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Raising Kids

   Written by on May 12, 2014 at 7:37 am

Lo Quacious, who is the only person who has ever left Stump County and loves to talk about the things he’s seen, has been telling us about the way folks outside of Stump County raise their kids.

The Stump County Chronicles are a satire about an imaginary county located in rural Virginia. Stump County, population 999, is filled with imaginary people who are struggling with real life problems as they attempt to move into the 20 century. The writer, Half Whitt, is imaginary. He works for the imaginary newspaper, The Sneezeville Sentinel. Trying to contact Half Whitt? Send letters to editor@southsidemessenger.com, or mail to The Southside Messenger, P.O. Box 849, Keysville, VA 23947 and we’ll pass it along!

The Stump County Chronicles are a satire about an imaginary county located in rural Virginia. Stump County, population 999, is filled with imaginary people who are struggling with real life problems as they attempt to move into the 20 century. The writer, Half Whitt, is imaginary. He works for the imaginary newspaper, The Sneezeville Sentinel.
Trying to contact Half Whitt? Send letters to editor@southsidemessenger.com, or mail to The Southside Messenger, P.O. Box 849, Keysville, VA 23947 and we’ll pass it along!

Lo says they are more concerned with not upsetting their kids than with teaching ‘em right from wrong. They don’t believe in spanking, they don’t believe in telling ‘em no and they don’t believe in correcting ‘em.

Well, throw me on the stove and call me a biscuit. How do those folks think their kids will learn iffen they don’t teach ‘em? Here in Stump County we start ‘em young and train ‘em hard.

That goes for dogs, cats, cows, horses, mules and chillans. Lo says the same guy who lets his chillans run wild will spend hours training his dog to sit, fetch, come and speak. There is something wrong with a man who will teach his dog to sit and stay but won’t teach his kids to sit still in church.

A bunch of us were sittin’ in the Yak n Snack and we got to talkin’ ‘bout how our daddys spanked us. Some used a switch, some a belt, some a razor strop but all of us thought our daddys were the best whippers in the county.

“My daddy would grab aholt of my arm and start swingin’. I’d run circles around him like I was a colt gettin’ trained on a lead line. I was really high steppin’. I thought I was a Tennessee Walker.” All of us are proud of our daddys and all of us turned out all right.

This new-fangled way of raising kids makes as much sense as turning a horse, cow or dog loose until it is full-growed and then expecting it to be worth something. We can guaran-durn-tee ya, it’s agonna be easier now than later.

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