Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

was born. When our oldest son, Alan, was born, I wasn’t there and he turned out fine. I wasn’t there when Jase came, but everything still turned out okay. When Willie came next, I didn’t want to press our luck, so I didn’t go to the hospital again (in fact, I was fishing when he was born). But when Kay became pregnant withJep, she told me it was the last baby we were going to have, so she wanted me beside her to witness God’s greatest miracle. Women being the strange creatures they are, Kay decided she needed a coach for the birth of her last child, and she insisted that I was the one to do it.
    When the day arrived for Jep’s birth, Kay decided she was going to deliver him without an epidural or any kind of medication. I knew then that I had a tough woman! Over the next several hours, I watched my wife thrashing around and gritting her teeth, and then I saw Jep’s head emerge from my wife’s loins. Let me tell you something: I salute womanhood worldwide, because women are exceptionally tough for enduring the misery of childbirth. I’ve cleaned hogs and gutted deer, but in my experience on Earth I’ve never witnessed such a brutal event.
    I knew right then that my sex life was over—although I somehow managed to get over my concerns thirty days later! Let me put it to you this way: after going through it once, I’d never go back and do it again. It was rough to watch, so I can’t imagine having to experience the pain. If men were in charge of carrying and birthing our babies, we’d have a lot fewer people on Earth, because we’d only do it once—I can promise you that!
    Each of our boys was a blessing, and after I repented and had my life in order again, I set out to give them the same sort of childhood I had as a boy, learning to hunt and fish and live off theland. Alan, Jase, and Willie were very close when they were growing up, and then they kind of took Jep under their wings after he was born because there was such an age gap between them. My philosophy on discipline was very simple. Since rules are made to be broken, I kept the rules few and far between. However, there was a code in the Robertson house: three licks was the standard punishment. It wasn’t ten licks or twenty licks for doing something wrong; it was always three: thump, thump, thump! It was a principle, and my boys always knew what their punishment would be if they stepped out of line.
    They received three licks if they disrespected their mother. As it says in Ephesians 6:1–3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’—which is the first commandment with a promise—‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ ” I never had to tell my boys not to disrespect me; that rule was understood and it never crossed their minds to break it. None of my sons ever disrespected me, not even once. Nobody ever bowed up and told me I wasn’t going to tell them what to do.
    There was literally flawless obedience when they were living under my roof—at least when I was home. If I told them to go to bed, they jumped up and went to bed. If I told them to rake the leaves, they raked the leaves. If I told them to clean the fish, they cleaned the fish. People would come over to visit usand were amazed at how obedient our sons were. Their teachers always told us our boys were among the most well-behaved students in school. I believe it’s because my boys were always aware of the consequences of not doing what they were told to do. They always respected me, and they respected their mother because I didn’t want them taking advantage of the woman who put them on Earth.
    I also didn’t allow my sons to fight with each other. They could argue and disagree all they wanted—and Jase and Willie managed to do it regularly. I didn’t have a problem with them raising their voices at each other to make a point. I wanted to encourage them to argue and make a case for their beliefs. But if it came to blows and there was meat popping, they were getting three licks each. I didn’t care who threw the first punch. If it ever came to physical blows, I’d step in and everybody involved got three licks.
    Another thing I didn’t allow was tearing up good hunting and fishing equipment. I wanted them to respect someone else’s property and to be thankful for what we had, even if it wasn’t much. If one of the boys borrowed one of my guns or fishing poles and tore