Yeah, that title is clickbaity as hell, on purpose.
Because I’m mad as hell and my field is barren of fucks.
So, yet again, surprising no one with sense, is this study on spanking children. Fifty years of gathering data with 160, 000 children involved. And guess what that study concluded?
Spanking. Doesn’t. Do. Shit.
Well, it does do some things: increase the likelihood of a kid lying over small things, further defying their parents, mental health issues, and (surprise!) aggression.
Holy Fucking Obvious, Batman, it’s like repeatedly hitting a child doesn’t actually equal good behavior or something. Imagine that!
Of course, when people start posting this obvious fucking truth, in come the pro-spanking dipshits with their tired ass excuses.
“I was whooped as a kid and I turned out fine.”
“You gotta beat these kids to set them straight.”
“All of these kids being disrespectful to their parents needs a good beating.”
“Beat them now so the police won’t beat them later”
And so on.
Tired ass, easily debunked bullshit that we’ve heard time and time again. People actually filming themselves beating their children, and the sick fucks who happily share them. People who just say “I’m gonna still beat my kids”. People butting into anti-spanking threads where people are sharing their trauma with these same excuses, because fuck these special snowflakes (no, really, I’ve heard that one).
After spending most of my motherfucking Sunday tangling with these fucks, I’ma let you in on something that should be obvious:
IF YOU GREW UP AND THINK IT’S OKAY TO STRIKE SOMEONE SMALLER THAN YOU WHO CANNOT FIGHT BACK, WHO ISN’T EVEN ALLOWED TO FIGHT BACK TO KEEP THEM IN LINE: YOU DID NOT GROW UP OKAY.
Let me say that again and add italics for the people in the back:
IF YOU GREW UP AND THINK IT’S OKAY TO STRIKE SOMEONE SMALLER THAN YOU WHO CANNOT FIGHT BACK, WHO ISN’T EVEN ALLOWED TO FIGHT BACK TO KEEP THEM IN LINE: YOU DID NOT GROW UP OKAY.
I’m sorry to have to be one to tell you this shit.
And this is the part where Niki starts ranting. The Social Justice Alchemist is about to go to work:
It’s still sick of people to continue promoting assaulting children. Yes, I motherfucking said assault. Dress it up in codewords like “whipping”, “whooping”, “beating”, “discipline” all you fucking want, but it’s assault and it’s wrong.
We got people who happily beat their kids, but when they grow up and get beat by the cops or a significant other or a damn stranger, they wanna get mad. You foolish hypocrites, are you the only one allowed to do harm to your child?
You disgust me, every last one of you, whether you repeatedly hit them or given the “just one smack on the behind”. You treat your children, these small people who you are supposed to love and care for, worse than dogs.
Oddly enough, it’s commonly known that if you keep beating a dog, that dog is a lot more likely to bite your silly ass. It’s also fucking illegal to beat your pets. Why is that different when it is a child involved?
And if you just happen to be Black, you fuckwits who smugly look at people trying to actually discipline without violence, who consider such parenting “white people shit”: What the entire double stuffed fuck is WRONG with you? You think the cops are gonna stop and check if your child was spanked or not before profiling, assaulting, or killing them? You think all them people sitting in jail weren’t spanked as children?
More importantly, why are you using the Massa’s tools to keep your kids in line?
Yes, I said Massa. How you fucking think white slave owners kept their black slaves in line, cowed, heads down, just doing what they’re told? Magic?
I was gonna put some pictures of slaves being beat here, but just looking at the fucking pictures made me ill and triggered, so do you own damn image search.
Is that what you want from your children? Cowed, just doing what they’re told, heads down? No personality, no spark, no chance to grow and flap their wings in readiness to fly from the nest one day? Just “yes ma’am/sir” and “no ma’am/sir”? To be your property, like our slave ancestors, literally beaten into fucking submission? And you think the answer the world’s problems is that kids need to be beat MORE?
Even when the evidence is right in front of your fucking faces, even with stories of people traumatized and hurt and mistrustful, even with people who came out of childhood thinking that hitting someone weaker than you is how you get your way, you scoff at it all, you ignorant pieces of dogshit. You don’t want children, you want little obedient robots straight out A.I. You keep perpetrating the same shit generation after generation after generation, gleefully waiting to have children so you can beat them like you were.
And if you are willing to admit to yourselves, you know that shit didn’t work. You still acted up. You still defied your folks. No matter how much you got beat, what you got beat with, where you got beat, whatever, you still misbehaved. Try to deny it, and I’ll call your ass a motherfucking liar to your face.
It’s sick. it’s fucking sick. It’s makes me sick to even think about it. Writing all of this is making me fucking sick.
It is a sickness that we as a people need to stamp out. Stop being so goddamn lazy and learn other ways to discipline. Take a parenting class if you need to. Children’s brains are still developing, they might even *gasp* defy you from time to time. Take the fucking time to try to understand your children and why they do the things they do. Use natural consequences (Oh, they didn’t put their dirty clothes in the hamper to get washed? Guess those clothes aren’t getting washed.), TALK to them, punish in ways that actually might just make then NOT DO THE SHIT AGAIN. Allow your kids to have fucking emotions – be sad, be mad, cry, be happy – no more of this “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” abusive bullshit. Teach them how to handle those emotions in appropriate ways. Apologize to them because you ain’t God and you can be wrong sometimes.
Learn better so you can do better.
I’m sorry if that actually requires more work than just smacking them for every infraction of your rules, but that’s the fucking deal you signed up for when you bring a child home with the intention of raising them.
And if you read all of this and STILL think it’s okay to assault someone smaller than you, I hope the next time you beat a child, that child turns around and punches you in the face. I mean hard enough to give you a black eye or a broken nose. Because it’s self-defense and what you fucking deserve, because a beat dog WILL bite your ass.
You disgusting excuses for parents. No, wait, that’s too nice.
You disgusting excuses for human beings. You make me ashamed to be in the same phylum as you.
Sure, I turned out fine, for a certain definition of ‘fine’. It also made me afraid of my dad, so there’s that, too. That didn’t really feel fine to me.
I agree that spanking is not necessary and we should work to end it. I also think “spanking” covers a wide range of behaviors, but I think parents get a lot of shit as it is telling them they’re ruining their children by doing or not doing X (TV, video games, allowing/not allowing them to date X at time Y/potty training too early/too late, feeding them the wrong/too much of food X, etc. etc.) all the time without piling on more.
I know great parents who were great in spite of spanking and I know terrible parents who were terrible and emotionally abusive in spite of abandoning spanking.
“I know great parents who were great in spite of spanking and I know terrible parents who were terrible and emotionally abusive in spite of abandoning spanking.”
So?
If you came here expecting a rational “there’s two side to every story” conversation, then you came to the wrong place. Parents may get a lot of shit, but they’re getting a lot more shit from me if they assault their children. You cannot be “great” if you hit someone smaller than you who can’t fight back, just like you can’t be “great” and beat your spouse.
Choose your next reply carefully; I’m not in the mood for apologetics for hitting children.
I think you’re setting up a false dichotomy around this issue that paints everyone on one side as awful (rather than simply wrong and in some cases awful) and I think that undercuts your argument.
I came here because I like social justice issues and I read the-orbit, not because I expect to agree with everything everyone says or only post comments that do.
I guess I’m more curious what you are looking for in the discussion on the article if not a discussion around the content?
You know what? I just had a nap and my pain meds, so I’m going to entertain your essay in three parts by responding to each comment (though, dude, really? Three comments?).
*ahem*
Who said I had to post anything to strike up a discussion? Maybe you missed the part where I said this was a rant. Maybe you missed the part where I expressed anger at having people who are pro-assaulting children butting into spaces like this.
Did you read the entire post before you started on your “some parents who beat their kids are really actually great” response? It is unwelcome in a space where, as you can see from the other comments, people are expressing not being “fine”. I didn’t think I needed to add a post script.
And no, I’m not going to explain to you why this isn’t a false dichotomy, because it still excuses the same shit I’m ranting about.
…and that’s reply number one.
This is 100% spot on. I am one of those people who was damaged by physical abuse in my house. It destroyed my trust in the people who were supposed to protect me, and it took away my sense of safety in my own home. The shit that it broke and changed inside me rippled out and affected many aspects of my life, and it took me years and therapy to understand and get through it.
The choice parents make to inflict violence on their kids is in no way comparable to questions of video game time, breast vs bottle, or potty training early or late – and I can’t believe I even have to say that.
Any level of violence on a child is wrong, full stop. If you are trying to justify hitting a child, you are wrong, full stop. And you did not “turn out fine” if you think being a violent bully in your child’s life is helpful in ANY FUCKING WAY.
I think there is a tendency to view people (like parents) through a single lens as though we’re not a combination of all our decisions positive and negative and then decide they’re all one thing.
Pretty much every parent I knew growing up spanked their kids. I don’t think that makes it right and I don’t myself, but on the other hand I think a definition which labels 99% of the parents I knew growing up as disgusting excuses for parents isn’t a very useful one to me.
They weren’t. They were wrong about that, but they were right about plenty of other things and raised many wonderful, thoughtful, intelligent, independent children.
Were those children as perfect as they might have been if they weren’t spanked? I guess not. On the other hand, parenting is a complicated process with a million decisions you have to make where the best recommendations are often crap or change all the time even as your kid is growing up.
I appreciate you are obviously frustrated by the conversations you’ve had and I love that you have such empathy for those who are hurt by spanking. It’s frustrating to see something so obviously wrong going on and to be faced by people who don’t have or possibly want the tools to see it.
But the reality is that to some extent making well-intentioned, bad decisions about raising your kid doesn’t make you a terrible parent or even a bad parent, it just makes a parent. As does being constantly judged by other people about everything damn thing you do as a parent.
Annnd, here’s reply number two.
*fart sound*
“I appreciate your empathy, but I’m gonna still make excuses for beating children”
The first part is negated by the second part.
Let’s see if I can attempt to frame this in a way that might get it through your head.
“I appreciate your empathy, but I’m gonna still make excuses for beating dogs”
“I appreciate your empathy, but I’m gonna still make excuses for beating one’s spouse”
“I appreciate your empathy, but I’m gonna still make excuses for beating one’s slave”
If you can’t see what’s wrong with this picture, then that’s your issue and not mine to fix.
Anyway if that makes me persona non-grata at your blog, sorry for coming in and stepping on your toes. I agree spanking is bad. I wish we would stop doing it. I am also frustrated that this is not obvious to everyone. I don’t know if a science study is going to convince everyone, but I’m sure it will help with some people. I try to set an example where I can in my own parenting, but I know I’m going to have friends who are still going to spank and circumcise. Maybe blog-yelling at them will get through to some others.
“..if that makes me persona non-grata…”
Please step off the damn cross.
“…stepping on your toes…”
Oh please. My toes are fine. But you are pissing me off.
I don’t write these posts to persuade anyone. I don’t “blog-yell” to change minds (and blog-yell? Fucking really? I’m guessing you have no idea just how condescending that is). I write to get my feels out. It’s not the same style as some of my more well-written colleagues here, but it’s mine. Read one of their blogs if my tone displeases you.
And through all of your responses, no matter how you pretty them up with throwing out logical fallacies and empathizing with my side and writing almost as many words as I did in the damn blogpost, all I can hear is “I still support parents assaulting their children”.
That is fucking is unacceptable and why people will continue to do it without the shame they ought to fucking feel (or without people who give enough of a damn reporting their asses), people like you and your mealy mouthed “parenting is hard” excuses.
You also disgust me.
Get the entire fuck out of my comments. This place is obviously not for you.
Ok? Thanks for the interaction. I hope you feel better.
Actually this kind of lengthy verbal abuse makes me feel, right now, that feeling in the pit of my stomach I used to get when I was spanked or bullied as a kid. It’s kind of silly of course but apparently now there is someone on the Internet who thinks my parents are garbage and I am also garbage for not agreeing.
I’m sorry you had some shitty conversations on the Internet. Is attacking me really making you feel better? Should I talk to my kid like this when we disagree? Is this the example I should use for how to talk to you?
I like those parents you think are rubbish right now, including the ones who hit me, a whole lot better than you.
Are you just incapable of brevity, or do you just like hearing yourself talk?
If you think my previous responses were verbally attacking you (HA!), you ain’t seen nothing yet. Buckle in and hold on to your asscheeks:
Let me make this clear; we are adults, so don’t you even dare fucking try to bring “should I talk to my kid like this?” into this – of course you don’t, dipshit. Secondly, I ain’t go two fucks to give if you talked to me like this. It would probably be a lot more honest and a lot shorter than *counts* six comments saying the exact same shit: “you shouldn’t be so mean to parents who beat people smaller and weaker than them”. I got your fucking point the first time, and obviously rejected it. Apparently you didn’t pick up the clue in this sorry excuse for a “discussion”.
As a matter of fact, you adopting my tone would at least make me laugh before I blocked your silly ass, which I should have just done after your mini essay in three parts. Responding to your bullshit doesn’t make me “feel better” because I feel nothing towards you but a deep annoyance at this point. You ain’t that important and I don’t owe you or any pro-beating apologists or anyfuckingone politeness. One would think you would have figured that shit out after reading the motherfucking post.
And while we’re making things clear, you came into MY house and brought your pro-spanking bullshit into MY comments section when I made it clear that shit is not acceptable, and THEN wouldn’t shut up about it, and now you’re acting like you’re the hurt party because you don’t like my tone? Honey, please. You didn’t have to come here, you didn’t have to flood my comment section like I owed you responses or needed “something to think about”. I’ve already thought about it – that’s where the post comes from. What the fuck kind of response did you expect? “Oh well, since you were super polite about why parents assault their children, I’ll tone down the vitriol and be more understanding?”
Now you still stand here, still in MY house, where you didn’t have say shit after my first response, and got the goddamn nerve try to make me feel bad with your “some rando on the internet thinks my parents and I are garbage” crap? Here, among my examples about people beating their children, recording beating their children, ignoring the obvious damage they’re doing to their children. Here among the other comments of people sharing their own pain at being hit by their folks. And YOUR the abused party because you don’t like my tone?
Fuck you.
Fuck you very, very much, you disingenuous, overly verbose, jackass.
You have more than overstayed your welcome here. Since you can’t seem to shut the entire fuck up and leave this space, and my frankness does you harm, I’ll help prevent further harm to you by showing you the fucking door.
You are an asshole.
I second that.
Every time I encounter those who advocate and defend child abuse, I ask them the same thing: “If you do something wrong at home or at work, does that give your partner or employer the right to hit you?”
Their response is always the same: “That’s different, I’m an adult, not a kid.” Every pro-abuse mouthpiece goes down that same road, rationizing, “It’s only abuse when you hit adults. It’s not abuse when the victim can’t defend themselves legally or physically.” That’s the argument catholics use to defend priests who molest kids.
I learnt only two things from my parents:
1) To have infinite patience when dealing with my students. And that includes the kid who intentionally stabbed me in the arm with a box cutter.
2) That they should be excised from my life. I cut off all contact fifteen years ago, no numbers or forwarding addresses, not even to my siblings whom I cannot trust to keep such information private.
“If you do something wrong at home or at work, does that give your partner or employer the right to hit you?”
I like that.
And to take it one step further for theonandonlymike – would you ever call that partner or employer who hit you “great”? As in, “You know, bosses are under a whole lot of pressure to make good numbers and keep things running efficiently. I have had great bosses who hit me, and I have had terrible bosses who didn’t hit me. And you have to remember: that’s just how business school trained most of them anyway!” Fucking really??
You know, I am pretty comfortable saying that hitting children is abusive and disgusting while simultaneously keeping in mind that the people who do it are full and complex human beings. There is no false dichotomy, and human complexity does not somehow make this behavior defensible.
This line of defense reminds me of religion in that I think some people accept it only because it is so socially pervasive and widely condoned. In any other similar circumstance the idea is horrifying and ridiculous.
Beautiful rant
Yep, I’m one of the people for which the physical abuse was artfully interwoven with the emotional abuse. I have no patience for people who defend that sort of shit.
Leftoverunder
This. I usually ask them if they’d prefer the cops to pull down their pants and give them a public beating instead of writing a parking ticket.
I know what difficult children are. I’m probably the most understanding teacher you’ll ever meet. I know that sometimes your child will display certain behaviour no matter what you do. And you know what? Spanking is included in no matter what. And I know that love and kindness and positive interaction often go much further than threats and punishment.
I have a student who drove me mad. Seriously, a teacher’s worst nightmare. He wouldn’t have his things with him, he wouldn’t do his homework or his schoolwork, would constantly disrupt classes and call me names. While I was joking that you can’t hang kids from the ceiling like in Harry Potter, I knew that I needed a different way to deal with him.
Imagine: every. single. fucking. interaction I had with him in 45 minutes was negative. And since I’m not the only teacher who had this problem he’d get shit for 6 times 45 minutes. Of course you can say he only has himself to blame, but he’s also 12.
I talked to his mum, who also talked about taking away his Playstation and his weekends with daddy and I suggested a different way: He gets very structured feedback from me: Did he do his homework? Did he work in school? Did he behave? Did he write down his homework?
And if he scores a certain amount of points in a week he gets a reward. I have a new student. I know this “best and best behaved student” behaviour will not last, but I’m hopeful we’ll get to a normal level of 12 year old behaviour. And he gets praise from me, we have positive interactions, his classmates are no longer fucking annoyed by him but include him in their talks and games.
All this without anybody raising a hand against him. All this without subduing him. He’s not just no longer loud, but an actively participating student.
I was never spanked, though it was always on the table. I was a Good Kid. The truth was, I was clinically depressed, and my mother’s verbal dressing-downs cut like knives. They were far more devastating than a spanking would have been, because they were echoed by the Depression Dragon in my head.
In fact, the only time she ever struck at me was when I was an adult, and I said something that she misunderstood as an insult. I parried her attempted blow to my face (!) easily, told her that wasn’t an insult, and walked away. I remember another time when I was visiting her, that she and a neighbor were busy agreeing that children could be spanked at any age, even as adults. At that time I stood four inches taller than my mother and was about 50 lbs. heavier. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “try it.” She changed the subject. I don’t think she was self-aware enough to see it as bullying though, my challenge just made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t define.
I have no children, but I have cousins raised in Norway whose parents never dreamed of hitting them — it’s illegal! — and they, like a majority of their fellows, have turned out to be delightful and well-socialized young adults.
So… I can’t support spanking. And I’m glad that there is scientific backing for my attitude.