Spanking.
All for it.
Beating.
Not for it.
Personal observation here. Unfounded, unproven, just 20+ years of actually observing the world around me. It goes as follows:
I recall when the Great No Spanking Movement swept through the United States, backed up by assorted books which seemed to sail off of the pressed overnight. (Astonishing isn’t it, that writers of good books have to fight to get in print, but once a fad hits, every schmuck who can plagiarize anyone else on the topic gets nearly a best seller?) I loudly proclaimed back then that it was all a bad idea, but was ignored.
A kinder, gentler USA was in the works. Since then, over decades, I’ve observed the increase in selfish attitudes in kids, who become adults, who own or run businesses who no longer care about workers or customers. I’ve seen an increase in violent acts by children, an increase in child gangs, an increase in juvenile delinquency, a decrease in parental control, school authority, respect for the law, respect for each other and a decrease in the ability to obey and respect authority. I’ve also observed an increase in the popularity of music which promotes rape, murder, drugs, abuse, killing cops, selling drugs and gangs.
I was whipped as a child – for damn good reasons and learned not to do certain things. I was never beaten. I recall my sister as a small child going into a tantrum, screaming, kicking, shrieking and all of that and my mother warned her to knock it off. She wouldn’t. My mother picked her up, swatter her hard on the ass and told her now she had something to cry about.
The next time she pulled a tantrum, my mother warned her once and she stopped.
When I was a teen and full of myself, I swore at my Mother in my Father’s presence during an argument. My Dad smacked me open handed across the mouth – no blood or bruising but a hell of a sting – and warned me never to talk that way to my Mother again. I never have. We were taught that stealing is not a good thing and being mean towards others wasn’t either.
I shot my brother in the eye with one of those cork shooting pop guns – minus the cork but the air jet hurt. My mother removed the pop gun, swatted me on the ass pretty hard, sent me to my room and explained why shooting people in the eye was a bad thing. My brother suffered no injury.
I got into a squabble with my sister when I was young and smacked her one and made her cry. I got swatted by my father hard enough to make me cry and told that smacking one’s sister was a bad thing. So, the next time we argued, I shoved her and she fell and cried and my dad swatted me hard enough to make me cry and explained that hurting my sister in any way was a bad thing.
In the next argument, being young, I screamed shrilly at her, which made her cry (she cried a lot, my sister), and I got sent to my room without being spanked.
(I was such a peach at 9.)
I know a woman with a problem boy who does not hit. He does as he pleases. She sends him to his room and he walks out to play with his friends. She has the cops bring him home and threaten him and when they leave, he cusses her out and does as he wants. She threatened to swat him and he threatened to call the cops if she did.
Me, my brothers and my sister have no police records. All of us have been to college. The close friends I grew up with whose parents did not practice the no spanking method have no police records. Most of the acquaintances of my era have no police records.
Almost every new acquaintance I’ve met lately who has a young family with children have, in my opinion, some serious behavioral problems. I’ve been in homes where the kids act up at the dinner table, where they talk back to Mom and dad, where they walk out swearing, and even where they wear their stinking backwards baseball caps to supper.
A young child tests the parental authority. Talking and time out doesn’t solve the problem. A kid who insists on getting into mommys make up will keep right on doing so until they get a mild smack on the ass and told why they got that smack. Then they know Mom and Dad mean business.
A girl I know with a teen told him not to ride his bike inside on her wooden floors. (Like he had to be told?) When she went out, he not only rode his bike inside but did wheelies and left black marks. She did not believe in spankings. She yelled at him. He cussed her out and left. She told him not to hang with some trouble makers. He did and got in trouble. She got him out. She grounded him. He went out anyhow. Talks did no good. She took away his allowance, so he stole money from her and anyone else. He was sent to a therapist – and refused to cooperate. HRS could do nothing. The cops could only do something if he broke the law.
So, what is the solution? More chats? How about some time outs? Uh, how will she enforce the time outs? Restriction? He ignores those.
I went to visit her once when he was there and I’m kind of big, but not that big. He was a pain in the ass while I was trying to talk to his Mom. Then he tried to pick my pocket while I was distracted and I caught him at it and deliberately almost wrung his hand off of his wrist.
He never bothered me again when I went to visit. In fact, he was quite polite.
Stimulus and response. Bad things bring a measure of pain. Individuals tend to avoid pain so they associate doing bad things with pain and avoid doing such things.
