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

Oh man. One of the stories was that Mr. Horton had holes drilled into his paddle to decrease wind resistance while another one said he somehow had rigged up an electric paddle.

My mom had made it known that I was not to be punished capitally without a face-to-face visitation first, so I basically walked around elementary school like one of those South Africans in Lethal Weapon 2, boasting of my diplomatic immunity.

Good lord, punished corporally.

Not limited to Florida, or a bygone era.

http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/expansive-survey-americas-public-schools-reveals-troubling-racial-disparities
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/education-under-arrest/school-to-prison-pipeline-fact-sheet/

teachers spanking kids, now *that* is something that should be outlawed

we had the holes story too. I saw the paddle once, I saw no holes.

also the word was that you had to drop your drawers & get the spank bare-assed, which seems...problematic. not sure if that was true?

I was not to be punished capitally

I lol'd

I grew up in a house where spankings were administered but the line got real blurry between whether you had actually done something that deserved a spanking or if you just happened to be in the way when mum was having a bad day

to a kid there's no difference, either way they walk away believing they deserved it

for me THAT's why spanking is bullshit

 I basically walked around elementary school like one of those South Africans in Lethal Weapon 2, boasting of my diplomatic immunity.

Irl lol

or if you just happened to be in the way when mum [or dad] was having a bad day

Would say it's this in 99.85 percent of the cases.

The holes and electric paddle legend were rampant in the elementary schools I attended, too.

Opposite in my case- it was a smack on the hand or butt, which was probably extremely light but the *fear* of it was the worst. Getting a plastic ruler smack on the hand was the worst punishment. It was never uncontrolled or lashing out or 'violent'.

I'm not exactly for spanking kids but I think this is the most acceptable way? I was never scared I was gonna get thumped for no reason, or anything.

this article has a map (that I can't figure out how to embed here) showing which US states still permit corporal punishment. the states that do...will not surprise anyone.

i'm with Jeff on this one. i don't see why a child's rights should be any less than an adults although what can be done about it, i don't know. spanking has zip to do with discipline and a whole lot to do with the parents own anger issues/immaturity. teach a child that the correct response to not getting your way is violence and that's exactly what they'll teach their children. or maybe they'll just stab mom and dad to death in their sleep. (j/k sorta)

obviously there is a spectrum here and education is far more helpful than removing the children in the majority of cases.

and Veg totally OTM

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.

― boxedjoy, Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think part of what I'm getting at is that growing up is a little more complicated than a dichotomy of "abuse victim" vs. "turned out ok." Also this is a pretty insulting suggestion.

itt a shit-ton of condescending white ppl (and marcos)

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/16/the_racial_parenting_divide_what_adrian_peterson_reveals_about_black_and_white_child_rearing

That's a good article. Thanks.

IANAP but the 'i turned out fine' argument or the 'it's something that hardly stuck with me' both seem like weird arguments in support of hitting kids: do you really think you would have turned out so much less fine if you hadn't been hit by your parents? if it made such a little impact on your life in the long run, what was the point of using it over other discipline methods? pretty much me and all my friends were physically abused to some degree growing up. our parents considered it 'discipline' but it was definitely abuse - uncontrolled, anger-driven, designed to humiliate as much as punish, belts/kettle cords/shoes/hairbrushes often used in place of an open hand, faces/heads the target as often as the butt/back of the legs.

but who is handing out spanking permissions to parents? oh yes, you're ok to spank your kids bc you don't do it in anger and you don't leave marks, and you only do it as a last resort. nope, you're not allowed to spank bc you have anger management issues and use it for every little indiscretion your kid commits.

dan, i know you've talked about this before, and it's great that as a kid who was spanked you turned out totally awesome - but how much less awesome do you honestly think you would be if you just hadn't been spanked? i'm truly not judging your parents - since clearly the spanking had no negative effect on you, and it wasn't abusive - and i know you posted on ned's fb thread that none of your friends had had the experience of being so abused. but consider that a lot of ppl do not ever discuss how badly they were physically abused as children, even with close friends. and i'm not gonna cast any judgment your way if you decide to spank kids, bc you are clearly not the kind of father who use it abusively.

i don't really want to go into how negatively it affected me growing up, but i will say that being physically abused is a contributing factor to why i don't want kids - i know i'm capable of the same behavior as my mother and bc of her i don't trust myself to manage my anger around my own small child.

i guess my point is: where does the line get drawn? how do kids see that line?

i really don't want to come across as condescending bc obviously i don't have kids and don't plan to, and i think every single one of you seem like you're doing amazing jobs raising awesome kids, and i wish my parents had been half as good as any of you.

I may be condescending but I'm as white as marcos iirc

I think the "This is the thread where we judge other people's parenting" thread is the ideal place to be condescending.

'i turned out fine' argument or the 'it's something that hardly stuck with me' both seem like weird arguments in support of hitting kids

literally no one on this thread has argued this. thanks for your non-parenting 2cents.

I was also spanked a few times and I find it hard to believe that they have any special significance in my overall childhood.

thanks for your non-parenting 2cents.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, September 18, 2014 3:13 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NAGL

i don't really want to go into how negatively it affected me growing up, but i will say that being physically abused is a contributing factor to why i don't want kids - i know i'm capable of the same behavior as my mother and bc of her i don't trust myself to manage my anger around my own small child.

I mean you don't need to be a parent to be a voice of experience here...

saying you were not negatively impacted by spanking /= I AM ALL FOR SPANKING YUP LET'S HAVE IT, YOU OVER THERE I'MA SPANK YOU

and that's why a lot of ppl who were abused as children don't like to talk about it. and i think you're taking what i said and making it hyperbolic.

i mean, you just posted that your wife was physically abused and as a result absolutely won't spank your kids. so i don't really get why you're giving me such a hard time.

literally no one on this thread has argued this. thanks for your non-parenting 2cents.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, September 18, 2014 4:13 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was also spanked a few times and I find it hard to believe that they have any special significance in my overall childhood.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Thursday, September 18, 2014 4:16 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Um, maybe you should read my prior post where I said "I am against physical punishment of kids" -- where exactly did I argue in favor of spanking as a parenting technique?

so i don't really get why you're giving me such a hard time.

strawman arguments not helpful ime

xxxxxpost good article DJP...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/adrian-peterson-corporal-punishment-science_n_5831962.html

Actually what you said was "I am against physical punishment of kids but..." and then a paragraph of equivocation that stepped right up to the line of saying "spanking your kids is ok" without actually saying it.

I honestly took Hurting's comments to not say so much that "spanking your kids is ok" but "child service detectives shouldn't police every single act of corporal punishment."

But that was a few hours ago and I haven't slept much since then.

multiple xposts to just1n3:

Honestly? If I hadn't been spanked, my shoplifting phase might not have ended when I was 5, and considering that I lived in a regressive small town/exurb with a bored police department that looked for excuses to do something, there's a chance that I would have washed out of the gifted program in junior high and been dumped in the truant pile.

I mean, we're talking about a town/school district where in middle school I got several days of detention that involved cleaning the cafeteria for defending myself when a bunch of my classmates decided to spit on me. What would have happened to me if I hadn't been a "good kid" and was still shoplifting at that point? These are the questions I ask myself when I look back on my parents' discipline methods. I can't speak from the perspective of someone who has suffered abuse because I didn't suffer abuse.

Could my parents have raised their kids without corporal punishment? Sure. We were all smart children and, generally speaking, inclined to be good. Would my family have been granted the same leeway to parent without corporal punishment as an equivalent white family? I really fucking doubt it, and I really fucking doubt it to this day, and the fact that it doesn't statistically make things safer for black children is a fucking black eye for this country's values, and the blithe glossing over of those inherent issues going on in this thread and pretty much everywhere else I see corporal punishment discussed enrages me and reminds me that there's a little Mary Dalton lurking in the hearts of most of my white associates.

(I didn't suffer parental abuse, I should say)

Serious Q: who is Mary Dalton? Google was no help.

The daughter from Native Son

thx, get it now

Suffering abuse definitely clouds my views on spanking so it's probably better for me to hang back & let others weigh in... all of the stuff that has come up in the last two weeks has raised some ugly memories and it makes it a much more emotional issue for me than perhaps is even warranted itt

I recall being spanked twice as a kid. Thinking back on that, my dad's version of spanking didn't hurt. Like, cause no actual physical discomfort, much less some sort of physical harm. It certainly got my fucking attention, which is why I remember the two times it happened! Does it make a difference whether the "spanking" act actually makes a kid hurt, physically? I honestly don't know, IANAP and will never have a dog in this fight.

thanks for your non-parenting 2cents.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, September 18, 2014 3:13 PM

i'm an avowed non-parent and found this extremely shitty. just to put my 2cents in, thanks

Ok... I do have a little bit more to say here, more to get it out of my head than anything

My Mum doled out all punishment in our household. We were spanked, and a great many of those times well within the corporal-punishment-in-the-home handbook because we were pretty unruly kids

But then you mix all of that in with being given a blood nose for leaving a wet towel on the floor...Mum throwing a punch when she decides that a lighthearted family tickle fight has gone too far...cuts on your face from Mum's wedding ring after a well-timed backhand

That's all one experience of corporal punishment. It *was* abuse, and it was simultaneously also punishment meted out for swearing, bad behaviour, stealing, lying etc.

I can't tell you that I turned out worse. I won't say I turned out better. But I will say that I can't recommend it personally because it confused the fuck out of me and it scared me.

Personally, I can't view Corporal Punishment vs Abuse as an either/or proposition because it was all the same thing for me as a kid & it took me a long time to learn that there was even a difference.

No shade on anyone's childhood experience or current parenting methods. I just had to get that out of my head somewhere, release the steam etc

But I am glad that the opinions voiced here have made me think about my experience in new ways. Yr all good eggs imo

VG I think it's safe to say that none of us think what happened to you is ok and I'm sorry you went through it.

I won't spank my kids. I've hit Aidan a few times and that was when my anger got the better of me and he was hitting me, and I felt like shit as soon as I did it. I was hit as a child and it made a big difference to how I grew up. I wasn't a naughty child, I didn't like being told off, but if I was being told off and got upset then my dad would give me 'something to cry about'. Now I realise that he has a problem dealing with emotion but that didn't help me at 5 years old. Obviously my issues aren't just over spanking but dealing with emotion, but until I had kids I just assumed that I would parent the same way. When it came to it though I just couldn't do it, that it wasn't about disciplining but about making me feel better, and I didn't want my children to feel how I did.

How's about this for judging, my sister spanks, and I hate being there when she does, because she doesn't do it on the spur of the moment she warns her daughter that she's going to do it, and I know exactly how her daughter feels. I feel the hopelessness of her situation, and also see the resentment that will build up and get in the way of her relationship with her mum, as I saw it happen between my sister and our mum, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Justin3 and Veg, your stories are heart-breaking and sad, and made me think harder about my knee-jerk stance which was, "spanking your kids is fine and sometimes necessary if they don't respond to more reasonable, mature forms of discipline." Like, maybe the potential for it to cross the line into abuse is too great, so it shouldn't be fine? But still, it does kinda rankle because I feel like my parents were pretty awesome, and people on this thread essentially say, "no no your parents were barbaric and abusive because they spanked you."

What DJP said here is pretty close to my feelings about having been spanked as a kid:
Honestly? If I hadn't been spanked, my shoplifting phase might not have ended when I was 5, and considering that I lived in a regressive small town/exurb with a bored police department that looked for excuses to do something, there's a chance that I would have washed out of the gifted program in junior high and been dumped in the truant pile.

in my case it wasn't shoplifting but stealing things from my classmates in order to fit in with "the cool girls" in 2nd grade.

Dan, that's a great article and an aspect to this discussion I had only been dimly aware of before. Thank you.

in DJP's last post I don't understand the following question: "Would my family have been granted the same leeway to parent without corporal punishment as an equivalent white family?" Can you explain that further for me?

we grew up battered but it was far from the worst we dealt with tbph. we were badly raised kids and subsequently a nightmare to manage, but iirc- I may not- the intent was merely to punish/seek revenge for our behaviour (or oftentimes our parents' unhappiness) than any real attempt to manage us.

I don't and won't have kids but don't think a swipe on the arse is the same thing- nothing like the same thing - as the higher levels of physical abuse detailed by some ITT, and especially not in the context of a safe, happy and structured family upbringing.