Rubystreak, thank you for the correction. My apologies for reporting you to PETA. I would put a smilie face here, but elucidator frowns upon their use.
’luci! You got some ‘splainin’ to do! (Though sadly, the imagery makes more sense now…)
Hentor! Welcome home, you old Barbarian! I’ve been missing you!
Aha! So you did get the memo!
Seriously, I thought about putting “child-hitting” instead of “child-beating” to see if that brought out a different response. I don’t know how I feel about child “spanking” because I’m not sure what it means. I do know that when my granddaughter was five months old and was reaching for an electric outlet, I swatted her bottom. I did it without thinking. That’s the only time I’ve ever hit her and it still bothers me. She’s almost nineteen years old now. I know that it didn’t do any damage to her — just me.
I was a beaten child – abused with a belt and with slapping and hitting. The beatings continued until I was a seventeen year old woman. I could have taken the belt away from her, but I had been taught to honor my mother. My father never struck me and I didn’t realize that he didn’t know that she was abusing me. I didn’t know that this wasn’t normal. (And from what I know now, it did go beyond accepted practices of that time.)
As a teacher, I was asked by a parent to paddle a their daughter. It turned my stomach. I was also asked by a principal to paddle a female student. (Males were not allowed to paddle female students.) I gave her the usual three licks. He said I didn’t hit her hard enough. I refused to ever paddle a student again. I never asked that a student be paddled. Corporat punishment is not allowed in our local school system now.
I believe in firm discipline, but appropriate discipline. Violence teaches violence.
As for those welfare fathers, I just never see them mentioned as issues of concern. It’s always welfare mothers. Keep an eye out for it and notice it yourself.
Most of the conservatives here have been very kind to me – yourself included.
Pax
