My spanking experiences weren’t anything like this, but this is what I think of when people tell me that spanking is right for some children: http://www.drmomma.org/2010/01/how-spanking-changed-my-life.html Anyone who believes that *they* would be a better judge of necessary spanking than this woman’s family are probably lying to themselves.
This is a lot of my upbringing. I don’t know if my parents specifically studied his form of spanking or if it was something that was circulated at church as a derivative, but that’s almost precisely what it was.
I’m really sorry. 🙁
Ooof. I’m sorry.
well, shit…
getting spanked that way woulda been great!
i had to stick my butt up and into the line of fire so that *it* got smacked instead of the nearest available body part, like my head, or face, or whatever.
and the part about using an spanking implement cracks me up. like the kid isn’t smart enough to understand that the fuckin’ wooden spoon isn’t smackin’ ’em in the ass all on it’s own.
what doltery.
besides if you *are* ever gonna smack a kid (or anyone else, for that matter), you should use always your bare hand for at least 3 completely different reason:
1 – smackin’ somebody should be personal
and
2 – so you can tell how hard you’re smackin’
and
3 – so it hurts you like hell, too.
’cause smackin’ anybody is a shitty thing to do
and so you ought to be punished for your actions.
The only problem is that there are people who think as long as they only “swat” and don’t imitate a fetishist’s fantasy, it doesn’t do any damage. The author’s continued emphasis on the wrongness of ritual makes this only really effective as an eye-opener to people who perform similar levels of perversion.
Seems to me that the core issue here is not, in fact, the spanking (although the ‘ritual’ sounds like a particularly good example of putting concept ahead of reality), but the lack of empathy and, well, decency.
If, for an example, one were to substitute locking the child in a closet for the spanking ritual (i.e. use another established Victorian method), then is there any one who seriously believes that the child would not be psychologically damaged, in much the same way as has been attributed to the spanking?
I think not. I think the spanking issue is a side-show, a distraction. The real issue is a lack of empathy and rationality and the resulting insane standards expected from the child. And (of course) religion is right in there fueling those preposterous ideas. I mean, no matter what that kid’s parents actually did, what does it tell you about them that they took parenting advice primarily from someone whose qualifications are based on his ability to believe the wildly improbable, and contrary to all evidence, notion that a bunch of much edited and translated texts are somehow an infallible word of an omnipotent deity?
Anyway, the problem with both the vehement pro- and anti- spanking camps is that they both generalize and try to make blanket statements to promote their argument. It is undeniable that there are reams of anti-spanking anecdotes out there (many of which have nothing to do with spanking per se, but e.g. reflect an adult venting rage at a child or bizarre philosophical idea), but there are also plenty of anecdotes that support the idea that a ‘short sharp shock’ would have been less problematic for the kid than whatever gruesome discipline method the parents used (or abused).
The lack of empathy and decency thing is, I think, what I was getting stuck on but couldn’t quite verbalize.
I don’t have much to say in the way of spanking, as I wasn’t subjected to it as a child. I mean, dang, my mom gets uncomfortable around brother-sister slapfights and the like. That being said, I have no idea whether spanking is good or bad. Jim turned out ok with it, though I am pretty dang sure his parents did not subscribe to this particularly crazy version of it.
The “short sharp shock” thing, though, I can see that working.
/blahblahblah
The thing is, the only reasonable justification for hitting a child is if you believe they are not really a whole person who deserves body autonomy. There is no other stage of life at which it is acceptable to hit someone to ‘teach them a lesson’. Which is not in any way shape or form to say that there are not gruesome/abusive child rearing techniques that do not involve hitting.
Sad indeed.
Ugg.
That is horrid. Now I’m quite queasy.
thank you for linking to this.
Ugh.