# Boyfriend spanked my son without my permission. Advice on how to chew him out most effectively? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 8, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934 "2010-11-08T17:54:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/101 "2010-11-09T14:03:18Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > This language is completely inappropriate for MPSIMS. If you have a problem with someone, take it to the Pit. > Dio, if you want to escalate things, do _that_ in the Pit as well. When you’re in MPSIMS, behave yourself, don’t spout off with these deliberately inflammatory moral absolutes. Hand to hand combat is out of place here. > > **twickster** , MPSIMS moderator I didn’t say anything inappropriate or inflammatory. I stated a legal fact. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/102 "2010-11-09T14:08:34Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I didn’t say anything inappropriate or inflammatory. I stated a legal fact. You stated a legal _opinion_ using inappropriate and inflammatory language ("fucking’). Knock it off. **twickster** , MPSIMS moderator ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/103 "2010-11-09T14:13:38Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/104 "2010-11-09T14:24:24Z")
What was that deleted statement? Something like “I was stating a legal FACT.” Let me know if I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Salem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Salem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salem)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/105 "2010-11-09T14:24:42Z")
A “legal fact” that is irrelevant to what the OP was asking. She did not come in and say “My boyfriend spanked my child, is this assault and battery? Should I press charges?” She essentially said that her SO did something without her permission, and asked how to deal with that. The fact that there was a physical interaction involved escalates the conversation, but doesn’t define it. At no point in her OP or follow up comments does she indicate that she is concerned that this may have been assault and battery and what should she do about that. Taken from your perspective, the stepfather was in fact defending his child against an assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (a metal hammer) by the OP’s son on his daughter. Perhaps he should have called the cops on her son and pressed charges instead of swatting him on the butt. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/106 "2010-11-09T14:33:09Z")
> [@BottledBlondJeanie](#): > > What was that deleted statement? Something like “I was stating a legal FACT.” Let me know if I’m wrong. Let it go. **twickster** , MPSIMS moderator ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/107 "2010-11-09T14:37:59Z")
Pretty sure there are some posters that are more worked up over this issue than the OP. ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/108 "2010-11-09T14:46:03Z")
This thread was interesting. Then Dio started making it the Dio show and there was hope the thread would stay on track after Twickster’s note. But no. And now we pretend that there was no comment after 2 notes. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/109 "2010-11-09T14:51:34Z")
> [@BottledBlondJeanie](#): > > This thread was interesting. Then Dio started making it the Dio show and there was hope the thread would stay on track after Twickster’s note. But no. And now we pretend that there was no comment after 2 notes. Well I always thought that it was parenting 101 that when your 2 yr old throws an attention seeking tantrum, the best way to handle it is to ignore the petulant, attention seeking behaviour? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/110 "2010-11-09T14:53:38Z")
> [@BottledBlondJeanie](#): > > This thread was interesting. Then Dio started making it the Dio show and there was hope the thread would stay on track after Twickster’s note. But no. And now we pretend that there was no comment after 2 notes. You’re continuing the hijack by commenting on the hijack. People, please get back to the topic of the thread. If you want to get into it with **Dio** , take it to the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/111 "2010-11-09T15:08:05Z")
> [@prettydorky](#): > > Then, he changed the rules, without telling me, at his discretion, because he was angry. Was he angry, or was he afraid? For all we know given the information at hand it could have been more like a parent spanking a child after they grab them to stop them from darting out into traffic. ---
**Author:** ![jonesj2205](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jonesj2205](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonesj2205)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/112 "2010-11-09T15:27:33Z")
I’m also curious whether the OP has ever spanked the boy and whether his acting up two years ago was a short-duration phase or has it been ongoing. I have an impression it’s ongoing if the spanking discussion has been ongoing for two years, but I’m not at all certain of that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/113 "2010-11-09T15:30:40Z")
> [@BottledBlondJeanie](#): > > This thread was interesting. Then Dio started making it the Dio show and there was hope the thread would stay on track after Twickster’s note. But no. And now we pretend that there was no comment after 2 notes. My first comment was posted before I saw the note. I was going down the thread, catching up on posts I hadn’t read yet, and replied to one before I got down to the note. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/114 "2010-11-09T15:35:53Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Was he angry, or was he afraid? For all we know given the information at hand it could have been more like a parent spanking a child after they grab them to stop them from darting out into traffic. The bottom line is that he’s NOT the boy’s parent. The OP and the OP only has the right to decide if her child should be spanked and who should do it. I see a lot of people in this thread basically telling her she doesn’t have a right to tell her boyfriend not to hit her kid. It is flat out not his prerogative to do that after she told him not to. It actually sounds like he was sorry and got the point. I don’t think h sounds like an awful person, but it’s no appropriate to pile up on a woman because she doesn’t want other people hitting her kid. For Christ’s sake, how about some respect for basic parental rights here. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/115 "2010-11-09T15:38:11Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > Oh, and to whoever that was who yearns for the days of corporate punishment in schools? Do you know what else they had in those days? Overcrowded classrooms with poor ventilation and so forth, basically in crummy buildings. Already a tense situation, IOW. And often, those kids didn’t plan on going past the eighth grade. And the teachers didn’t have one tenth of the credentials they’d need today, and many of them weren’t cut out to be teachers but fell into it because there were so few career choices for women. And so forth. > > So I’m not so sure that teachers always used sterling judgment. Or that corporal punishment was the biggest factor (I didn’t even say only) in whether or how well kids behaved. I daresay teachers had their favorites and their scapegoats, just as they do today. And really, when you treat students like cattle and teachers like farmhands, of course corporal punishment is going to seem reasonable. (Highjack) I was spanked in a classroom with lots of windows that opened, once in one with air-conditioning, and there was no overcrowding that I can recall. And one of the teachers who paddled me was male. We were all expected to go on to college, and most of us did. And all our teachers were fully credentialed professionals who were practical and sensible and never took back-talk from kids that my sister is subject to every single day in her classroom and is powerless to react to. But maybe you are thinking of an older time than the sixties to seventies in a middle-class suburb of a fairly large city. All I know is, we were very leery of getting paddled, and respected the process so much that most of the dozen paddles that male teacher had were hand-made for him by former students as their first shop-class project in junior high…many with design elements added to increase pain. In talking with former classmates it is obvious they respected that teacher for holding them accountable. (end Highjack) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/116 "2010-11-09T15:49:01Z")
When I was a little kid in Louisiana, we also had paddling without crowded classroooms. It was just the culture of that time and place. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/117 "2010-11-09T16:03:52Z")
He may not be the legal parent but she’s treating him as if he were. So either he is or he isn’t. If he is then he has every right to act as a parent including the right to discipline as he sees fit. If he isn’t then he’s nothing more than a babysitter and should be treated accordingly. She needs to make up her mind and decide which role she wants him to fill. Both the son and boyfriend deserve clearer boundaries. ---
**Author:** ![prettydorky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f04885/32.png) [@prettydorky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prettydorky)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/118 "2010-11-09T16:05:40Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > Pretty sure there are some posters that are more worked up over this issue than the OP. I agree. But I didn’t bring my laundry to the internet to have everyone compliment it. I was very upset about something, and I stepped back and considered how to address it so that I didn’t allow my anger to influence how I spoke to the person whom I share my life and child with, and whom I value a great deal. I really just wanted pointers for how to talk to him about it since I was so angry and I struggle with communicating effectively on a GOOD day. It has been a valuable lesson in temperance to see how offensive my original approach would have been. The SO and I discussed it last night and while I DO NOT think what he did was ok, I understand why he did it. It was not a willful disregard for my wishes, it was a knee-jerk response to a situation and he acted out of anger. He’s sorry, it won’t happen again, and we cleared the air about discipline and authority. The conversation was that much more successful because of all of the, uh, objective opinions you all shared. Thanks for that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/119 "2010-11-09T16:07:00Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > He may not be the legal parent but she’s treating him as if he were. So either he is or he isn’t. If he is then he has every right to act as a parent including the right to discipline as he sees fit. No. Sorry, but he doesn’t. She is the legal parent, he is not. He does not get to ignore her rules. Hitting her kid against her expressed wished is a violation of her parental rights. Where are people getting this idea that parents don’t have a right to say they _don’t_ want thir kids to be spanked? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934/120 "2010-11-09T16:09:44Z")
> [@prettydorky](#): > > I agree. But I didn’t bring my laundry to the internet to have everyone compliment it. I was very upset about something, and I stepped back and considered how to address it so that I didn’t allow my anger to influence how I spoke to the person whom I share my life and child with, and whom I value a great deal. I really just wanted pointers for how to talk to him about it since I was so angry and I struggle with communicating effectively on a GOOD day. It has been a valuable lesson in temperance to see how offensive my original approach would have been. > > The SO and I discussed it last night and while I DO NOT think what he did was ok, I understand why he did it. It was not a willful disregard for my wishes, it was a knee-jerk response to a situation and he acted out of anger. He’s sorry, it won’t happen again, and we cleared the air about discipline and authority. The conversation was that much more successful because of all of the, uh, objective opinions you all shared. Thanks for that. Your boyfriend doesn’t sound like a jerk, just like he lost control for a second. Don’t let anybody _here_ tell you that you don’t have a right to tell other people not to spank your kid, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyfriend-spanked-my-son-without-my-permission-advice-on-how-to-chew-him-out-most-effectively/559934.md?page=7)