The fine line between correcting and abuse.

Or how it came to be.

I think both my parents got raised in a time where it was still considered normal to correct unwanted behavior with physical punishments, rather than showing children where they went wrong and please don't do it again because it makes daddy sad. And where the authority of adults towards minors was unquestioned. And since most people repeat the mistakes of their parents there is nothing wrong there really (except for it being bad!). But I can't blame people for not knowing better. I dislike it, but I can't blame them.
But! There's only two reasons to punish someone, actually there is only one. You want someone to pay for their sins. The reason that gets used is a lie, a filthy one even. We punish you so you won't do x again or start doing y.
I think most parents want their children to be happy (well one can hope no?), but most parents seem to forget that happiness is personal. And you have to balance your own personality versus their personality. Your dreams aren't their dreams. It's very hard to stop forcing your opinions on someone that basically needed that at first.
From crossing a line and getting called back to asking why the line can't be crossed to crossing it again because that line is not your line. Somewhere in that whole process of testing boundaries and figuring out personal preferences a parent has to stop interfering or punishing. Since children are stupid and they will continue to try pleasing parents even if that means destroying themselves. Even those rare moments they realize they are killing themselves, they will. Since nature is a bitch.

I read. I can't actually say I like reading. I just do.
I learned to read when I was 2 or 3 (or so they claim), I know for sure I could read in kindergarten, the first book there I remember is from Margaret Mahy - The Boy Who Was Followed Home. Pure genius.
From the moment I could read whole sentences I have read. Everything. I cannot not read. I tried, oh dear, I so tried. Since I wasn't allowed to read all the time. The claim was I didn't listen when I was reading, which is true. That urge to finish a chapter first or the whole book was so strong. I honestly tried for real. To only read when allowed. But there's so much to read, everywhere. Signs, packaging, pieces of paper, magazines, books! It was impossible to not read something. And it kept distracting me. I was too young to have the sense of stopping, I had to finish reading something fully. All. And it drove my mother nuts.
I don't know if it was because I didn't listen right away or because I didn't get the highest grade at school (so many books in the back of the room, free for anyone to read once your work was done) or because she hated me having all those special worlds that weren't real. I really have no clue, except the freedom to read got limited rapidly.
By the time I was 8 (ya where my memories really start), I was allowed to walk to the library every day and then read the four books in the living room. Which I did. Outside that living room I was not allowed to read, except for schoolbooks. I couldn't obey.
At what point did that start into a personal crusade to make me stop reading. To control that one thing that I couldn't let go of. Kiddo draws. She cannot not draw. Teachers gave up on trying to stop her from drawing during classes. Which is good. The moment where you realize that nothing will stop someone from doing something (well, something semi harmless at least) is the moment where you have to stop trying that. And that is the line you should never cross as a parent.