Santa’s Robins

Charlotte wrote the following as a comment to a previous post:

“Ever since the visit of an Irish friend two years ago, we have Santa's robins who keep an eye on behaviour our children. We have learnt to be very cautious around a robin.”

I’m oddly fascinated about and in abhorrence of all the possible acts of misuses these Santa’s robins might seduce parents into committing. Can you just imagine a Terrible Two refusing to get dressed in the morning, or a Ferocious Four screaming and yelling throughout the house saying he will not clean up his room? All you would have to do is place one of the Santa’s robins on the table in front of the child, and given them a knowing nod. Oh, gosh, that is too much power for any parent of misbehaving children to have at their near reach.

My mother had a whammy device to instill instant fear and trepidation in her three darling (devilish) daughters. It was the stove’s TIMER. Whenever we were taking too long to eat up our dinner (children ate at different times as their parents then), she would say, “I am putting on the TIMER”. Dadada doom. That was it. The TIMER was on and who knew what would happen if it went off!

The only thing we were certain of was, if the TIMER ever did go off then the disciplinary consequences would be more horrible, more menacing than our worse imaginings. And since our imaginings were rather dreadful, none of us was willing to tempt fate.

Year’s later, as an adult, I asked my mother about the TIMER and what punishment she would have inflicted upon us. She had no idea. She never mentioned what the punishment would be; yet that was what made it so horrible. She admitted to me that she would slip into the kitchen and advance the timer, for she lived equally in fear and trepidation of it going off.