When I was six, my father beat me with the buckle end of his belt because I couldn’t finish my bowl of corn flakes. What used to be light golden crisps were now vile, soggy coagulations, and I realized quite late that adding more flakes did nothing to cover up the muck that had congealed at the bottom. Every five minutes he came back and looked over my shoulder to track my progress with breakfast, which I had been fruitlessly attacking for two hours. But with every inspection, the ghastly graveyard of corn flakes grew twice its size. I had bruises all over my bottom that night because children were starving in the streets and I was partly responsible.
Growing up in a country and a culture that not only allowed but encouraged the proverbial rod for the child, I myself somehow believed it was a necessary evil. It was discipline, and no child should ever be without discipline. I have never touched another bowl of corn flakes in my life.