Confined To His Room

I was telling wife E of a boy who was confined to his room for five days, as punishment. It had come up in a counselling session. E said: “Confined to his room? What’s that?” I realised then that such punishment is rather unique to Europeans, who have rooms in which one can confine children. Some cultures often don’t have homes which would make that possible. There is a crowd of children in the same room, or the room serves as a foyer of sorts, or there aren’t walls and doors which would really make it a room.