Pitting PKBites

The BBQ Pit
21

The rare smack on the butt when your four-year-old tries to run into the street is probably not going to damage your kid forever, true. And I know there are parents who justify that kind of thing because “you can’t reason with a four-year-old, and it is incredibly important that they be taught that running into the street is dangerous.”

So, while I would never do it myself, I will concede that there are RARE situations where a SMALL slap isn’t going to be damaging.

Much beyond that, though - yes, it does damage kids forever. Or at least, it damages their relationship with their caregivers, which is pretty much the same thing.

I wasn’t severely abused, in that no one ever burned me with cigarettes or locked me in a closet or starved me or anything like that. But I was hit a lot, with no warning, sometimes with a hickory cane, had objects hurled at me, went to school with broken eyeglasses after a wallop alongside the head, etc. etc.

I resented my mother to her dying day and beyond.

I never once laid a hand on our son and neither did his father. He’s now 23 and has a fantastic, warm relationship with both parents. I wonder why his parental relationships are so different from mine?

(Also, in case it’s a necessary addendum: my son is a productive, contributing member of society. He’s far from perfect but he’s kind, he works hard, and he has stable, caring relationships with others. He’s not a thief, drug addict, spoiled brat, or anything like that.)

22

Haven’t read the original thread but this one made me think of my first marriage when I had to pull my ex off her oldest son (not mine biologically, he was from a previous relationship just to clarify) as she was beating him in the face for not watching his little sister closely enough. He was physically bigger than her by the time he was 14 and couldn’t understand why that wasn’t a reason to treat him like he was a UFC fighter.

Wow. I don’t participate in the political threads because that’s not a rabbit hole I want to go down on a daily basis, I do read them regularly out of interest, but this statement and your other about “liberal wussy ass psychobabble” really puts some of your ideas in those threads in a new light. Eye for an eye right? I’m not sure I disagree with that from a political stance but it makes some statements from you in those threads read a lot more consistently to this lurkers eyes. Might just be me.

FTR, I was raised by a single mother and was only ever spanked once that I can remember. Just a hand, no foreign objects. I’m pretty sure I deserved it at the time looking back. I think my mom did a good job and we still have a very good relationship. I have no kids of my own but I’ve been in the position of caring for several long term as an adult. I couldn’t see myself spanking or “beating” a child out of “disciplinary reasons” or anger. The only times I’ve ever struck a child is when I needed them to stop immediately whatever they were doing such as about to touch a hot stove or walking into a busy street without looking.

23

Plus+ don’t forget that I’ve fathered 3 children. The thrashings could be in the zillions.

24

“Fathered” does not necessarily mean you raised them. Or had any contact with them. Tho I suppose you could have thrashed orphans in order to satiate your bloodlust an/or pad your numbers…

25

I guess “both” is confirmed.

26

This thread confirms that PKBites is an asshole, though how much confirmation was needed is debatable.

27

It’s pretty debatable that it didn’t damage you, given your disturbingly authoritarian ideas. But even if you’re right, that doesn’t make it okay. It’s wrong to hurt your kids - or anyone - whether it damages them forever or not. It’s perfectly possible to raise good kids without hitting them with a tree branch (!) so it’s wrong to do it.

28

Lays hands on his own child, to prove to himself, ‘He’s not a pussy’, is what I’m reading.

It’s somehow okay to get physical with your kid, as long as it’s not as bad as you got it? That’s some big rationalization right there, in my humble opinion.

But the biggest tell; I know it’s wrong, it breeds aggression, but I’m okay with that. I had it worse and I’m not aggressive, except to my own kids.

See, I’m actually interrupting the family legacy. Except I’m not really, I’ve just toned it down so I can be comfortable doing the same shit.

29

Because that is the measure of all things. :roll_eyes:

30

There is. And we slapped our children on the hand, and sometimes swatted their bums. We certainly never left a mark, or, to the best of my knowledge, lingering physical pain. I’m pretty sure it was legal in the liberal states we lived in.

But in retrospect, i regret it.

Well, maybe not the swat to the bum when my son ran into traffic. But literally every other time i think was a mistake. I especial regret slapping my daughter’s hand when she persisted in dropping food off the side of the high chair. In retrospect, i should have just let her do it, but not given her any more food at that sitting. She was investigating the world in a way i should have allowed. :cry:

That being said, i don’t think we were abusive, either. And my best guess is that pkbites was exaggerating, not admitting to illegal child abuse.

31

If you were spanked as a child and you defend the practice with “I was beaten and I turned out okay, ” you really didn’t turn out okay.

I can’t remember where I heard that first.

32

Thing is, you seem to have been permanently affected by it. You say that it makes children more aggressive, and I don’t think anyone could read your posts here and not think you come off as a more aggressive type of person.

In the post itself, you have taken on the odd position that it would make you less valuable as a man (i.e. a wuss or pussy) if you were to admit that physical violence towards children can have long term effects. But the whole idea that it makes them more aggressive comes from the very studies that show that it does have long term effects. It sure seems like you absorbed some of the machismo into your world view.

In other posts, you often don’t seem to know where the line is in wishing violence on your opponents. I also wonder if the “chicken little” aspects of your personality are based on this, as they often seem so over the top. I think of the child who is scared their parents will find out what they’ve done.

I don’t say any of this to belittleyou : because, I have it too. I had the same situation you had. Do I hate my parents for it? No. They didn’t know better. Mom bought book after book on how to deal with children, and it didn’t work (because I had a mental disorder, but they didn’t know that). She read the stuff against spanking, and saw that I didn’t work, while spanking would at least get me to stop in the moment. As I got help for my issues as I got older, they stopped, around the same time as you describe.

Still, I’m sure it did affect me. Why wouldn’t it? Everything else from my childhood has affected my outlook on life. And, well, I know that I have issues with aggression at times. I know that, when I get angry, I want to lash out.

It wouldn’t surprise me if you were better than me. I know that, as a kid, I would hit my sister when I thought she was misbehaving, and I’m pretty sure I learned that from my parents. (And this was, ironically, the point where they were more likely to physically punish me.) And, to this day, my anger results in a desire to punish those who hurt me, which is apparently not as much the norm as I thought. Not everyone has to hold back the desire to hurt someone. They instead want to get away from it or make peace.

That said, I would at least ask that you try not to think of things in terms of being a wuss or pussy anymore. Especially the latter, given the other associations with that word. I almost lashed out at you for using the word “pussy.”

33

“I’m going to exaggerate the violence I committed against children, and then invite people to flame me.” What would we call such messageboard behavior?

34

Even if he’s not referring to severe injury, even in the hypothetical world where it weren’t corporal punishment he was talking about at all, he’s still advocating for random application of discipline. Which is the surest way known to seriously mess up someone’s psyche.

35

My parents never hit/struck/slapped/smacked me or my siblings. In fact it’s kind of a shame I never realized what good parents they were, except in retrospect.

I never hit my kids, it was never a consideration. When my daughter was eight she did something (I don’t remember what) that led to my telling her I was disappointed in her. She cried over that to the point where it got me crying, hugging her, and apologizing for hurting her so.

My kids turned out wonderfully, far better than their parents.

36

The problem I have with that is that this doesn’t align with how he decided to respond in this thread. He could have said “of course I didn’t mean it literally, you dumbasses,” or similar. Instead, his response is to come in and fan the flames some more.

It really reads like he doesn’t have any problem with people believing he abuses his children. And I don’t know anyone like that. I know people who will make the jokes that pkbites made, but not ones who wouldn’t make it abundantly clear that they don’t actually beat their children once a week.

37

Child abuse is learned behavior and it has been proven to be ‘handed down’ from one generation to another. That said, aren’t there programs out there which can help people break the cycle of abuse?

38

The mothers were probably detainees.

39

And don’t forget I never asked them what they wanted for dinner. Not even on their birthday.

Some of you are getting a little too crazy over a whimsical post. I added the ending in jest of anyone who would get upset at those sayings.

40

Whimsical, my ass.