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

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).

I totally let Ivy watch TV when I need her to sit still for something or if she just will not go to sleep, I will sometimes give up and sit on the couch with her and watch TV with the lights off. Also sometimes I have the TV on when she's playing on the floor and she'll stop to check it out occasionally, but these days she's mostly more interested in seeing how fast she can get to any number of off-limits areas of the living room/office than she is in watching Law and Order reruns with me.

I had intended to be more of a hard ass about TV but it turns out my too tired to be much of a hard ass about anything.

My too tired to type good either apparently

upworthy on my facebook feed trying to stop us from judging!

http://www.upworthy.com/a-fantastic-photo-series-to-help-us-think-about-judgment-spoiler-alert-we-have-to-stop?c=ufb4

I judge every parent who reposts an Upworthy link but that doesn't really have anything to do with their parenting

(now if you'll excuse me, I have some ClickHole links to share)

wife & i have always watched TV in very limited way to begin with, pretty much just a movie a week, occasionally we'll get a TV series through netflix but only watch it after J goes to bed. we have never in our years together been channel-surfing people and we don't have cable. we barely receive standard network TV and have to fiddle with an antenna whenever my mom visits and wants to watch the nightly news. so J (2 yrs old) has never watched TV.

im totally judging you right now

Yo Gabba Gabba on Netflix aalows I wouldn't get a shower before lunchtime Monday to Friday

Dammit.

Yo Gabba Gabba on Netflix allows me to have a shower before lunchtime Monday to Friday, and use the very rare cot naps (naps are short and almost always during walks in the buggy) to do a bit of housework. TV is on for about 30 minutes a day on top of that, giving me some zone-out time while F plays but he usually doesn't notice it. I'm basically on sole duty from 7.30am until 7.30pm, so while I'd rather we were a telly-free zone I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

JUDGING: a former colleague told me how her son had terrible table manners and no amount of ticking off had resulted in an improvement. So one day, she told him she was making pizza, his favourite, for dinner. She served it up to the whole family, then took a pot of mud from the garden and dumped it on his plate. "That's your dinner, because you eat like a pig." What a bitch.

That's creative...

Did it work?