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

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.

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?

First, read the article I linked upthread.

Now, consider this: in society in general, if a black child and a white child are misbehaving in exactly the same way, which child is likely to get the harsher punishment? Which child's parents are more likely to be contacted by an authority figure, whether that be a manager at a store, a teacher or administrator at school or an officer of the law? If this misbehavior happens in public and the parents are present and the discipline is non-corporal, which family is more likely to continue to get disapproving glares and/or comments?

Before answering, remember that we are talking about a society where people came together to hold rallies and fundraisers for a police officer who killed an 18-year-old black male for jaywalking.

So you're talking about leeway as "avoiding disapproving glares", ok I understand. I wasn't sure what kind of "leeway" you meant, whether you had something legal or otherwise compulsory in mind. That's a good point.

Oh you mean contacted by authorities too.

I don't follow how corporal punishment is involved here though: are you taking for granted that it's more effective at curbing bad behaviors than non corporal options? I don't take that for granted.

all serious study indicates that spanking & worse forms of "corporal punishment" (one ought to say "physical" imo, at the least) are ineffective; arguments in its favor are almost entirely anecdotal, along the "it happened to me & I'm ok" line. you'd have to live life twice to say whether a parent who spanked you might have gotten better results by finding some way of communicating / disciplining that didn't involve physical punishment, but again, what studies we have on this say that it does more harm than good, and that what good it does is really questionable.

HAVING SAID THAT, the "acting up will get you killed" argument in that Salon article is really potent; if I thought my son might act up and get shot, would I then say "spanking is needed to make him understand that acting up has physical consequences"? Impossible for me to say; in this town, my son's not going to get profiled. But it's a compelling argument that feels much better than the very common "my parents hit me a lot, and I don't consider myself fucked up, so I plan on hitting my kids" horror that I've been seeing cresting my Facebook feed for the past week.

I was joking with my brat of a kid again last night "you KNOW you're not too old for me to start spanking you, right?"

He says "oh yeah, [girl from down the street] was spanked growing up. That's why she's so well-behaved. DISCIPLINE." Firmly smacks his hand into his other hand, looking me in the eye. "DISCIPLINE."

hahaha

how's life, based on everything you've posted, I'm a fan of this kid.

I read the article and it's helping me see things more clearly. But one thing I don't see is, as aero put it, is: "spanking is needed to make him understand that acting up has physical consequences." Why is it NEEDED? Why be so sure that no non-physical option will work?

Oh come now.

i think it's an interesting question.

Ok, if you prefer: what reason is there to think that physical punishment is a more effective means to make a child understand that acting up has physical consequences, than non-physical punishment?

I say this as a Latino father of three.

Michael Eric Dyson. Apologies if already posted:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/opinion/punishment-or-child-abuse.html?_r=1&referrer

Dan, do you think it was solely the spanking that put you on the right track? I'm sure there were other factors too and I'd be interested to hear them.

Have some serious problems with that Dyson article.

Pathologising the use of corporal punishment amongst African Americans exclusively in terms of slavery is kinda dumb at best. If you're not feeling so charitable, its malicious, patronising and wrong headed.

I also just find it doubtful as an argument, since physical punishment is found in cultures throughout the world and is very, very old. I do wonder though if it's disproportionately used in lower classes, like are the rich everywhere less likely to hit their kids (because they don't need to be "kept in their place")?

Yeah the idea that African Americans learnt to beat their kids when they landed in the new world is ridiculous. I imagine there'd be some correlation there if you were to look at stats but you'd probably see some manner of variation along, religious, geographical, racial lines etc. Either way I'd be reluctant to point to any one motivating factor as a primary impetus, though the idea that bad behaviour in rich kids has lesser social consequences is hard to argue against.

I'd venture it has higher social consequences, just not for them

er greater social consequences, I guess would be more precise

yeah "consequences for them" I should have said

like are the rich everywhere less likely to hit their kids (because they don't need to be "kept in their place")?

Probably more of the rich aren't actually involved so much in raising their kids, outsourcing it to nannies, 'the help', etc etc

A lot of French parents hit their kids, even really bourgie sensitive left-wing types. Many French people think it's crazy NOT to hit your kids. Their reasons are always the same: the fear of of a smack is enough to keep a kid quiet and ruly. Which from what I can tell is the over-riding goal of French parenting, to have children who keep extremely quiet and eat all their food and then vanish at an appropriate time. I can't tell you the number of times I've eaten dinner with a French family, and their child is at the table with us, and no matter the age of the child, whether it's 4 or 14, they don't say a word, and their parents make zero attempt to involve them in any of the dinner table conversation. And because I'm a stubborn fucker I always steer the conversation around to the kid, and loop them in, and nearly without fail they look like a deer in the fucking headlights.

That's pretty different from my experience in France. I wonder if that's a regional thing? I spend more and more of my time here in the south, and attitudes seem more relaxed in every way, including with kids. At public functions when a parent is speaking I see their kids run out of the crowd and hold onto their parents' legs---down here. I haven't seen that in Paris.

is involving kids in dinner chat an American thing (asking as a UK person)? I remember eating a meal with some US relatives as a child and being mortified that I was expected to take part in the conversation, though to be honest I wish could get away with not saying a word in these situations as an adult, French children aged 4 to 14 are getting a pretty good deal imo xp

I'm speaking mainly about Bordeaux!

xpost

It is entirely possible that different practices coexist in different social bubbles and that my experience doesn't stand in for everyone's but it's definitely something I've noticed. Maybe I'm over-egging it in my mind because it feels of a piece with France's retrograde attitudes towards a whole host of social issues? (race, gender, fashion, etc?)

By the way that article DJP links to is definitely one of those "a HA" articles that I'm incredibly glad to have read, and which makes me feel like I have been a fucking cro-magnon for not accurately realizing before now

yeah I don't know about Bordeaux social customs. but today in my youngest's classroom (in an ordinary French public primary school) her teacher brought his toddler son to class, and the toddler roamed around during class. Granted it's Wednesday so it's only a half day, but I thought it remarkable. of course this is Marseille where everything seems kinda ramshackle (and yet mostly works).

see Marseilles I've always thought of as kind of cool and different from the rest of France but I fully admit that's based on absolutely nothing beyond some gut instinct; i've also heard horrendous stories about racism there

Marseille is totally chill and yeah it feels like a different country here, except for the boulangeries everywhere. it's *way* more integrated than anywhere I've lived in Paris.

still: we've seen some cops here wild out in what seemed a racist way (on a mother whose kid was crying a lot at a tram stop, but we got there pretty late in the event so I don't really know). but I've seen way worse in Paris.

is involving kids in dinner chat an American thing

I have no idea but around our dinner table it's blatantly obvious that my daughter expects to be involved in whatever we're talking about, and will offer her opinions/make up shit/ask random questions solely in order to participate. which is fine with me.

We were allowed to talk but only on topics my dad would be interested in, because if it bored him or anyone started having too much fun, he'd change the topic to an engineering project.

I know I know, not everyone's family can be as warm and wonderful as mine.

Grew up in a household where we sat around a dinner table and my parents made sure to try to involve me in conversation. Now that I've got my own family, we mostly just sit around and watch TV during dinner (we don't have a table). I'm fine with that. We have plenty of conversations at other times.

judging you so hard rn

jks

kind of

tv is such a point of tension in my house, i need to figure it out, short of allowing my kids to watch everything they want, whenever they want, or throwing the TV out the window

Oh, we are pretty TV-friendly, but primarily use it for decompression. The kids don't want to be all cramped up in the house watching TV. They would rather be active and outdoors or playing with toys. I can't even use it as a "babysitter" anymore when I'm tired - my little girl has other plans for me. So we let them watch as much tv as they want, but they really want very little. Dinnertime, bedtime, for the most part that's it.

Veronica gets max a couple of hours of TV on the weekends. Which is great cuz mostly I get to watch old Justice League/Batman cartoons or Pee Wee's Playhouse or Teen Titans Are Go! with her or whatever.

Judah's too young for TV yet (not yet 2).