My mother's mantra when I was growing up was that "children should be seen but not heard." Like so many of my mother's generation, obedience was a top priority followed closely by a secondary goal of still more obedience.

Mom had an iron fist and my father's belt, and each in the family was left to his/her own devices when dealing with our matriarch.

The use of physical discipline was not unusual for the times, though I suspect the source of the discipline raised more than a few eyebrows.

My brother chose to duke it out with Mom. Sadly, he lost most battles and perhaps even lost the war. My two sisters sought their own form of escape, but to be honest I don't know their stories. I was too young then and they are reluctant to tell now. As for me, like a leaf landing gently on the water, I did everything in my power not to create a disturbance. My goal: Stay out of her crosshairs.

Naturally, I believe my method is the most sensible and thus I consider myself the smartest of the lot. There is absolutely no support for this theory among my siblings. Instead, they argue that I was spoiled at best and at worst lived the charmed life of the chosen child. We will likely never know as she is now gone and it is the bane of those who enjoy privilege to believe they earned it while those who suffer believe the world unjust and unfair.

In the end, each of us reaped the hard-earned rewards of surviving our family life. All are thick-skinned; each is a capable escape artist. Despite the fact that discipline is to parents what textbooks are to teachers, a tool for educating the child, I would not count my siblings or myself among the ranks of the learned. Obedience as a sole parenting strategy didn't work then and it surely will not work now.

I suspect there will be those who would rather I wax profoundly about bygone times. These are the same folks who do mass e-mailings about golden childhoods that read something like this: "We were whipped by our parents and our teachers; we ate lead paint straight from the bathroom wall; we rode in the back of trucks on the way to the dump — and we came out OK."

I have two words for those "wax-on, wax-off" folks: survivor's bias. Of course we came out all right; we survived. Those who suffered the consequences, those who fell out of trucks, died of lead poisoning, or suffered at the hands of an abusive parent aren't here to report on their experiences. Their voices will never be heard. As for turning out OK, I am not so sure.

Ironically, my daughter is much like me despite the dramatically different upbringing. She is surely my child and she is also my parental barometer. Like most parents, I want my daughter to respect her elders. However, I also want her to challenge old notions. I want her to follow the rules, but I also want her to follow her heart. I want her to listen, but more than anything, I want her to have her own voice, because children should be seen and heard.

Michael C. DeMattos is a member of the faculty at the University of Hawai'i School of Social Work. Born and raised on the Wai'anae Coast, he now lives in Kane'ohe with his wife, daughter, two dogs and two mice.