Invitation to all child-beaters

The BBQ Pit
1

I wouldn’t dream of telling you (in this thread, anyway) how counter-productive, uncivilized, brutal, offensive, immoral, sadistic, bullying, or cowardly it is to chastise your weak and defenseless children physically, but I would like you to share with everyone the last occasion upon which you found it necessary to hit a child.

Under “hit” I am specifically including all (that I can think of, anyway) deliberate physical contact you had with a child in order to cause the slightest physical pain intended to teach that child anything at all. This includes spankings, swats, decapitations, whippings, and light taps of your forefingers on a child’s hand. If you’re ashamed of doing this (we all have our lapses) and if there was no lasting result, and if you’ve already apologized to your child for losing your self-control, and made it right to him or her somehow, there’s no point to your replying to this thread, but if it’s something you’re still pleased with yourself for having done, I’d be interested in knowing some details:

exactly what the child did to provoke your assault

how old the child was

whether your physical response was immediate, or whether you considered carefully all of your possible options

how you decided on the exact duration of the punishment–i.e. only three slaps, or using a open palm instead of a closed fist.

Whether you were dispassionate in adminstering the punishment, or in a state of emotional turmoil yourself

What you felt would surely be accomplished by physical chastisement that mere verbal or non-painful punishment (deprivation of privileges, grounding, etc.) could never accomplish

Whether you’re satisfied that your desired lesson was learned

2

Does it still count if the child in question wasn’t ours? I don’t think I ever met that bastard’s parents.

3

Yeah, because we didn’t already do this in 5 other threads, including the one in the Pit that was started about you.

Mind your own damn business.

4

exactly what the child did to provoke your assault: We were going to play chess. He held out his hands, one of them with a white pawn hidden in it.

how old the child was: eight

whether your physical response was immediate, or whether you considered carefully all of your possible options: Immediate; it didn’t occur to me to try anything other than what I did

how you decided on the exact duration of the punishment–i.e. only three slaps, or using a open palm instead of a closed fist.: It seemed the right thing to do; I tapped his hand, and he opened it, showing that I had failed to select the hand with the pawn in it.

Whether you were dispassionate in adminstering the punishment, or in a state of emotional turmoil yourself: No particular emotional turmoil.

What you felt would surely be accomplished by physical chastisement that mere verbal or non-painful punishment (deprivation of privileges, grounding, etc.) could never accomplish: We’d find out who got to make the first move

Whether you’re satisfied that your desired lesson was learned: Yes, I am.

FTR, I’m still curious exactly how tapping my son on the hand with my index finger counts as child-beating, but if that’s how all the cool kids are defining it these days, count me in.

What do I win?

5

I think that someones going to have a really bad head in the morning.

6

Is this going to be a serious open minded discussion of the pro’s and con’s of spanking, or are you asking parents who spank to paint a target on their own forehead for you?

7

We didn’t.

Up yours.

8

A laugh from me.

You cheated, though. I don’t think you intended to cause the slightest physical pain to the child. I held my daughter’s hand firmly when we crossed the street, and don’t classify that as qualifying under the description I set out in OP.

9

For my part, I intend a serious open-minded discussion of spanking, in which I hope to understand the people who choose to spank a little better, and in which I also hope that by describing their situations that led to the spanking, some of them might see alternatives that would have worked just as well if not better. My own personal view is that the vast majority of spankings are outbursts of temper on the parents’ part, and if they were prevented somehow from acting on impulse at the moment, the non-violent path might have been followed. But we’ll see.

I do find it interested that Doors is so defensive about his child-rearing practices, and claims that this has been discussed when, as far as I can remember, we haven’t touched upon any of these questions yet in any thread. (I admit I haven’t opened some Corporal Punishment threads. If this has been discussed in any thread I have yet to participate in, I apologize to Airman Doors.)

10

Well, assuming he spanks/thinks that spanking is ok, you did refer to him as “counter-productive, uncivilized, brutal, offensive, immoral, sadistic, bullying, or cowardly”.

11

I’ve never actually hit a child. But not for a lack of trying! They’re just too damned fast for me.

But seriously, although I don’t have kids of my own, I can relate the last time I was spanked. I remember it pretty clearly. I was about nine or so, and my friend and I got in a water fight. Indoors. In front of my dad’s bookcase. Soaked it pretty good, as I recall. Dad was plenty pissed. Which is saying a lot, as he’s incredibly even tempered. He put me over his knee and walloped the hell out of my butt. They were open-handed smacks, although I don’t recall how many I got. Then he did the same for my friend.

Was the lesson learned? I’ll say it was. To this day, the idea of deliberately damaging a book is almost impossible for me to contemplate. I never throw away a book unless it’s so worn out it’s impossible to read anymore. I’m not saying the attitude was solely because of that one spanking: my parents instilled a reverence for books in me as part of my general upbringing. The spanking certainly put a particular emphasis on it, though.

Now, all that being said, anyone who characterizes that incident as, “counter-productive, uncivilized, brutal, offensive, immoral, sadistic, bullying, or cowardly,” is, not to put too fine a point on it, a fucking moron. Or, more probably, pretty spineless himself. There are worse things in the world than a little pain, even in the realms of childhood experience. I mean, if you’d asked the nine-year-old me if I’d rather have a paddling, or not be allowed to watch TV for a week, I’d take the paddling in a heartbeat. It hurt, sure, but Jesus, no Scooby Doo for a week? That would be torture.

12

If your intention is to encourage parents who use corporal punishment to reconsider their choice in favor of less traumatic methods of discipline, I suggest you choose a different method of argument; the shaming, bullying tone of your OP is probably about as damaging as a smack upside the head.

13

Ask him to lasso you the moon while you’re at it. I’m actually on PRR’s side of the spanking debate, but he’s proven in the other threads that he is unable to post without adopting a needlessly combative and insulting tone.

14

My point exactly.

15

So, you admit there’s no practical difference between moderate corporal punishment, and other forms of discipline?

16

You might consider that your own personal view is heavily biased if you really think you have good reason to say the “vast majority” are temper outbursts. When I was a kid and I earned a spanking, it never happened on impulse or in the moment. I was told to go to my room to think about what I did and wait for Dad, who would be up at 6:00 to give me a spanking.

You probably don’t help your own cause by lumping this type of rigorously dispassionate (and never brutal) punishment in with those who lash out in anger or savagely assault children.

17

No you don’t. If you did you wouldn’t have opened it with “I wouldn’t dream of telling you (in this thread, anyway) how counter-productive, uncivilized, brutal, offensive, immoral, sadistic, bullying, or cowardly it is to chastise your weak and defenseless children physically, but I would like you to share with everyone the last occasion upon which you found it necessary to hit a child”.

I have nothing to hide, but I find it loathesome that you imply that people who don’t think like you are bad parents. I can picture you with phone in hand waiting to call the cops or CPS every time a parent disciplines a child in a manner that you do not approve of. I know your type, you know better than everybody else how to raise a child. Well, like I said before, mind your own damn business.

18

Well, if he disagrees, as I suspect he might, let him come in here holding his head up proudly and discuss those practices that I find so thoroughly uncivilized. It is kind of chickenshit to say “I do it, but I don’t want to talk about it,” don’t you think?

19

Sorry, beating a defenseless child is very much my business. If it’s so admirable a practice, why not do it openly, or at least discuss it openly? Because you’re afraid you’ll get arrested? If it’s something you’re sure is legal, you’ll beat the rap.

20

Agreed 100%. If he were truly interested in a debate, he wouldn’t have posted in such a confrontational manner. Nor would he have posted in the Pit.

He might as well have asked us when we stopped beating our wives. He’s not interested in debate, he’s here to accuse.