This is the thread where we judge other people's parenting

meant carl's friends tweet, not the tweet jeff posted

My wife spanked our son before I came along. She wasn't comfortable with it, but didn't know what else to do. Now she trots me out as the "big guns", even though I've never laid a hand on him in anger ("...but I'm beginning to think that 10's not too old to start!" is what I say to him).

Anyway, yeah, I wish I could better search facebook timelines for select quotes and comments the few times that I've gotten into it with people about spanking.

Me: Studies show that children who are spanked &c.
Outspoken and Aggressive fb friend: My mom used to beat my ass and I turned out just fine!

-or-

Fb friend: But my cousin was spanked and he turned out fine - he's a POLICE OFFICER!

Lots of successful people were spanked

OJ, bin laden, margaret thatcher, bieber, etc

Friend of mine used to get forced to eat hot mustard as a kid which I thought was way weirder

Oh, hotsaucing. I met a woman once who disciplined her kid like that. I wasn't interested in getting to know her further.

I've known some people whose child discipline style made me wonder if I should have ever known them in the first place.

Yes, but hitler was spanked. And Judas was spanked for the first time just before betraying Jesus.

On an unrelated note, what is the ILX -parenting crew's opinion on walking your kid on a leash?

Depends on where you are. On a regular street? At the park? I think that would be weird. In a crowded public place where there's a risk of becoming separated, we've found one of these harnesses to be valuable.

http://www.daftdaddy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DD-leash.jpg

Like, a shopping mall. A museum.

marcos - the friend is 100% anti-spanking. This is what she is saying, "like spanking just reinforces the notion that you have to be well-behaved all the time, and all the pressure on parents moves them to take a physically violent action toward their kids" and she's saying that it is a bad thing. Basically just pointing out that decisions on how to discipline kids are not made in a vacuum. I'm kind of speaking for her now, but she's into the positive parenting (the no discipline parenting) for her kids so I'm fairly confident that she would not argue that speaking is more effective than other disciplinary measures.

Although I think if you're goal is to keep a child quiet and still on command, spanking probably is most effective. But her, and my, response would be akin to omar's statement, that kids are kids and shouldn't have to be quiet and still out of the parents' fear that they are going to bother other people with their kidness.

lol My dad was made to eat a spoonful of black pepper by the nuns in Catholic school. I didn't realize anyone had done that since 1959.

Physical punishment in parenting is one (very bad, indefensible) thing, the fact that misbehaviour at school would get you caned across your outstretched fingers is another. Outlawed in the UK in the late '80s, I think, but very much a part of life when I was a kid. Kind of astonishing to think about now. Imagine being a British teacher in the '60s or '70s - "yeah, not looking forward to Double Geography with 3C, then there's some marking to catch up on over break - but at least I get to inflict ritualistic ABH on some of the slower kids after lunch". I managed to talk my out of the cane a few times.

Thumpings at home? Yeah, not as bad as many, I'm sure, but it did not do me any good at all.

I wasn't sure whether it was okay to judge this bc maybe there were behavioral issues I wasn't privy to but I saw a kid who must've been 6 or 7 yrs old the other day in a supermarket being pushed around in a stroller which he could barely squeeze into, feet kinda dragging on the floor, and he had a pacifier in his mouth. Maybe there was a good reason for it??

carl xp - got it, i just didn't read it well enough, my error.

You're supposed to get those pacifiers out of their mouth by the time they're one.

We waited (too long) on Henry and lost it right around when he turned 3.

So yeah, 7 would be a bit much, unless there's some other problem happening there.

http://i780.photobucket.com/albums/yy85/jmadisonbiii/tumblr_kvlx1bDrIl1qatq7bo1_500.jpg

btw, here's something i found during that enlightening google image search:

http://thingd-media-ec2.thefancy.com/default/235885787_0f7f7d7e1c01.png

I am pro-kid leash and will probably get one for Ivy when she's toddling because we live on a crazy busy street frequented by asshole drivers and I'm terrified that she'll break away from me run out into traffic. My own fear aside, leashes are cool because then the kid can walk around without having one arm yanked up over her head at all times, and give her a chance to interact with the environment a little more since she has both hands free.

xp caning across the fingers jfc. Although when I was in elementary school, the principal could paddle students unless the parents sent in a note saying that he wasn't allowed to. So fucking weird and awful.

xp I feel like a kid that big in a stroller with a paci must have some developmental issues.

wow a racist pacifier what will they think of next.

a billybobproduct, no less.

We briefly tried a leash with Beeps. She'd do this thing where she'd run and then jump like she's taking off, forcing me to raise up the leash and have her fly past the pavement within inches, like Tom Cruise in that Mission Impossible movie.

carl xp - got it, i just didn't read it well enough, my error.

― marcos, Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:54 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Equally likely that I didn't communicate it very well initially. I've been staying up way too late working lately and I've got mashed potato brains today.

xp holy shit good parenting reflexes!

We haven't got Abby's pacifier out of her mouth. It's a source of conflict between my wife and I. A doctor told us once* that it was okay to let her keep it until she was 4 or 5 and that it may help her breathing, in light of some problems she has with sleep apnea. I view it as reasonable to keep the binkie in at night like a mouthguard. My wife just lets her keep it in all day, which irritates me.

*doctors say ALL KINDS of shit, don't they?

BEEPS

Yeah, that move's awesome. I love action kids.

I'm against physical punishment for kids but singling out certain parenting behaviors (as long as they don't actually pose a serious threat to the child's safety/health) as especially taboo bothers me a lot, and it seems like there's this particular liberal taboo about physical things that I find out of proportion, considering all of the non-physical ways one can seriously harm a child emotionally. In other words, light spanking is something I'm choosing not to do, and that I would encourage others not to do, but it's also something I don't think we should get to the point of legislating against, demonizing parents for, etc. Inconsistent or arbitrary non-physical punishment is going to harm a child a lot more than occasional, controlled, fairly applied physical punishment imo. And getting on the soapbox about these easy, bright line rules is a nice way of avoiding the complexities of good parenting, which is really about a lot more than just not doing these five harmful things.

I was spanked as a kid (between the ages of I dunno, probably 4 and 8 or so?) and never really felt damaged by it or unfairly punished or whatever. My wife, on the other hand, suffered way more serious physical/psychological abuse from her mom and is horrified at the thought of inflicting any similar damage on our children so there's no spanking in our house. Fine with me, whatever. Veronica doesn't get so insanely out of hand that spanking her would do any "good" anyway so it doesn't even really occur to me as an option.

I was also spanked a few times and I find it hard to believe that they have any special significance in my overall childhood. Much worse were times when my dad merely yelled but seemed out of control angry.

And even those, I don't think they were some kind of defining trauma in my life. There are overall things my parents didn't do that I think made a much bigger difference to me than specific momentary things like that that they did do.

Physical punishment should absolutely be legislated against. Yes, you can do bad things to your kids mentally with non-physical punishment, but that doesn't mean that "occasional, controlled, fairly applied" physical punishment is OK, under any circumstance. What is often the case is the spankers are doing the bad shit mentally anyway. Just the threat of violence will fuck with you mentally as a kid. It's goddamn barbaric.

I don't think there's any problem w a kid that is made better by physical punishment of any kind tbh.

I'm not saying it makes physical punishment "OK", I'm saying that parenting is a messy process in which lots of bad things inevitably get done even by well-intentioned parents and we can't be legislating against all of them, that the harm of getting overly involved in people's parenting will outweigh the good while not actually making the parents better parents.

That's such a bizarre argument.

My mother was a counselor (dealt with really fucked-up parents, etc.), and her attitude was that she understood that sometimes a parent could "break" and smack a kid, and she didn't condemn them for that. What she did not go in for was mechanized, routine spankings. Not sure if this was a totally justifiable viewpoint, but it makes sense to me, to some extent. However, seems like the less you can let your kid know that they can "break" you, the better.

That's such a bizarre argument.

― Jeff, Thursday, September 18, 2014 12:22 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
It's not bizarre at all if you have any experience with the interaction between mandated reporters, child welfare services, the legal system, and poor parents

^^

Marriages can be a messy process in which lots of bad things inevitably get done even by well-intentioned spouses. So we shouldn't stop men from smacking their wives around, because it would be getting overly involved in their lives and will outweigh the good while not actually making him a better husband.

yeah I'm with Hurting here

And I say that even having seen that, in some cases, reporting and getting social services involved did a lot of good, so I'm not saying never involve the state in parenting. At least in the Bloomberg era and on, NYC child welfare services seems pretty well run to me and does not jump to easy conclusions. But the times I'm talking about involved pretty severe conduct -- severe physical abuse, severe neglect, or sexual abuse.

oh good we're at the unhelpful analogies stage of the argument

xp

Sure, there is something compelling about the argument "we don't accept assault on an adult, why is it ever ok on a child?" And the answer is "It isn't, but what do you do about it? Fine the parent? Jail them? Take away the child? What do you do with the child?" An adult woman can decide whether to press charges, whether to leave, and if she leaves is at least theoretically capable of living on her own without the spouse, none of which is true for a child. My dad once punched me on the shoulder and left a huge bruise, in a shopping mall. It wouldn't have done me a shred of good if police stepped in.

BTW I retaliated by kicking him in the ass really hard as we were leaving.

I think the thing is that the damage done to a kid by taking them away from their parents (especially given our current child welfare system) is usually worse than whatever their parents are up to.

Yeah, and the good thing in NYC at least is that my impression is they are very hesitant to take away the kids, and that there are other a lot of intervention steps that come first.

this thread took a turn

Yeah, I'm done. Sorry, had a momentary lapse in judgement where I forgot that arguing about anything on the Internet isn't a good idea. Back to cat gifs.

The "I was spanked and turned out fine" argument is dubious because "I am fine" is how we mentally, subconsciously, rationalise our lives and how we act and I imagine that abuse victimes often need to tell themselves they are fine so they can overcome their past. I know I would rather tell myself I turned out OK than have to deal with the everyday psychological problems of domestic abuse.

I'm not making an argument just reporting my own experience. but thanks for being patronizing, that's always a good look.

Is this the most controversial I Love People-Making discussion ever?

I had intended this thread to be jokey (judging other people's parenting is p much nagl and also as a parent its always easy to sympathize with other parents' travails/harried decision-making/exasperation etc.) but things seem to have taken their own course

all started after i merely posted "i think spanking is bullshit"

https://38.media.tumblr.com/aea6154365ff5486049a0c3e837b2a41/tumblr_mk0k416nTW1qkfwf2o1_r1_500.jpg

you all need a spanking