Skid, don’t you think it horribly minimalizes the actual abuse that some people (like yourself) experience, to consistently refer to an infrequent swat on a diapered bottom as child beating? IMO, that’s a bit like calling a ogling glance from a freak on the train RAPE, and then not understanding why actual rape victims get a bit upset.
I wasn’t going to post here as according to a few posters I have no credibilty because I was abused as a child and I spank my child on occasion. Then I decided I have plenty of credibility with myself so here goes. There is a huge difference between the occasional spanking and child abuse. Just as there is a huge difference between raising your voice to your child and the screaming abusive rants some people inflict upon their children. There is also a large difference between an age appropriate timeout and being forced to stand in the corner all night long and without so much as a pee break so the child is forced to pee themselves. Any punishment can go too far.
I was abused as a child. The belt was not a frequent thing as my father liked to use the buckle and I bruise easily so he opted for methods that left no evidence.
He would lock me in my room with no way to go to the bathroom until I would pee myself. Then I would spend some time hanging from the wall by my throat as he berated me for being such a baby.
Once when I was 6ish the kids in the neighhborhood were teasing me mercilessly as I was such a skittish child. I went home and my father found out what happened. He then dressed me in nothing but a diaper and paraded the neighborhood kids in for another round of ridicule.
I will not go into much detail here but I was molested and raped by him for 2 decades.
Now … all of that is indeed abuse. When I become angry with something my child does I walk away. I will not punish her when I am angry. She’s only made me angry with her antics twice …
She has received the occasional swatt on the bottom though. When we sit her in time out she gets up and walks away. So we walk her back. And she walks away again. If we sit in time out with her and hold her she will scream and struggle and flail to get away. I think that is more traumatic than one swatt on the diapered bottom. Taking toys away matters not to her as she finds the play value in everything these days. Redirecting her has not worked in quite some time as she is a determined little girl.
I do explain everything to her when she misbehaves and I take great care to balance that with an equal/greater amount of praise when she is being good.
She has finally (thankfully) grasped the concept of hot thanks to restaurant french fries and a burnt tongue. Now when I tell her the stove is hot she says hot and backs away. I’m not sure how she will learn the concept of electricity and traffic! (I learned about electricity as my father liked to make me lick 9 volt batteries for fun and traffic when I saw a neighborhood kid get hit by a car and thrown 20 feet … these are not appropriate methods to teach a child anything)
Am I wrong to punish her with an occasional spanking (one swatt to a diapered behind) Not in my opinion but I respect that some people think so and have alternate forms of discipline for their children. Am I an abuser who needs to have her children taken away … No and I cannot reconcile with the opinions of people who feel that way. Any punishment can be abusive and where that exact line is I am not sure. I am sure I will make my best effort to always error on the side of caution and not abuse my child.
Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em. You are making yourself look like an ass. No real irony there. And for the record, I’m not trying to “reach you” I’m just offering some advice to you if you do in fact want to “reach” the spankers. Apparently you don’t, you’d rather just hurl insults at them. Because that’s gonna change their parenting styles. :rolleyes:
And for the record, I’ve got a college degree and have been accepted to law school. So your little “disregard her because she’s in high school” comments aren’t packing the same punch, sorry to say. :wally
If that was just a glimpse of what it was like growing up for you, ** tanookie**, I lack words. My deepest sympathies and I’m amazed that you’re getting on with life.
FTR - no I don’t think you spanking your kid is abuse. But as I said, I think there has to be strong laws to protect kids from what happened to you.
Hyperjes got into this a little: The widespread belief that spanking is good makes it infinitely harder for people who are being abused to end the abuse. My mom is a pretty nice person, but when my dad would get out the belt and start hitting my brother and I until we were covered with bruises, she would just go to her room and cry. She thought he was “going too far,” but that can be rationalized into “going a little too far,” which makes it more acceptable. If you are a child and your parent beats you, it is hard to find help because people do not want to believe it. It is much easier for them to simply believe you are being hit like any child should. Also, as a child you are not really sure what is accepted. I thought beatings were pretty much accepted by society, and I would actually lie when asked what had happened if anyone noticed my bruises. I was humiliated that I let myself get beat up by my dad, and I thought the only thing that would come from telling people would be that my humiliation would be more well known. Becoming physically violent with you child is not necessary, and it is certainly not worth dooming many children to abuse.
Nightime,
I think it’s safe to say that that can be the case regardless of whether or not spanking is commonplace. Anything a child grows up with they have the possiblility of seeing as “normal.”
Nighttime, there is a widespread belief that time-outs are a more humane punishment than spanking and most parenting books recommend time-outs as a way to discipline children yet if a child’s time-out is an hour locked in a trunk there is abuse there. Should we render this and all other discipline as unacceptable to spare children from abuse?
Also I have to agree with lezlers about what kids see as normal. I was 10 before I discovered that all daddies did not have their little girls perform sexual acts with them. It was a huge shock to me that this was not normal. All the previous time I felt I was bad for not liking what daddy was doing to me instead of him being bad for what he was doing to me.
I didn’t say I saw it as normal. Part of the reason it was so humiliating was that I knew it was not normal. I was a very small child, always the smallest in all my classes, and I thought it was because I was so small that I kept getting beat up by my dad. Every day I would think “If only I was bigger, I know this would not be happening.” I even blamed myself at times for being so small, or thought that God had made me small just so that I would be an easy target for my dad. I did not think it was normal, and I did not think that my larger classmates were getting beaten up at home. Basically, I thought it was something that only happened to small, weak kids like me, but that it was accepted when it happened.
If there had been widespread belief that violence against your kids was wrong, then I may have understood that it was not my fault, and tried to do something about it. Or someone who noticed my bruises may have decided to do something, instead of just thinking “Oh well, his parents went to far, but they were right in hitting him so I’ll ignore it.”
tanookie, my story was bad - yours is 25x worse. My deepest sympathy and most humble apologies if I seemed insensitive to your plight.
belladonna, I prosecute rapists for a living. PLEASE do not equate rape to any other act. I (obviously) have never been raped but I’ve seen the horror on the faces of its victims. You owe an apology to rape victims. I doubt we see it.
lezzie, you will not make it past second year.
nightime, your story moved me. Unfortunately, many in this thread would do exactly as you wrote. They think hitting is okay but "abuse is going too far. Pity them. They know not what they do…and little children get hurt. They don’t care. If they did they wouldn’t defend hitting children.
gaspode has it right. If you don’t draw a firm line, then criminals will always find the gray area and dance around in it - thumbing their collective nose at the rest of society. Thus, my opinion that spanking=abuse. You can’t hit someone without it being abuse. You can disagree. I won’t change your mind - you won’t change mine.
Fuck you. That was totally uncalled for.
[hijack]lezzie, with skin that thin, you may not make it out of first year. What are you going to do when opposing counsel gets personal in Court?! Curse and scream and cry?! If you can’t respond to a negative attack without getting emotionally upset…whoa. Unless you’re kidding and trying to prove a point. If so, lead on[/hijack]
First off, my name is lezlers, not lezzie. I think there’s a rule on this board against intentionally mispelling someone’s name, by the way.
And I’m not emotionally upset, sorry to dissapoint you. I was simply pointing out that your comment was uncalled for. Which it was.
Somehow I don’t think there will be too big of a problem with attorneys resorting to petty, personal insults about opposing counsel. Unless of course, their case is so weak that they have to (hint). Even if I do have to deal with it, I think I’ll be okay. After all, I’ve dealt with 8 year olds before. :rolleyes:
<sigh> What an emotionally exhausting thread. I’m not sure I’m glad that I’ve read it. I think we need to simply agree that Skid Row has a view of the matter which permits no inbetween values. Skid Row has basically stated outright that he thinks that the administration of corporal punishment to any degree makes that parent a child beater.
Obviously, Skid Row has had some traumatic childhood experiences which reinforce this view. His emotional attachment to this view is such that I don’t think any debate on a messageboard is going to change his classification scheme. Based on this I have to question the continuation of a dialogue with him. Is anything really being accomplished? IMHO, no. Lots of heat on this subject but very little light.
What I want are scientific studies which address the following:
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What are the effects of spanking categorized by frequency? (i.e. Are the effects different if the spanking is done very rarely vs. occasionally? vs. frequently? To what degree? etc.)
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How does the mood of the parent alter these effects? (i.e. if the parent is calm while administering corporal punishment vs. angry while doing so what effect does it have?)
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How do these effects change across culture/socio-economic class/gender lines?
At the very least I believe everyone in this thread can agree that:
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All kids are unique.
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What works with one child won’t necessarily work for another (regardless of whether the topic in question is teaching techniques, discipline, rewards systems or any other way of relating to children you care to name).
What I don’t understand is people in this thread who can’t agree with this statement:
Spanking a child without anger, as a last resort, and without enough force to leave marks is quantitatively and qualitatively different then beating a child bloody.
Sure, I can understand that they still think it’s wrong and wouldn’t do it themselves. However, I can’t understand how they can say that the 2 situations are equivalent when clearly they’re not. But, to tell you the truth, I would rather not get an answer at all then to revive the flames in this thread. I’m going home to hug my children.
Grim
You know what, you self-righteous piece of shit? I HAVE been raped. So you can take your demand for an apology and shove it up your ass. I was trying to make the exact same point that you are attempting to use–unsuccessfully, no less–to make me feel ashamed. That being that labeling even the most minor events in the most heinous way possible is completely disrespectful towards those who have actually been victims. I would never call a leer rape, but you have again and again called a slap on the wrist child abuse or child beating. How about an apology from you for all those victims of true abuse–like tanookie–who have had to sit here and listen to you doing so? I doubt we see it.
belladonna Just consider the source hun. I’ve btdt also and I wasn’t offended by your comment. I was OBVIOUSLY smart enough to read it as it was. ** Skid row** OBVIOUSLY didn’t as usual.
belladonna, sorry, I don’t believe you. That was a little too convenient. I may get flamed big time, but I can see a lie like that amile away.
pencilpusher, you still gaven’t made it to your second month. Go home.
leslie, oops! lezlers (sorry). Get a grip. You are eons away from being a good attorney. Get over yourself.
grim, I can’t disagree. I’m finished.
This is the kind of line I intend to use should I ever need to avoid jury duty.
As a bit of trivia, the thousand-yard convenience here was set up a year ago. Which just goes to show how devious some people are, I suppose.
This thread has made me reflect on how one of the most horrible aspects of childhood abuse is the ongoing transmission of suffering that it projects far, far beyond the immediate pain. God help this world.
:eek:
You. Mother. Fucking. Asshole.
Isn’t about time Skid Row got his very own pit thread?
I thought about doing it myself, but I’m in the first trimester of my pregnancy and my energy level is very low.
Someone more witty, venomous, clever, angry, and energetic than I am… please have at him.