How can I tell the inheriting class to not call its base class' parameter-less constructor?

Question

I was surprised to find out that the parameter-less constructor of my base class is called any time I call any constructor in a derived class. I thought that is what

Answer 1

You could make the default base constructor protected, then have only non-default constructors for the base and its child.

edit

You could give the base a protected constructor with a different signature (such as a protected enum type), and put your initialization code in there, while the default constructor, also protected, does not particular initialization.