What disturbs me about this post isn’t the advocacy of corporal punishment - it’s the advocacy of random corporal punishment unlinked to a specific offense, or a manufactured offense used as an excuse for a beating.
That a textbook red flag indicator of abuse. When my father would read stories about serious child abuse, he would sometimes say “I sincerely hope no child of mine would be weak-willed enough to let anyone do that to them” - being fully aware of the many ironies in that statement. My did was pretty cool.
I did get spanked sometimes though, not beaten……just spanked. The lesson and the only lesson I learned from punishment was “Don’t get caught”. I took that lesson to heart and became a person that was very good at getting away with stuff because I didn’t get caught.
I learned my morals and values and stuff via positive reinforcement- what I learned through punishment was how to do bad things without getting caught.
Given what I know about hunter-gatherer societies, I seriously doubt that. The Bushmen don’t practice corporal punishment and view it as a strong taboo, in fact.
Child abuse is funny? My father may have laughed as he hit me repeatedly with a razor strop, leaving welts on my ass, back and legs, but I don’t seem to recall laughing along with him. Yelling, screaming and occasionally blacking out…but no laughing.
You can read a bit about how child discipline in the !Kung works in this paper, and I’ll say it all jibes with my own limited experience.
Key paragraph:
The ready accessibility of other people in the camp means that the
mother is protected from being badgered by her child until she loses control of her own temper.This circumstance is unfortunately very common in
our own society, with its nuclear family households and residence arrangments which confer what is probably an unhealthy degree of privacy on
parents and children. In the !Kung case, parents are not likely to reach the
point of abusing their children, but in the unlikely event that someone did
abuse a child, other people would immediately step in.
The stated pro-beating theory would have you believe that in the moment their reasoning is, “my child was behaving inappropriately, and after carefully considering several possible responses, I decided that a beating was the best method to correct the inappropriate behavior.” When actually it is more “my child was behaving inappropriately, and then I lost my temper, lost control of myself, and hit my child. Now I am justifying that action so I don’t come across as the bad guy.”
The pro child beating side is making rationalizations to justify their behavior when they lose control. Back to the what are things that non-parents cannot understand thread, you can get angry and frustrated with your own kids in ways you had never before imagined or experienced with another person. Keeping your cool when confronted with those emotions is very difficult, especially when you don’t know any other strategies.
Another extract, unrelated to children, that I think might be of interest to both of you and anyone else who’s participated in those ATMB get-rid-of-the-Pit threads (on either side, @DemonTree) :
Given their propensity for living in such close quarters, it seems that the !Kung readiness to air grievances earlier rather than later is highly adaptive. When a person feels affronted, he
or she can talk about it, usually at a time and in a way when practically everyone in camp will also hear the complaint. In this way a person’s pique is publicized and in some measure vented. Other people become involved, and the weight of frustration does not lie with the individual alone.
Now, does that kind of social system seem familiar? “Older than dirt”, indeed.
It strongly depends on the punishment, how it’s administered, and the context.
I don’t have much problem with a swat on the butt to interrupt behavior. I have little problem with a policy of 10 spanks if you run in the street, if it’s an immediate drama-free cause-and-effect situation. I personally wouldn’t do these things, but I don’t think they’re automatic trauma.
Where you get in trouble is:
Inconsistent enforcement
Constant atmosphere of impending violence
Parent is working out their anger instead of modifying behavior
Accompanied by abuse, belittlement, or sexual contact (bare buttocks is getting close to sexual contact)
Accompanied by other psychodrama (just wait until your father gets home in 3 hours).
I was subjected to Roy Lessin type spanking ceremonies. This is a protocol intended to ritualize the violence so that it doesn’t seem impulsive or aggressive or vengeful, thereby minimizing the parent’s feelings of guilt. I can tell you that to a child, it all feels the same way. It teaches a lesson that it’s OK to hurt weaker people who love and need you, as long as you say the right magic words while you’re doing it. The long-term psychological effects aren’t great.
Oh yeah, fuck pkbites and anybody who glories in beating their children, you pathetic microdick bully. Great job confirming the truth of what everybody says about cops.
So how often did you beat your children, if not weekly? I mean, let’s put the hilarious, whimsical, dare I say puckish bon mots of your papa aside. Were you actually a serial abuser, or were you just pretending to be to get a rise out of people?
I’m sorry to say that your upbringing sounds very similar to mine. I still have visceral reactions to men being upset or angry anywhere near me. I’m glad to say that I’ve never broken a plate glass window by slamming my kid into it, but neither have most parents. It’s a low bar.
I know I’m not a perfect parent, but I’ve made sure that my kids know that I love them. They’re growing up just fine.
For fuck’s sake, can we drop it with this phrase? Women aren’t weak. Labelling someone a woman shouldn’t be an insult. You may not be a pussy, but you sure achieve “asshole” on the regular.
Yeah, if I’m looking for an insult for someone who tries to act all hard but who shrivels up under the first indication of danger, or even if it’s a mite chilly, I’m thinking of a different insult.
Violence isn’t funny, but cartoon violence certainly can be. Is there such a thing as “cartoon child abuse”? Eh… maybe? I’m reminded of the verse from Alice in Wonderland:
Speak roughly to your little boy
And beat him when he sneezes.
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases.
I’m fortunate enough not to have been a victim nor an observer of actual child abuse, so I’m perhaps less likely to be triggered and more open to seeing remarks like @pkbites’s as an attempt at humor (which is not to say I think the attempt was successful or should have been made). Child abuse, like rape, is not impossible to joke about, but you’re walking into a minefield if you try.