whip you. ?She slammed the door and I heard the key turn in the lock.

I shook with fright. I was alone upon the dark, hostile streets and gangs were after me. I Have the choice of being beaten at home or away from home. I clutched the stick, crying, trying to reason. If I were beaten at home, there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it. But if I were beaten in the streets, I had a chance to fight and defend myself.

I walked slowly down the sidewalk, coming closer to the gang of boys, holding the stick tightly. I was so full of fear that I could scarely breathe. I was almost upon them now.

"There he is again," the cry went up. They surrounded me quickly and began to grab for my hand.

"I'll kill you." I threatened.

They closed in and, in blind fear, I let the stick fly, feeling it crack against a boy' s skull. I swung again, landing another skull, then another. Realizing that they would retaliate, if I let up for but a second, I fought to lay them low, to knock them cold, to kill them so that they could not strike back at me. I flayed with tears in my eyes, teeth clenched, stock fear making me throw every ounce of my strength behind each blow. I hit again and again, dropping the money and the grocery list. The boys scattered, yelling, nursing their heads, staring at me in utter disbelief. They had never seen such frenzy. I stood panting, egging them on, taunting them to come on and fight. Wben they refused, I ran after them and t.hey tore out for their homes, screaming.

The parents of the boys rushed into the streets and thieatened me. And for the first time in my life, I shouted at grown-ups, telling them that I would give them the same if they bothered me. I finally found my grocery list and the money, and went to the store.

On my way back, I kept my stick poised for instant use, but there was not a single boy in sight.

That night, I won the right to the streets of Memphis.

2. Parents Are Too Permissive with Their Children Nowadays

Few people would defend the Victorian attitude to children, but if you were a parent in those days, at least you knew where you stood: children were to be seen and not heard. Freud and Company did away with all that and parents have been bewildered ever since. The child's happiness is all-important, the psychologists say, but what about' the parents' happiness? Parents suffer constantly from fear and guilt while their children gaily romp about pulling the place apart. A good old-fashioned

spanking is out of the question: no modern childrearing manual would permit such barbarity.

The trouble is you are not allowed even to shout. Who knows what deep psychological wounds you might inflict? The poor child may never recover from the dreadful traumatic experience. So it is that parents bend over backwards to avoid giving their children complexes which a hundred years ago hadn't even been heard of. Certainly a child needs love, and a lot of it. But the excessive permissiveness of modern parents is surely doing more harm than good.

Psychologists have succeeded in undermining parents' confidence in their own authority. And it hasn't taken children long to get wind of the fact. In addition to the great modern classics on child care, there are countless articles in magazines and newspapers. With so much unsoli

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