His grandparents believed in spare the rod and spoil the child.
spare the rod
idiomThe idea that failing to discipline a child will spoil them.
Origin
The sentiment is biblical — Proverbs 13:24 says that whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him — and several other proverbs echo it. The rod is the shepherd's or teacher's stick, and the verse ties correction to love rather than cruelty.
The familiar rhyming form, however, is not scripture. The exact line spare the rod and spoil the child was coined by Samuel Butler in his mock-heroic poem Hudibras in 1662, where it appears in a distinctly bawdy context, and it is Butler's neat phrasing, not the Bible's, that everyone now quotes.
In English spare the rod is shorthand for the whole disputed idea that withholding firm discipline ruins a child — cited these days as often to challenge the notion as to defend it.
The old headmaster ran the school on spare the rod, a philosophy that fewer and fewer parents were willing to accept.
The debate over the new policy quickly split along familiar lines, the older staff invoking spare the rod as plain common sense and the younger ones arguing that decades of research had long since retired the idea.
Job, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes on how to live.
- 01
nothing new under the sun (idiom)
Human affairs endlessly repeat; what seems novel has all happened before.
- 02
the patience of Job (idiom)
Extraordinary endurance and calm in the face of prolonged suffering.
- 03
by the skin of your teeth (idiom)
Just barely
- 04
pride comes before a fall (idiom)
Arrogance and overconfidence tend to precede a downfall.
- 05
a fly in the ointment (idiom)
A small flaw or problem that spoils something otherwise good.
- 06
my cup runneth over (idiom)
A feeling of having blessings or good fortune in overwhelming abundance.