Final Word: Discipline, West-style

Setting: WEST house. Cheryl West, matriarch of the infamous West family, has gathered all her children together: the twins, Van and Jethro; and her daughters, Pascalle and Loretta. She is troubled, studying something that has arrived in the mail.

Cheryl: I've read this thing over and over and it still makes no bloody sense, so I want you lot to explain it to me.
Loretta: Do we have to?
Cheryl: Yes. (reads) "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"
There is a flurry of replies along the lines of "throw it in the bin, Mum" and "I have to go now, Mum" — except from Pascalle...
Pascalle: Oh, 'smack!' I thought it said 'snack' and, like, how can a snack be a bad thing, even when kids everywhere are getting fat?

Everyone ignores Pascalle. So Van has a crack.

Van: Maybe it means that if you want to smack your kids you have to take them to Australia first. Or if you smack them in New Zealand, you have to hide in Australia.
Loretta: No, Van, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean anything, because the Government won't change the law no matter what the answer is.
Jethro: Mum, no one else in New Zealand understands it, why should you be any different?
Cheryl: Because when someone asks me a question I like to get the answer right. Is it 'yes' or 'no'?
Pascalle: Tick both boxes, that's what I always did for multichoice questions back at school.

Cheryl ignores her helpful daughter, as she frowns over the question in front of her.

Cheryl: I mean, I never smacked you guys when you were kids.
Van: No, you waited until we grew up to start doing that.
Pascalle: Back then you used to get Dad to smack us.
Cheryl: Then Wolf can tick whichever box he likes, if he can bloody figure it out. I want to know which box I should tick.
Pascalle: I still say vote for both.
Van: You used to throw ice cubes at us from your rum and Coke — they hurt when they smacked into us.
Cheryl: But I never actually smacked you, did I? When you're a real mother you know that parenting is all about being at war with your children and if you smack the little buggers, they win!

The West children look at their mother, not comprehending this one bit.

Cheryl: Smacking kids is easy but after the first few times, it doesn't work. Good parental correction is about getting way more devious than smacking. Pascalle, you think all those huss haircuts I gave you that made you cry at school because the other kids mocked you were an accident?

Pascalle: I just thought you were drunk and bossy.
Cheryl: No, good parental correction — because you were being a little Miss and needed teaching a lesson. Same deal with hiding Van's toy rubbish truck, forcing Jethro to eat his brussels sprouts otherwise he couldn't watch MacGyver, and the whole reason I insisted Loretta do Irish dancing, or else.

A pause, as the West children realise once and for all what a bitch their mother truly is.

Van: You hid my rubbish truck? I cried for weeks, every night, over that.
Cheryl: But you behaved like an angel for all of those weeks.
Van: Only because every night you promised you'd find it if I behaved.
Cheryl: Good parental correction.
Van: And you never did.
Cheryl: I was a bit drunk when I hid it — it'll turn up one day.
Loretta: How the hell is forcing me to do Irish dancing good parental correction?
Cheryl: I didn't smack you, did I?
Pascalle: Those haircuts left me emotionally scarred for life.
Cheryl: Again, no smacking.
Jethro: There should be a petition banning brussels sprouts after what you did to me.
Cheryl: But there isn't, just this one. So should I vote 'yes' or 'no'?

But the West children are walking out, en-masse. As they go ...

Loretta: To think the Government is spending millions on this referendum.
Jethro: And they say what we do is criminal.
Pascalle: I still think ticking both is the no-lose option.
Van: I loved that truck.

They exit, leaving Cheryl with her dilemma.

Cheryl: But the more you read it, the less sense it makes.