Daughter calls her mom a bitch---is that 100% bad?

Great Debates
61

It’s not exactly the same, but it is certainly analogous. First, most fights leave the aggressor with some sort of physical injury. Whether it’s raw knuckles, cuts, scrapes, etc., most physical altercations result in injury for all parties involved. Plus, you act like it hard to “break down” a door. I’m assuming the OP meant the frame being busted due to the dad forcing the door open without turning the knob. This doesn’t take excessive force and is not necessarily indicative of rage.

Without knowing the extent of the injuries the girl received, you can’t assume she is worse off than if she had been punched in the face.

62

I disagree. A mugger and a guy who fights back are two completely different things. Maybe taking such actions makes you violent (in a strict sense), but it doesn’t necessarily make you a jerk.

63

Jesus, man, what do you think is normal behaviour in a family?

64

“Fights back”? We’re talking about name-calling here. A more caveman-like method is perhaps understandable, but hardly appropriate, if you’re too stupid to defend yourself in kind (verbally.) Children throw violent tantrums when taunted. One might hope that adults have developed some small control over their impulses, but it seems this is not the case. Someone throws a word and you throw a fist? Yeah, I think that makes you a jerk.

65

God, no! If she were under 18 and had been beaten with that kind of force, she would have a claim of child abuse. Here it is, spelled out:

–She was spanked hard enough to break the blood vessels in the spanker’s hand. That is assault, and it’s illegal, whether the victim is male, female, adult, child, whatever.

–She was spanked at age 18, and while spanking your adult child (or young child) is not illegal (within reason, as in, NOT hard enough to give your hand blood blisters), it’s fucking inappropriate.

IMNSHO, smacking anyone over (approximately) age 8 on the ass* does not constitute effective discipline. When the “spankee” is old enough to be reasoned with and knows it, the idea that the parent will choose pain and humiliation instead of words (and “limitation” punishments, like grounding, no TV, etc.) for discipline sets up a power struggle, not a mutual respect situation. And when the “spankee” is over puberty, it’s just kind of sleazy. I would hope my dad never tried to put his hands on my 15-year-old ass, no matter the reason. And I’m sure he feels just as creeped out by the idea as I do.

And no, I’d never call my mother a bitch. (Of course, your momma’s so ugly even Gary Busey won’t play with her.)

*Excluding the kinky stuff, because that’s obviously a horse of a different color.

66

Can this even be called a “fight” between father and daughter? She was arguing with her mother and he stepped in. And if it was a fight, it sure as hell wasn’t fair. I don’t recall any mention of her getting her dukes up- he even pointed out that he probably wouldn’t have gone up against a son who might actually throw some damage back his way. That’s why wives and little kids make such good targets- they’re so darned weak. And most abusers make a point of not hitting the face if they can help it. Also, it should go without saying that not all injuries are physical. Someone flying off the handle for the very first time should have stopped at the arm yanking, which no doubt provoled some sort of pained reaction.
This was not a bar fight. If it were- if a grown man had, say, broken down a bathroom door and hit an 18-year-old- he most certainly would have been hauled off to jail.

67

My father went into “blind rages” when I was growing up. It took a lot less than calling my mother a bitch to set him off. It scared me when I was a kid and as an adult just remembering it makes me physically ill.

I love my dad, but I’m still hurting from the residual fear. That never goes away.

68

Sorry I didn’t get back to this earlier, but that pesky real-life thing interfered!

Regarding the anecdote from the OP:

I don’t know what Mom said to Daughter, or if she was actively being a bitch. The poster didn’t say what the disagreement was about, or provide any details beyond his daughter’s last statement.

He did say that he broke “through the door, which was in half, lying on the carpet”, and that after the spanking, which “only took about ten whacks” to break his blood vessels and his daughter’s spirit, he dragged Daughter downstairs “to the kitchen, where my wife was weeping” and ordered her to apologize.

Just seemed to me that he could simply have intercepted Daughter before she got to her room, re-routed her to the kitchen and demanded the apology, and left out the berserker stuff. I don’t know why Mom reacted, or didn’t react, as she did, or what the husband/wife dynamic is with them, because he didn’t say.

Regarding the use of the term “bitch”:

—fessie, I’ll have to check that book out.

—I don’t agree that “elders” automatically deserve respect. irishgirl, I agree that people often say things in the heat of anger, and it’s better to say it and atone for it later than let it eat at you indefinitely.

—I believe that raising a child is a gradual process, and adjustments have to be made as you go along. Spanking is okay up through a certain stage of development. Beyond that, if you keep using it as a method of enforcement, then either a) you’re relying on spanking alone to get your point across, and not following up properly, b) you’re punishing the kid for stuff that doesn’t deserve punishment, or c) the kid has a behavioral/psychological problem that has to be addressed some other way.

—As for my assertion in the OP, well, I asked for opinions and people gave them. I’ll let it go.

Regarding methods of discipline:

—Euthanasiast and plnnr: I’m really not sure what “the South” has to do with this. There are as many ways to raise a family as there are people, and I don’t think you can classify them by geographical location. Not all Southerners raise their kids to have good manners. Not all Northerners do, either. And I’m not convinced that there’s one “Southern” lifestyle.

—brickbacon, I don’t think you’ve been here long enough to know that these discussions always end up with one group on the edge of the canyon, saying, “You have to beat your kid like a redheaded stepchild for the slightest infraction! If you don’t, then you must not believe in punishment at all!” and the other group shouting up to them saying, “No, we’re down here in the excluded middle! You can enforce discipline without totally losing your shit! Can you HEAR me up there?”

—And yes, I knew that when I started this…but I started it mainly to ask about the daughter’s use of the term “bitch”. But as I said above, I got my answers on that, so we might as well keep going on this.

—Also, 17, 18—what’s the difference? The point is, she wasn’t 5. You spank a 5 y/o, not a teenager. (No, I’m not saying 5 is the arbitrary cutoff point for spanking.)

—Cliffy, with all due respect, what’s your stance here? Words are just words, but it’s not absurd to lose your shit because your daughter called your mom a bitch? I’m unclear on your post.

—Oh, and Euthanasiast, I begged my parents to put me in a foster home. Not because I thought it would be paradise, but because what they thought of as a threat, wasn’t, to me, compared to how I lived with them.

69

Why do people assume violence = stupid. The bottom line is that punching someone in the face and saying something back to them verbally send two totally different messages. Sometimes, it is appropriate to send the message in the form of an ass kicking. It has nothing to do with being ill-equipped to fight back with words.

70

Because most often violence is a very inefficient way to “send a message.”

71

I’m having a problem here with the premise that because the father busted some blood vessels on his hand, then the daughter suffered an atrocity by way of the spanking that caused it. Have any of you ever spanked a child’s ass with your open palm? Have you ever been horsing around with your wife or SO and popped him/her on the butt a good one for shits and giggles? In a battle royal between the open palm and a fully-clothed ass cheek, it really doesn’t even come close. And in this debate, that little nugget of information is required before you can go off half-cocked with threats of violent assault.

I am assuming he didn’t strip her down to her bare ass before spanking her, because that would turn the creep factor up all the way, break off the knob and toss it in the garbage disposal. Having said that, his hand still is punished more than an eighteen year old woman’s ass cheek. Some of you are acting like he was beating her with an axe handle like a coked-up lumberjack.

About the only argument you have here is the humiliation factor, which frankly she’s asking for in my opinion for having humiliated her mother in the first place. This does not ruin a child or cause a child to be a poor judge of character in relationships down the road. This knee jerk mentality formed initially over the last years of the previous century, IMHO, has contributed more to ragged recidivism than the acts perceived to be the culprit in the first place.

Now we have a situation where all parents are bad parents and this progeny/progenitor dynamic is the catchall for all of their collective personal shortcomings. Stop blaming your relationship with your parents for your deficiencies in life, unless you really had terrible parents. And if you did, you’d know. There would be no question.

I’m not insensitive to real abuse. I know there are family situations out there that are brutal toward a child and to know about that tears my heart open. But you don’t get to tag yourself or anyone else with this dysfunctional label on a whim with your Intellectual sleight of hand. You are responsible for your own life, and when you make bad decisions like the one the daughter made you are putting yourself in a position for retaliation. The level of retaliation is different from household to household. The impression I get from reading some of your posts indicates to me that you had some pretty bad relationships with your parents. I don’t know what that’s like. Whether by luck or by whatever else my relationship with my parent managed to weather quite a few storms. I had stern parents (mother and stepfather) that dealt swift (and sometimes harsh) judgment, yet there was never a time when I thought they didn’t love me absolutely. And personally, I think way too many people are using memories of altercations with mom and dad as a shield to defend them against taking responsibility for their own lives.

I received tons of spankings with hands, belts, and one or two with switches. The worst one I ever got was for something I didn’t do, yet I admit I deserved pretty much every other one. They’re called formative years for a reason, folks, that’s all I’m saying.

That’s terrible, and I am truly sorry that you had to grow up in whatever environment that put you in a situation where being in a foster home was the best alternative. It sounds like you were dealt some particularly brutal cards and that is heart breaking. My only quibble is with those that are using corporal punishment as an excuse for their current flawed life. Having your ass beaten by your father until his hand stings isn’t the same thing as a campaign of physical or verbal abuse over years by an unstable parent. They just aren’t in the same ballpark. And until we get that sorted out, this debate is pointless.

So what’s left? “Well, he kicked the door in!” Try getting a man arrested for kicking his own door in. Seriously, as an experiment, drop what you’re doing and go kick in a door in your house. Then have your SO call the police. If you end up going to jail, call me. I’ll be heading that way with bail money, attorney’s fees and a hell of a plate of crow in my belly.

I’m sorry, this one incident just isn’t abuse, and frankly, calling it such minimizes real abuse.

I understand that in this discussion perspective is everything, and I am constantly keeping it in mind.

Respectfully,

Euth

72

She was 18?

Spanking was not the correct response. Telling her to pack a bag and go live somewhere else would have been.

73

I agreed with Euthanasiast because it has been my general experience that people from the South have more deference for their elders. I realize that it isn’t true of all, but it has been generally true in my experience. And you’re quite right about there not being one “Southern” lifestyle - it’s just that in the lifestyle that I was brought up in, and among the people that I was generally around, we were taught a particular set of manners and conduct. It may be just as prevalent in other parts of the country, but never having spent any great length of time living in other parts I can’t speak from experience.

74

Well, I understand what you’re saying. But, Euth has made it clear in other threads that he’s not religious. The meme is that all Southerners are religious. He’s not, so I think it follows that his other experiences might not apply to all Southerners across the board, either.

And why is it a good thing to say that all Southerners are genteel, but bad to say that they’re all illiterate? I know they’re not all illiterate…but I also know that they’re not all genteel.

75

I absolutely agree with this. I don’t think I suggested that everyone in the South has the same propensities toward these Southern stereotypes.

Did I suggest anywhere in this thread that I was referring to every single Southerner?

76

Well, what were you getting at when you began your first post in this thread with:

No, you certainly didn’t say “every single Southerner”. But you apparently thought geography was relevant enough to mention it upfront.

77

If you read what I posted carefully you’d see that I suggested that being from that area may color my feelings on the matter. In no way did I say that it certainly would.

I don’t think that you can argue against the premise that a great number of Southerners are known for having certain traits. Southern hospitality, Heavy-handed disciplinarians, crippled vocabulary, Simple mindedness and below average intelligence, etc. are a large part of the culture down here. This is no way suggests that every Southerner is that way, nor does it even suggest that most Southerners are this way. And frankly, I don’t understand how the discussion can even logically be taken in this direction.

I’m very proud of my Southern roots, but I am making no attempt to take an elitist attitude over it. I simply mentioned it because anyone who has ever lived in this area has witnessed the kind of no nonsense, attitude adjustment dealt out with almost mechanical swiftness by parents with unruly children, and I (who lived in this very environment) could certainly have my feelings on the matter of the OP affected by that. Is this an attitude taken only by southerners? Absolutely not, but I’d bet green money that you’ll see it here more frequently.

I never said that every Southerner was this way. You won’t find it in any of my posts, which are being taken just a little out of context here. And, this really is a non issue in respect to the OP. I was referring to my feelings, not every southerner.

78

Fair enough.

(But it still sounds like your mom was unreasonable in not letting you go to the concert.)

79

Utter nonsense. The primary and absolutely iron-clad argument is that the event as described is criminal assault.

The entire “he broke blood vessels in his own hand” (which is what a bruise is, last I checked) bit is irrelevant. What IS relevant is that he committed a rather violent assault upon an adult woman. That she was being a twit at the time’s also irrelevant. I’m not allowed to sock you in the face for being a bellowing jackass, and you’re not allowed to ass-kick people who get into the “8 items or fewer” line at the grocery store with 23 items, and you’re not permitted to bitch-slap the numbskull in the airplane who rushes on first even though he’s sitting in the first row and then takes twenty minutes to unsuccessfully try to stuff a huge suitcase into the overhead bin. If your ADULT child won’t live by the rules in your house, then you make them get their own house.

Placing yourself in a “position for retaliation” doesn’t justify crimes. You’re placing yourself in a position to get robbed if you leave your house unlocked; that doesn’t excuse the burglar.

Blah blah blah. I had, and have, a terrific relationship with my parents. I could not have asked for a better set; I was truly blessed. And the fact is that the father described in the OP committed a criminal and despicable act.

This nonsense you’re spewing about how people are channeling their anger from their own lousy upbringings is just an attempt to distract from the simple facts. Some things are right are some are wrong, and beating your adult child is wrong, and that’s that.

80

That’s an impressive little army of strawmen you have there.

I’ve stated my position over and over on the matter, and I’m tapped out. I think the best thing for me to do at this point is just leave it to the wind.

It’s all yours,

Euth