I don't know that finding excuses has anything to do with Texas culture.* One of my sisters was treated badly in some ways by my parents (not physically). When I've tried to talk with her about it, she always says that she was a bad kid and deserved it. There's a little bit of protecting my parents in there, but I think it's mostly that she has to believe her behavior warranted the treatment because otherwise it means my parents didn't love (or maybe like) her.
*Corporal punishment may be more common than in some other places; I have my assumptions, but they're only assumptions.
I've been reading this book and I'm finding it really enlightening. The authors follow the now standard line that guilt occurs when a person feels bad about an action and shame occurs when the person feels bad about themselves. The different outcomes for people with shame-prone and guilt-prone personalities over a lifetime are remarkable. Shame-prone people are far more likely to get sucked into self-destructive cycles with drugs and such. Guilt prone people fix their mistakes and move on.
2 and 3: That sort of makes sense. My Dad is probably shame-prone. I feel like I'm probably both.
And then we have those who are neither shame- nor guilt-prone. We elect them to public office and hire them to run banks.
even if it's not as direct as "I had it coming because I was a bad kid" (which, in my interior mental life it sometimes is) it's the same problem that I have in wanting to a) minimize my step-dad's abusive behavior and b) think of ways I contributed to it /could have prevented it/didn't do enough to protect my brother. on the one hand you don't want to think you were raised by moral monsters or sadists. but guess what! some people are (or by people so wrapped up in addiction they are unable to be good). on the other, if you can take the blame you can also take the illusion of power back: I did something that contributed to this.
like I say, my husband is really totally unable to understand why I would resist even for a moment the obviously factually correct interpretation that lots of horrible things happened to me for no reason, and it wasn't my fault at all, any of it. I did my best to console my brother and sister and tell that what was happening to them was wrong, and love them, but that was it. I couldn't do anything else. try to draw fire to myself that might get directed elsewhere? at the margins I could do that, maybe sometimes. but for the most part I was a small powerless person trapped with big people who hurt me for no reason, and even kind of pimped me out to their friends on occasion. (that's what's fucking with my head right now.) THAT'S FUCKING SCARY.
being a mouthy kid who had it coming sometimes, or a slut, or whatever, is, under the circumstances LESS SCARY. it ain't just texas, unless denial river runs through that too.
We often talk about how cruel Republicans are in their determination to make people suffer through poverty and illness and to withhold any cooperative measure that might ease their suffering.
I do think this exists, and is sometimes internalized (see the We are the 53% tumblr), but nevertheless often exists alongside a willingness to take assistance for oneself: becasue I really needed it, or It was just to get through that one hard time. Or that thing where people don't even realize they're getting government aid. (As demonstrated several times on the No actually you're the 47% tumblr.)
additionally, I only read a description of the video, of course, but sullivan mentioned that he couldn't watch it for "more than a couple of minutes." a couple of fucking minutes? who could watch that long? why are people watching to the end? I'm going to pretend that everyone shuts it off after the first 15 seconds so I can fall asleep.
7: There's a hilarious interview with Craig T. Nelson on some Fox show where he's bitching about people on the dole and then says that no one helped him when he was on food stamps.
6: there is also maybe the reassuring aspect of it: if bad things happen to someone because they did something bad, then they can be confident that those bad things won't happen again as long as they don't do anything else bad. But if they happened for no reason... they could happen again, any time.
It's why you get so much superstition among rig workers and sailors and fishermen and soldiers and WW2 air crews. You want to be able to reassure yourself that, yes, Joey got the chop, but what did he expect after eating eggs the morning before a mission? Everyone knows that's bad luck.
As a side to alameida's theory that at least if you were "bad" it gives you some agency, people have a huge bias towards causation. They NEED things to be caused by something, and "Well, he's just an asshole who does spontaneous cruel things." doesn't meet that need for causation.
There's also an aspect of pure defensiveness about taking responsibility for whatever's happened to you. I tend to do that when I'm bitching about my incredibly minor problems -- affirmatively pointing out the way in which I'm bringing them all on myself -- and while it's sincere, it's also partly that I really don't want to have the "Have you thought that maybe it was all your own fault? God, have some self-awareness," interaction. Forestalling that attack makes it less unpleasant.
6: For my sister, there's the complication that my parents weren't as hard on the rest of us. And, yes, her behavior was often different, but the connection between her behavior and theirs went both ways. My parents weren't willing to try to understand her and the ways that she had some needs that were different.
This is all so vague that it's probably not illuminating, but it seems too complicated to explain in text.
ha, junkies are crazy superstitious also, explaining how this guy ODed because he copped at this one corner even when the no vacancy sign was lighted at the motel a few blocks down. or why people get arrested. endless superstitions. it's a fairy tale to allow you to continue in a dangerous mode of life, like my friend's 'suicide rounds.' being on the losing end of a firefight isn't going to give you much of a chance to reload, probably. but you've got 'em! you all might be interested to know that 5 people can't share one mirror. is it the lack of room? not even a full length one you pull of the wall? NO. IT'S BAD LUCK.
Corporal punishment of children should be eliminated; on the other hand, many an adult needs a good cockpunching.
6: families often have scapegoats whom they treat very differently than the other children. it's straight fucked up, but there you are.
"Aransas County" is pronounced "Arkansaw", right?
15: you and I are in complete agreement here.
'night all. please deliver cockpunches as needed while I sleep.
Also, here I'm stating the obvious, abusive or otherwise screwy people tailor their behavior to the behavior of those around them. The father in the video is probably beating the kid for something that's recognizably some sort of transgression -- the fact that the beating is abusively disproportionate doesn't mean that it's not in response to anything at all. When you're outside the situation, it's easy to spot the disproportion, and see that the abuse wasn't in any meaningful sense caused by the transgression. But when you're in it, it's hard not to draw a causal link from your behavior to the abuse, given that the abuser is explicitly making that link.
I'm thinking of an emotionally difficult relationship of my own, where I really have a hard time figuring out if I'm being ill-treated or if I'm fooling myself about how badly I'm treating the other person. And looking around at my relationships with other people, and my counterpart's relationships with other people, it's not me, it's them, but I still stew over what degree of responsibility I have for the problems.
14: interesting. I didn't know that at all but it doesn't surprise me. Megan's 11 makes sense too.
20: She downloaded music. Don't tell halford.
I absorbed some beatings like that as a kid. What I find most bewildering is the father's current response (reported in various articles) that "it wasn't as bad as it looks." No, dumbass, it's exactly as bad as it looks. It isn't like there's some trick of the camera angle or missing footage that makes it look like you're doing something that you weren't.
Probably means that the beating wasn't a big deal by his standards, or in other words that he did it repeatedly at that level.
The father in the video is probably beating the kid for something that's recognizably some sort of transgression -- the fact that the beating is abusively disproportionate doesn't mean that it's not in response to anything at all.
The transgression was that the kid was downloading music off the internet. But that's not why the father beat her. He beat her because his is a fucking asshole.
The mother also participated, but that was even weirder. She only gave the kid one lashing with the belt, but she made sure it hurt. Then she handed the belt back to the dad.
RT @Dahlialithwick If you're angry about this support ban on corporal punishment (esp in schools) instead of calling the courthouse
25.1: Sure, the father's an abusive asshole. But from the kid's point of view, it's got to be hard not to think "I knew he didn't want me downloading music, how hard would it have been to just follow the rules, I brought it on myself." It's not right, but if you're in the situation I can see why you'd think that way.
She evidently doesn't think that way now, and maybe didn't at the time. Which is great.
The transgression was that the kid was downloading music off the internet.
That's fairly unspeakably evil, actually. I mean, beating a child is wrong anyway, but doing it for that?
It is great -- I haven't seen the actual video. I should have been talking about the people Heebie was talking about in the post, who were ready to take full responsibility for having been beaten.
why are people watching to the end? I'm going to pretend that everyone shuts it off after the first 15 seconds so I can fall asleep.
Yeah, my limit was 0 seconds. I don't know if it's parenthood or what, but my tolerance for viewing (and even reading about, to some extent) terrible things happening to kids is way, way down lately.
Wait, downloading music was really the transgression? That's not a joke??
"Corporations are people!" THOK! "You hurt that person!" THOK!
Someone should occupy him.
One of the worst things about the video is that, three and a half minutes into it, you think the beating is over. But then the father comes back into the room, says "I haven't gotten in all my licks yet", and then beats the girl for another three and a half minutes.
Part of the rationalization also seems to me to be the following: If what happened to me was abusive, then I must be really messed up. But I'm fine! [defensively] Therefore, what happened to me was not abusive.
31: I'm with you. I have no desire to see any of it. The brief flashes in my imagination are bad enough.
Wait, downloading music was really the transgression? That's not a joke??
"According to the dialogue captured on the video, the beating was prompted by the girl's use of music file-sharing software installed on her computer."
This was six years ago? I think the real transgression was that she was responsible for Gator and BonziBuddy showing up on her parents' computer.
If what happened to me was abusive, then I must be really messed up. But I'm fine! [defensively]
And truthfully, you can be abused and still be fine. Except it can still skew your responses in some subtle but strange ways. For example, one of my initial reactions was "what kind of weirdo is still handing out beatings like that to a 16-year-old?"
Because it's obviously more acceptable to beat a much smaller, younger kid like that, right?
Remember a month and a half ago when I was telling about my friend's kid and how her dad was taunting her? So my friend confronted her ex about it, and he said he would try to act differently, and also wanted to pass the message on to me that I could come to him with those kinds of concerns too. Keep in mind, this is someone I haven't really been close to ever, haven't spoken to in at least 3 years, and who has acted like a complete jerk in all of the divorce/family court stuff. And he's making fun of his adolescent daughter to score points with his new girlfriend! WTF?! Why would I ever talk to him about anything? People are really horrible.
40: Absolutely. People are often resilient; that doesn't mean that what happened wasn't bad, or that it doesn't affect them in weird and subtle ways. (I'm not watching the video, because I have things to do today and can't afford the mental space. Hmmm.)
It's important to note that not only is this guy a judge, he is a family law judge, so he is routinely making determinations about what is child abuse wrt other people.
Because it's obviously more acceptable to beat a much smaller, younger kid like that, right?
It's more widely accepted, sure.
35 gets it exactly right. It is worse than I had imagined, and I only made it maybe 5 seconds after the beating started.
"No, in my mind I haven't done anything wrong other than discipline my child after she was caught stealing. And I did lose my temper, but I've since apologized," Judge William Adams told KZTV Wednesday after the video went viral on the internet....
Phone calls to the judge's home and office went unanswered today. Neighbors told the news station that the judge and his girlfriend were seen leaving Wednesday after taking belongings from their home, including bags, hanging clothes, a briefcase, a laptop, and six to eight gun cases.
Putting up this video is a brilliant little bit of subversive resistance by the daughter. She's not just the disabled kid begging not to be hit. She's fighting back effectively and in a way that will not only help her but also tens of thousands of other kids.
To correct one misunderstanding in the OP, the daughter was 16 at the time the video was recorded, and is now ~23.
43: yeah, that worries and scares me. I know a local judge who's a bad (but not, as far as I know, abusive) dad and the judge on Mara's case showed outrageous amounts of bias for personal reasons. Just ugh.
I'm not feeling talkative today, but Cala and apo and lots and lots and lots of others who just aren't visible here on my screen at the moment here are saying good and useful things.
47: From what I've read elsewhere, the girl (now an adult woman) in the video posted it as the result of a current dispute over a car. Apparently she threatened to post the video on the internet and he dared her to do it. I'll bet he regrets that bit of bluster now.
Wow, I couldn't watch that, and agree with the folks who say it is worse than expected. There may be excuses for lots of things, but there is no excuse for whipping your kid like that.
Anyhow, the proper response to being mad about someone downloading music is to pay me a lot of money.
That video is absolutely not watchable.
48:But apparently there remains a minor daughter who is still contested property.
No discrimination on the basis of age, with strict scrutiny
This is not merely a legal goal, but a social goal. Just as the other kinds of discrimination are social goals. We should not, legally, socially, or in the home, treat children differently than we would treat adults when strangers are watching. I don't like sending children to their room anymore than I would a spouse or partner.
Power corrupts. Power differentials are almost always destructive.
No one should feel trapped by dependency or socially tolerated hierarchies. No one.
I see very little problem with shelters or refuges or safe places, easily available, comfortable but not optimal, where children could take a break from their parents or guardians. After professional mediation of the argument, my guess is that most children would go home in a situation where they really had a free choice, and circumstances where parents had to persuade and negotiate rather than command. Society would adjust.
Note:I place no age limits.
Note I prefer shelters and escape routes to our current structures of social services, courts etc because a) the drastic consequences to the family inhibit children, and b) again the children are someone's property, in this case the state.
Safe house, no questions asked.
And a unicorn.
So I think I heard that the bastard was stepping down while the matter was investigated, which I expected. Then I heard he would only be stepping down for TWO WEEKS.
Jesus Christ, I don't know why I tried to watch the video. Fuck.
Yeah, all the people saying it's unwatchable are making me kind of curious, but my aversion is really strong. I walked past a TV here at work that was showing a CNN story about this and I made sure to turn my head when the anchor said something about "could be disturbing." I don't know if they were about to show the video; don't really want to.
I'm not watching it, but that sort of thing is why I'm fairly firm on no corporal punishment at all (if you need to make an exception for pre-rational toddler wrist-smacking, I'm not hugely exercised about it, but I don't think it's necessary). I don't think people are good at distinguishing between mild corporal punishment and what looks to me to be clearly abusive.
Controlled, mild spanking probably doesn't do most kids who experience it much harm at all, but its acceptability provides social cover for this sort of thing (lots of people who are horrified now wouldn't be in the absence of the video, because they'd envision something much milder) and I don't think making it unacceptable is much of a loss to anyone.
Somewhere I read that if you're in a community where mild spanking is an acceptable punishment, it just is an acceptable punishment and has no detrimental effect at all. But if the community reserves spanking for a really bad or unusual punishment, and the parent does it out of anger, then it does have a detrimental effect. I believe the basic message was "Don't spank your kids but don't flip out if you see a young black mom spanking her kids."
None of that has much to do with the video, though, which is beyond unwatchable.
I watched it to the end, and while it was certainly unpleasant, I obviously didn't find it unwatchable. But maybe I'm just more inured to internet horrorshows than most.
46: Neighbors told the news station that the judge and his girlfriend were seen leaving Wednesday after taking belongings from their home, including bags, hanging clothes, a briefcase, a laptop, and six to eight gun cases.
Well, there's your problem right there: If he were a real man he'd have at least 10 gun cases.
61: I've said things a lot like that about Samoa, where corporal punishment is a norm. There's also a lot of what I'd call way over the line abusive hitting of kids, but the milder end of it didn't seem all that shocking or damaging to the kids who experienced it.
As horrifying as I find the idea of watching the video, I'm glad that there are people who can look at that kind of thing. Not sick, sadistic fucks who get off on it, obviously, but people who can stomach seeing real abuse so that they can respond to it. It's in the same general category of people who can handle blood, disease, and death. Somebody's got to. Me, I'll be over here making spreadsheets.
62: i can't even look at your horrible kitten pic, apo.
Oh, Lord, she was disabled. And the webcam wasn't just a chance thing; she set it up deliberately because she was being regularly beaten.
There is no way I am watching that clip.
Because it's obviously more acceptable to beat a much smaller, younger kid like that, right?
There's definitely an age range where the little monsters are coordinated enough to do shit like run away into the street but not old enough that having a reasonable conversation accomplishes much. But I'm talking about a swat on the butt or something, not a several minute beating with an object.
Oh, Lord, she was disabled.
Weeeeell, sort of. She has cerebral palsy, which covers a really broad spectrum of affect. My middle child has CP that affects his left calf/ankle, but you'd probably never notice its effect on his gait unless I pointed it out to you. From what I can tell on the video, her motion doesn't seem particularly affected either. And I keep reading that her CP made her especially drawn to technology, but I've never heard any such claim before.
65: I'm not watching the video, but I figure I'm doing my part in responding to abused kids. I don't feel much need to up my awareness.
It has been sort of interesting to have to parent in a way where I know corporal punishment is forbidden but I'm not sure (because we get crappy training in our state and I haven't totally supplemented this because I'm not worried I'm anywhere near the limits) what else is off-limits. We do have time outs but I'm glad I haven't had to shut the door, because I'm not sure whether that's illegal or just locking is.
i can't even look at your horrible kitten pic, apo.
Oh god, I know.
I don't think people are good at distinguishing between mild corporal punishment and what looks to me to be clearly abusive.
Some people are not good at making the distinction between a time-out and locking their child in the basement for years at a time. Some people are not good at making the distinction between affectionate familial contact and sexual abuse. Some people are not good at making the distinction between setting boundaries for their pets and gratuitously throwing a kitten against a wall. For any behavior you can describe, there are people who can't distinguish between benign and malignant versions of it. This has little to do with whether "people" as a whole can do so, it simply describes what the pathological ones have a problem with.
In fact it's quite easy to tell the difference between corporal punishment and unhinged beating and abuse. In the former, there are clear rules and boundaries for when the corporal punishment will be applicable, and set boundaries for how much actual punishment will be dished out (six whacks from a ruler, for example). In the case of abuse, there are no clear rules or boundaries, no set of prescriptions the target can follow to avoid getting beaten, and the beatings go on for as long as the abuser feels like keeping it up, and go as far as their temper or the amount of alcohol they've consumed that evening dictates. Ergo, plenty of people come from households that practice corporal punishment, but do not come from households where they were regularly having the living shit beaten out of them and cigarettes stubbed out on their flesh.
And I keep reading that her CP made her especially drawn to technology
As someone with CP I call bullshit on this. CP doesn't affect your cultural or academic predisposition at all.
I had the same reaction as Apo in 40, and I think gswift is basically right in 68. Or rather, the inverse side of what gswift said is definitely true. By the time a child is 16, they certainly are rational enough that you can set limits without using physical force. At that point, they should have well defined responsibilities and privileges and rewards and punishments can be given in terms of those. Also, you can have a really good conversation with a sixteen year old about the ethics of downloading things from the internet, what counts as stealing, and why stealing is bad.
From what I've read elsewhere, the girl (now an adult woman) in the video posted it as the result of a current dispute over a car. Apparently she threatened to post the video on the internet and he dared her to do it. I'll bet he regrets that bit of bluster now.
It looks like her experiences as a child set the stage for a life-long close, loving, healthy relationship.
69: Doesn't everyone know that beatings are allowed if your kid can walk without a hitch? If she can't fetch the belt herself, however, then you can only hit her with the tools within reach. It's only fair.
Walk with a hitch, you get the switch. Walk to the belt, you get a welt.
72: When I say people, I don't mean the person hitting the child, but other people reacting to it. In a society where corporal punishment is normal and okay, a beating like the one in the video doesn't sound all that far from the norm unless you actually see it. That makes it harder for the kid being beaten to convey to third parties that there's something actually wrong happening to them.
In 1969, one of the things NYC did to combat lead poisoning was advise mothers via TV to slap their children if they started eating paint chips. Supposedly it was pretty effective.
Certainly easier than sweeping up the paint chips.
76: Heh. I just find it weird that so many articles keep pointing out her CP, and then trying to assign it an unavoidable fascination with BitTorrent. Like it would somehow be less horrible and abusive otherwise.
79. Not to condone this, but children who are eating paint are likely to be the pre-rational infants you yourself excepted from the blanket ban on hitting above. I don't imagine whoever wrote the ad imagined people laying into their toddlers with a belt on the strength of it.
In the former, there are, clear rules and boundaries for when the corporal punishment will be applicable, and set boundaries for how much actual punishment will be dished out (six whacks from a ruler, for example).
This helps less than you might think. Knowing that dawdling at dinner will get you hit in the face doesn't make it okay even if it was known in advance and relatively controlled. I think the problem isn't between "stubbing out cigarettes on your child" but between "taking out your fear and anger on the child" and "instituting a sensible regime of punishment." IME, too much of the former slips into a belief that the latter is what the parents are doing.
CP doesn't affect your cultural or academic predisposition at all
As far as I can tell, she is the one who said this first and everyone else is just parroting it. I took the meaning to be something like "on the internet no one can tell you're a crip" which I've heard other people say, too.
The "OMG she's disabled" angle has me fighting a weird, ornery reaction about how a kid with a disability can take a beating just as well as a kid without. I think it's rooted in the reverse being true: this wouldn't be better if she didn't have CP. It'd still be terrible.
82: That was my first comment in the thread. I think striking should be illegal in toto.
72: (six whacks from a ruler, for example)
My boss was just talking about her experiences in a bog-standard Catholic parochial school in the 50s: The boys were not allowed to have their hands under their desks, and if they were caught, the nuns beat the Hell out of their hands and arms with a ruler, past the point where it was drawing blood. If there was too much fighting or horseplay on the playground, the priest would get out the boxing gloves and have the boys punch each other until one couldn't get up.
"on the internet no one can tell you're a crip"
You'll get marked as MS-13 pretty quick, though. Especially on Slate.
78: I can't watch the video right now, but assuming it involves a beating that goes beyond a set number of strokes with a ruler or a cane, that would not be normal for a society in which corporal punishment is normal. People who come from societies where corporal punishment is normal do in fact know the difference between "six of the best" and beating the crap out of someone. If they are otherwise not prone to act as quickly as they should against the presence of abuse, the inability to tell that it's abuse isn't a likely reason.
(This is somewhat obscured by the fact that there's a long, semi-honorable "Four Yorkshiremen"-style tradition in immigrant communities of telling tall tales about how your parents would rip the hide off you with a broom when you were younger. But all such tales should not be taken seriously, and it shouldn't be assumed that the people purveying them in fact can't tell the difference between spanking a kid and kicking the shit out of them.)
It's much likelier that in our society someone will claim they can't tell the difference between spanking and abuse, but I think this is mostly affectation, and that it's pursued because the people engaging in it don't realize that they're effectively belittling the experiences of people who went through genuine abuse.
88: My friend's 5th or 6th generation Irish-American relatives get a huge kick out of regaling each other with "granny beat me with a broomstick" stories at every family gathering. Disturbing.
86: Yikes.
My wife has a great story from her Catholic school days where a nun hit her, and since nobody had ever expressed to her the idea that an adult should be allowed to do that, she immediately hit the nun back. Said nun did acknowledge her for the rest of the school year, and was reportedly put out to pasture shortly thereafter.
assuming it involves a beating that goes beyond
Oh, it's definitely way over the line. Including explicitly threatening to hit her in the face with the belt.
82: This helps less than you might think.
Obviously it's also necessary that punishments be proportional and sane, and not carried out in anger or over peccadilloes. These traits are also, however, not in fact incompatible with corporal punishment.
86: North American nuns sound always sound like such badasses in these stories. I sometimes wish my aunts from the nunneries in South Africa were that colourful... but then, if they had been, I guess I might not be alive today.
I've heard many stories about nuns smacking people, but never saw much. I suspect some of the more elaborate stories share a trait with Lord Castock's "Yorkshiremen. The only kid I know who was hit by a teacher on a regular basis was in a one-room school house with one teacher and assorted kids from K to 8th grade.
Yeah, it was definitely a lurid story, and I can imagine that perhaps the ruler-smacking was a little less brutal than reported, but the boxing thing really needs no embellishment.
11: "but for the most part I was a small powerless person trapped with big people who hurt me for no reason..."
It's the "powerless" thing. It somehow feels better to contemplate fighting and being destroyed than to be totally powerless. IMX I didn't need a shrink to get me to see where stories and pictures out of WW2 fueled a very early fascination with guns.
92: I guess I just can't agree that in practice this distinction is likely to be observed well. E.g., my dad would describe his discipline methods not as abusive, but as consistent with the maxim not to spare the rod, &c. I don't think it's an affectation. I think he thought it's okay to hit his daughters in the face for backtalk, as long as he didn't leave marks. I agree that there's no necessary connection between hitting someone and having that hitting be questionable, but it seems like an awfully robust contingent one to me.
My father claims that the Irish nuns took particular delight in beating the shit out of the Italian kids. I always rolled my eyes at the story, but other people's Italian parents have told me the exact same thing. Of course my very Irish mother had the crap kicked out of her by Irish nuns, too, so.
I got whacked in elementary school with a paddle that looked like a cricket bat. Whacked hard. By teachers.
96: Yeah, the person who I know best who describes growing up in a household with corporal punishment makes it sound like that. In his case, he wouldn't describe it as abusive in that it wasn't terribly frequent and he didn't perceive it as a problem, but it consisted of 'getting punched or beaten with a belt when Dad was angry enough' rather than something as systematic as a counted number of blows. It was thought of within the family as 'spare the rod, spoil the child', but there wasn't a clear bright-line distinction I can see between what was happening there and 'getting the shit beaten out of you', at least for someone hearing about it after the fact.
My mother has lurid nuns-punching-kids stories, but all from around 1950, so pretty out of date.
Recently one of my neighbors was beating their child (not sure where, just heard the screaming), and after about 30 seconds a woman from a totally different apartment yelled out the window "stop beating that baby!" The remarkable thing was that the beating stopped. (I would have assumed it'd make the beating worse, which is why I hadn't tried doing that.)
Not nuns in my case: private non-parochial school. In Texas.
Corporal punishment in my family was in almost all cases sane/not done in anger/reasonable/etc. In fact I'd say the typical situation involved doing something that my mom thought deserved punishment and then my dad giving someone a spanking later as a result, so certainly not in anger. (Three or four whacks with a wooden spoon on a clothed ass.)
As a result I have no strong opinions about corporal punishment. In theory the argument that kids shouldn't be taught that violence is ever appropriate seems quite reasonable to me, and so I'd avoid using corporal punishment if I were to have kids, but I don't feel strongly about it.
Last week, I was walking back to the office after lunch, and saw an unkempt 30-ish man repeatedly punching someone/something in the back seat of a ratty looking mid 90s sedan. He was across the street and down the block. I was thinking about what I should do when the walk light came on. Midway across the street, a youngish woman was crossing the other way, obviously disturbed. I asked her "what's going on?" and she responded, "I think there's a kid in there." Engaging with me seemed to disturb her all the more. Just as I reached the other side of the street, the guy jumped into the driver's seat, and peeled out.
Idaho plates.
I thought about calling the police. Kind of wish I had.
My mother had a near-baton-sized piece of wood with black electrical tape for a handle. She broke a few of those on us.
I don't feel emotionally scarred from the experience. I think Lord Castock understands why. It was a middlin' brutal punishment, but it really was issued in a predictable fashion, and not as a result of rage. (I'm getting little shivers remembering the terror of it, though. I hadn't thought about it in a long time.)
My wife and I don't hit our children, but I'm tempted to view this as just another way we are slackers compared to my parents. The Missus says she doesn't feel she could control her anger well enough, and I couldn't bear doing it. My parents were tough and disciplined by comparison.
In Texas.
When I signed my younger brothers up for public school in Texas in the early '90s, I had to sign something acknowledging the school's right to inflict corporal punishment on students. If I recall correctly (and it's possible I don't), the form gave me the option of affirmatively requesting paddling as a disciplinary measure of early resort, but did not allow me to prohibit the school from resorting to it if it deemed it necessary and appropriate (that part I least I'm quite certain about).
I was told by the school that they did not in fact administer corporal punishment and that this was all something they had to go through as a matter of state law. (This was Austin and thus plausible.) I thought I remembered the law changing in the mid-90s, but apparently it was only this year that a bill passed allowing parents to opt out of having schools beat their kids.
My mom used to take off her shoe. She didn't wear no rubber soles, neither.
Bah. Of course having watched that video (or not) should help one exercise the imagination and think about what kind of daily, constant conditions that girl was living under. Easy enough in this case to see the constant tension, the likely extreme authoritarianism under the threat of violence. (There is a current thread at CT of the horror of experiencing threatened and possible violence.) I certainly don't want to downplay actual violence in comparison to the constant fear and terror, but I am not completely certain which would do more damage. Authoritarian regimes certainly thrive more on the fear than the event.
But
Isn't there always an "Or else" behind every "Go to your room" or "eat your peas?"
Every demand for those who can demand, every command for those who can command carries with an implicit threat. Perhaps not always violence, perhaps devastating rejection or withdrawal of affection or other emotional threats...but those who command always also threaten.
And this is the constant experienced world of those who can be commanded.
My dad spanked us regularly and smacked me across the face (with an open palm) on at least a few occasions. Thinking about those occasions makes me quite angry -- not because such a punishment is necessarily wrong but because he clearly had lost his temper and was hitting me in a fit of unsurpressed rage rather than with clear-eyed goals in mind. Anyway, we never hit our kids and would never consider doing so. In part, that's a byproduct of culture (it's just not the done thing, so why do it and risk upsetting either our kid or someone who might hear about our bizarre parenting practices?). But it's also a function of the fact that little kids often can't defend themselves against adults, and thus hitting such a small and nearly helpless person strikes me as wrong.
Anyway, psyops are more effective.
What is the verb I need? Enabled? Empowered? Created by?
Privilege is violence.
Anyway, psyops are more effective.
Every child is different. I was utterly immune to them. As I said earlier, I sometimes got beatings with a belt that would have looked an awful lot like that video, except without the cursing (and I knew better than to not turn around when ordered). I look back on them now and I'm really not angry about them--or have much feelings about them at all, to be honest--even though I recognize them as fucked up. Too far in the past and my father has been dead for nearly 25 years anyhow. I was often an angry kid, however, and have some mild (but still shameful) bullying episodes that probably were related.
In my Catholic school in the '60s, the nuns had largely abandoned corporal punishment, but the lay teachers didn't. I remember in the second grade being made to stand, legs bent and arms outstretched, in front of the class for as long as I could. The older kids had books placed on their outstretched hands.
My favorite teacher in that school was my eighth grade teacher. He used to dish out a fair amount of physical abuse. One time, he dumped water from a vase over my head. Another time, he ratted my hair, scribbled all over the chalkboard, erased it, and cleaned the eraser by clapping it on my head. Another time, I had to bend over in front of the class and take a shot on the ass from a wooden pointer that I could hear whistling as he swung it. Hurt like hell.
He was a great guy. He always told the truth, he had a sense of humor and he always handled problems in-class. My parents never got called, I never got sent to the principal, and strange as it seems to say, he treated us with dignity. The nuns were crazy and awful people by comparison - straight out of The Wall.
I sure am not going to be able to watch that video.
I think I was spanked twice as a child, not hard and not in anger, for doing something dangerous like running into the street. I can only dimly remember it. I think my father thought something along the lines of "I guess the appropriate punishment for this is a spanking?" and proceeded to tell me very seriously that this was serious and called for a spanking, turn me over his knee, and give me an embarrassing but painless bap bap bap on my clothed butt. It was actually probably a good choice because it was not at all scary (unlike, say, getting yelled at could be), not painful, over quickly, but made a very strong impression.
And yet, of course, I would never spank Jane, because no. I feel icky enough when I hold her hands firmly (not painfully, just so she can't squirm away and slap me) at her sides when she has been hitting or clawing.
I watched it to the end, and while it was certainly unpleasant, I obviously didn't find it unwatchable.
I'm sure I could watch it to the end--I wouldn't have to close my eyes or pass out or vomit or anything, but I don't quite understand why anyone voluntarily would. Were you wondering if there would be an exciting plot twist?
I just figured I should know what I was talking about before I started discussing it.
but I don't quite understand why anyone voluntarily would
Marcotte put it at the top of her post, so I figured I should watch it..
I haven't watched it, but I could see wanting to watch at least a good-sized chunk of it if I wanted to be sure it was as bad as described before forming an opinion about it.
I haven't watched it, but I could see wanting to watch at least a good-sized chunk of it if I wanted to be sure it was as bad as described before forming an opinion about it.
Well, if you had watched it, you'd know that you don't need to get more than a minute in at most to know that it's as bad as described--nothing that comes after that could really alter that judgment. And it's something like eight minutes long, I think.
To restate 119, something like 117 was basically my reason for pressing play. But there's plenty of evidence early on that it's exactly as bas as people said, so I saw no need (and had less than no desire) to press through to the finish line.
Seriously though, the video sounds awful (can't watch it at work, I'll probably try to later on though), and so do a few stories here. I'm surprised at how common this kind of thing seems to be. You all seem like totally well-adjusted people, of course, and you probably wouldn't even want sympathy at this point (I wouldn't), but still. Although maybe my surprise is just a classist/elitist thing - I know perfectly well that some people get beat at home, but not such normal SWPL people!
Personally, I only have one memory of any instance of being physical disciplined. I remember that it was in anger, but I was so young at the time and the memory is so vague that I can't say what it was for, exactly how bad it was, or even if it actually happened rather than just being a dream I've misfiled. (That might sound funny, but something I remembered for years as a real event actually probably wasn't in hindsight, so maybe this wasn't either.)
I think I remember less of my childhood in general than most people do, and I joke now and then that it's because I've repressed all the traumas in it, but that's a joke, people. And maybe I should stop making it.
96: I guess I just can't agree that in practice this distinction is likely to be observed well.
I on the other hand think it's quite common for it to be observed fairly well. It's just that families practicing restraint and sanity and good discipline don't make for good lurid storytelling material. That's partly where the Four Yorkshiremen phenomenon comes from in the first place; people who really witness brutal, out-of-control violence in their homes and families do not spin nostalgic yarns about it.
Boy, @12:
There's also an aspect of pure defensiveness about taking responsibility for whatever's happened to you.
I think there's a lot to this. I had an exceptionally difficult relationship with my last boss which would sometimes prompt conversations in which I would admit blanket responsibility for some failing or other, only to leave his office wondering what the hell I'd just been talking about. I think I was emotionally arriving at a point in the argument that hadn't happened yet, and that never would if my insecurities weren't always beating my ego on the way to my mouth.
Well, as I said above, I am also horrified, in general and this particular case, about what comes after and what surrounds the violence.
There is a whole lot of humiliating and coerced groveling and various other punishments and threats toward the end of the tape. IOW, you see how violence creates compliance and empowers privilege and dominance.
She was forced to sleep on a couch. Breakfast might have been informative.
It is important to see Winston Smith love Big Brother.
@68
God, it's a relief to see someone else express this. I don't have kids but it always seemed reasonable to me that a bit of attention-commanding tush-swatting could be part of a decent parent's toolkit for kids at a certain age. But all of my parent friends are strict no-hitters, so I've tended to keep this to myself.
One day I watched while a friend calmly negotiated with her toddler who was standing in the middle of a fairly busy street, a scene which literally nauseated me with anxiety and temporarily convinced me I could never be a parent.
125.2: That sounds very weird, but also not as if hitting the kid would have solved it -- what needed to happen was moving the kid to the sidewalk. Presumably you could do that after hitting them, or instead of hitting them.
That's partly where the Four Yorkshiremen phenomenon comes from in the first place; people who really witness brutal, out-of-control violence in their homes and families do not spin nostalgic yarns about it.
I don't think we're disagreeing all that much. I'm certainly not arguing that any spanking is child abuse (largely for reasons like those in 68.) On the other hand, I think there are many thing that are wrong that don't amount to cigarette burns or brutal out of control violence that are very easily rationalized as good discipline necessary for raising a healthy child and I'm not sure why you're drawing the distinction as only between the extremes.
Agreed, the situation called for a yank rather than a smack, but it was the apparent unwillingness to do anything physical that made an impression.
"Unwillingness to do anything physical" with a toddler is not a tenable position.
Agreed, the situation called for a yank rather than a smack, but it was the apparent unwillingness to do anything physical that made an impression.
That's what she said!
127: What I'm drawing a distinction between is domestic corporal punishment at its most acceptable (relatively sane and normal and rule-bound and boring), and most exceptional (random and abusive). It's enough to me to say that practices that stray toward the latter pole are less advisable the further they go. Where we seem to disagree is that I simply doubt that the norm is all that far away from the acceptable, rule-bound, normal and boring varieties, whereas you suspect that the inherent nature of corporal punishment will creep further to the unacceptable end of the continuum. I see no particular reason for the latter belief except that stories of more extreme violence get disproportionately more attention than stories of the more workaday realities.
(Since someone alluded to it above, I'll add that I think the "corporal punishment teaches kids that violence is acceptable" argument is basically horseshit.)
I think the "corporal punishment teaches kids that violence is acceptable" argument is basically horseshit.
Why?
132: On account of it ignores context, which is all-important. If the argument really had force, then being told to do their chores would be "teaching children that child slavery is acceptable," detention would be "teaching children that forcible confinement is acceptable," and so on. Most people would (IMO rightly) regard such arguments as ridiculous, because they ignore context: the difference between the exercise of legitimate authority by a parent (or guardian on behalf of the parent) in order to enforce necessary boundaries and acceptable behaviors, and criminal activity. The "corporal punishment teaches violence" argument is silly for the same reason.
It comes, naturally, from conflating corporal punishment with abuse. Because unlike corporal punishment, abuse of course does teach violence as an acceptable and normal strategy; there is no underlying rule that abuse enforces except that violence for its own sake is normal.
I will note the prevalence of "I was subjected to corporal punishment and it wasn't so bad, therefore corporal punishment is ok in some circumstances.". Is good evidence that it teaches people that violence is ok.
134: The knowledge that corporal punishment isn't necessarily abuse would certainly lead people to conclude that corporal punishment is okay. The argument about "violence" is of course a little broader than that, as I'm sure you know.
128: If by "yank" you mean pulling by the arm, doesn't that risk injuring the kid?
Picking up, OTOH, seems safe for the child.
I don't know. I think kids (and adults too, but kids are more impressionable) solve disputes the way they see other people solve disputes, both with other people and with them (the kids).
It seems likely to me that if kids see adults using their words with each other and violence (even minor violence) with their kids, many kids will take from that the lesson that violence is a good way to solve disputes as long as you're bigger than, or in a position of authority with respect to, the other party.
It seems to me that kids don't need to be taught how to be violent: they start out pretty violent from the get-go. So I'm kind skeptical of arguments that corporal punishment teaches kids to be violent. On the other hand, I'm increasingly anti-violence uniformly. The same part of me that's slowly becoming a pacifist makes me think that parent should err on the non-violent side.
Of course, occasionally there's some necessary violence with children (they sometimes have to be picked up and moved), and there's other times when some violence is necessary (arresting criminals). But, if you have a choice picking non-violence seems wise.
I wouldn't say it teaches them to be violent, but that it teaches them that using force and/or threats of violence is an acceptable way to get people to do what you want them to do. Carefully avoiding violence teaches them what the other ways are and how to use them.
Well I'd say "belief" instead of "knowledge", as to the second part I don't agree at all, people seem very bad about conflating types of violence: certainly arguments around torture, sexual assault, hazing etc. are filled with analogies to other types of violence.
My gut (and certainly my practice) is with 139. It strikes me that there's almost certainly research and actual knowledge on this issue, which maybe someone could find.
139: it teaches them that using force and/or threats of violence is an acceptable way to get people to do what you want them to do.
It teaches them that certain people in certain situations in society are empowered to use force. Why shouldn't it? That is in fact the case, right?
Of course corporal punishment need not be used exclusively of teaching other strategies, and pretending that it does so would be a red herring.
(That second sentence in 142 is infelicitous, but I assume its basic meaning is clear...)
Castock, are you just describing a gut reaction on this subject, or have you looked at any research?
I see no particular reason for the latter belief except that stories of more extreme violence get disproportionately more attention than stories of the more workaday realities.
I don't think I'm making this mistake. I suspect that it's relatively common for someone to think mistakenly that they're using violence in a safe, controlled, and judicious manner but actually be doing things that to the small child look capricious, vicious, and mean, even if they're well short of cigarette butts and lasting bruises. I'm just not confident that most people manage to restrict themselves to slapping errant toddlers on the bum with an open hand, once or twice, or justifying it to an older child with a list of principles, because it's a common story for a mostly non-abusive parent to tell about that one time they lost it in Walmart.
(And the evidence problem goes both ways, here; all we hear about are the extreme cases. We don't hear about cases where the kid turns out mostly okay but with an anxiety problem.)
It's not because of cigarette butt cases; it's because of people like apo saying, yeah, I was beat like that, but only as a little kid. Or my own experiences, which were not horribly physical, but certainly motivated out of anger and fear. We present as a nice middle class family with four successful daughters. Are we outliers? I hope so, but I know which way I'd bet.
I'm willing to believe that quite a lot of mild violence is out of frustration, or anger, and not part of some carefully crafted punishment program. And... I'm just not cool with that, and I think that people who want to have a carefully crafted corporal punishment program are more likely to mistake what they're doing for that. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm mistaking horrible abuse cases for the norm.
And I think that "I was subjected to X, therefore X is okay" is a weak argument. People are resilient. That's a good thing. Human beings are wonderfully capable of healing. That's not evidence that X isn't bad, really. It's also not an argument that X is in the child's best interest. (I take it that some of this discussion is normative.) I was told all the time by my dad that if he wasn't mean to me for my own good, then bad things would happen. I might get an A-! And it turned out to be completely false. I wasn't a bad child. I would have been just fine without being hit. He'd probably get a lot more joy out of having adult daughters that talk to him.
And that's mostly why I come down on the side of not hitting; I have a lot of evidence that without it, people still get to go to college and get good jobs and don't end up doing drugs or pregnant out of wedlock or getting A-s in chemistry. So... if there's an effective non-violent method, why should I encourage parents to come up with a method of hitting a six-year-old?
certain people in certain situations in society are empowered to use force
Like, who were you thinking of? I'm assuming cops? I can't think of anyone else who is empowered to use force. Generally, people in society who use force get charged with assault because it's illegal to try to make people do what you want by hitting them.
Anyway, to the extent that it is true (that cops are empowered to use force), I'd really rather it not be, and that the "certain people" be both screen and trained, vigorously, so that their use of force is exceedingly rare and only in cases of absolutely last resort.
139: it teaches them that using force and/or threats of violence is an acceptable way to get people to do what you want them to do
I understand what you mean, but we should at least be careful to specify that it's physical violence that's in question where corporal punishment is concerned. We're all aware that there are other forms of violence (psychological, emotional) which can be and are employed to get people to do what you want them to do. And of course our society makes robust and sanctioned use of non-physical violence or threats thereof to enforce compliance with any number of rules.
If it's just physical violence (force, threat) that's a problem, while the myriad other forms of force and punishment are okay, that case would need to be made. Just throwing out "violent coercion/threat/use of force teaches people that use of violence is okay" doesn't really speak to why it's the corporal aspect of the matter that's objectionable.
Sick shit. The guy is pretty clearly getting off on beating his adolescent daughter. He's enjoying it.
140: Well I'd say "belief" instead of "knowledge"
No, if someone has personal and non-abusive experiences of corporal punishment, there's no reason that shouldn't be accounted as "knowledge."
144: Castock, are you just describing a gut reaction on this subject, or have you looked at any research?
A combination of the two. (I'm familiar enough with the literature to know, or at any rate to have acquired the impression, that too much of the current apparent consensus in pediatrics derives from studies that pretend to be assessing "corporal punishment" but in fact don't differentiate for cases of abusive hitting. A point that's been made before.)
145: I suspect that it's relatively common for someone to think mistakenly that they're using violence in a safe, controlled, and judicious manner but actually be doing things that to the small child look capricious, vicious, and mean, even if they're well short of cigarette butts and lasting bruises.
By the same token, it's relatively common for kids to think of perfectly judicious and reasonable parental rules and restrictions as capricious, vicious, and mean, which in and of itself is relatively meaningless.
I'm just not confident that most people manage to restrict themselves to slapping errant toddlers on the bum with an open hand
And I'm not confident that your assessment of what "most people" manage to restrict themselves to is particularly useful.
And I think that "I was subjected to X, therefore X is okay" is a weak argument.
No: however, "I'd like to see some conclusive evidence that X is the evil you're claiming it to be" is a perfectly fair request, even if it happens to be motivated by someone's personal experience not jiving with descriptions of the putative evil. If you want a positive argument that X is better than Y, you'd of course need evidence that Y produces bad outcomes. But I'm not in that racket.
why should I encourage parents to come up with a method of hitting a six-year-old?
I really, really distrust emotionally manipulative language like this in the context of this debate. It's a big part of why I distrust the "anti-spanking" movement as a whole.
I don't think so, if someone was abused or not is the kind of place where we can trust self reporting. I'll accept knowledge that you don't consider it abuse.
Obviously should be, "is not the kind of place where we".
146: Like, who were you thinking of? I'm assuming cops? I can't think of anyone else who is empowered to use force.
Technically, the bulk of people are empowered to use force in self-defense, actually. (Although that's very complicated in practice.) But in the disciplinary sense, yes, law enforcement and defense both rest fundamentally on force, and I doubt you'll find many people who want to entirely forego these things. Caution about force and careful regulation of it is of course entirely warranted, which is why I said this is what distinguishes corporal punishment from abuse.
150: In the strictly theoretical sense, no, but there are practical points beyond which refusal to accept self-reporting becomes absurd.
150: If nothing else, this thread has convinced me yet again that I would never, ever be able to hack it as a research psychologist.
Were you abused? -No.- Ha, that's what you say!
Did you receive moderate and well-controlled corporal punishment from time to time? -Yes, and I came out fine.- Ha, that's what you say!
---
The link to NYT piece in 149 is interesting. I didn't read the whole thing, though. I wonder how they defined other methods that work 'just as well' as corporal punishment (or, what coming out fine means). It strikes me that there's a lot of room for loose play there, given that many non-corporal forms of punishment can mess a kid up notably, if not handled properly.
By the same token, it's relatively common for kids to think of perfectly judicious and reasonable parental rules and restrictions as capricious, vicious, and mean, which in and of itself is relatively meaningless.
But it's not in and of itself; that is, upon reflection, I think that maybe what others justify as reasonable I rightly think are excessive, and these people used language like "spare the rod and spoil the child" and "I do this out of love, not anger" and "I say that what you do is wrong, not that you are bad" and I'm saying, hey, sometimes the sensible message you thought you were conveying by your sensible regimen of punishment was felt as capricious, vicious, and mean, and well... that judgment appears to hold up.
I get that kids often think that their parents are unfair and later come to see their wisdom. But, I'm not a kid, and still not seeing the justification for it, and I'm inclined to think, thus, that some people who think that they have a good system of punishment going are really not conveying what they think they are to their kids.
And I'm not confident that your assessment of what "most people" manage to restrict themselves to is particularly useful.
If the level of evidence is sufficient for you to claim that people only think that it's harmful because of extreme cases publicized by the media, it seems that personal experience and generalizations from experience counter that.
I really, really distrust emotionally manipulative language like this in the context of this debate
How is it emotionally manipulative? (Because I mentioned the child's age? I thought we were in agreement that corporal punishment was useful only for small pre-rational children.) I just think the burden of proof should be on the side of advocating for controlled violence. This is where the burden of proof is in most cases where violence is thought to be a live option. Why should I have to show that it's evil and lasting in order to think that it's dispreferred?
Does anyone have a link to the video?
How is it emotionally manipulative?
Using loaded language meant to imply that corporal punishment boils down to "coming up with ways of hitting kids" (actually IRL it's far likelier to be practised as a small part of a much broader disciplinary regimen) is of course emotionally manipulative. And I frankly think you're being a bit faux-naif about needing that explained to you.
Why should I have to show that it's evil and lasting in order to think that it's dispreferred?
Because if in fact it has no demonstrably deleterious effects in comparison with other methods, then there's no reason for it to be a moral issue. Right? It's then simply a matter of different parenting styles.
Because if in fact it has no demonstrably deleterious effects in comparison with other methods, then there's no reason for it to be a moral issue.
Physical pain inflicted on small children is a deleterious effect, in and of itself.
Do you know how to get to Pandagon? If not thru Obs Wings, look left
I don't feel like lining that thing.
157: That's pretty much naked question-begging, since arguably pain is a basic life experience from which people can gain as much as lose. Again, the emotionally manipulative rhetoric makes me suspicious. If the anti-spanking case was so open and shut, there would be no need for such shenanigans.
The deleterious effects at issue are: does it make them likelier to abuse others in adult life? Become substance abusers? Prone to depression or marital problems? (There are batteries of studies contending all these things, but then cf. my earlier caveat about studies that don't differentiate between abusive hitting and actual corporal punishment.)
You're more than willing to ascribe all sorts of motivations to me that I don't hold, but I didn't write what you put in quotes there.
Right? It's then simply a matter of different parenting styles.
I don't think this follows. If two methods of crowd control have no long-term deleterious consequences, but one of them is violent, and one of them is peaceful, we generally prefer the peaceful method and have a reason not to use the violent one, viz., a peaceful alternative works so there's no need to escalate it to violence. So I think the burden of proof is to show first that it doesn't have long-term deleterious effects, and second that it's required for disciplinary purposes. I think the evidence for both is mixed at best.
161.1: You may genuinely not have meant your use of language to be loaded. My bad if I was reading in. But your exact wording was little different from my paraphrase, and "loaded" is a perfectly fair description of it. And it shouldn't be necessary.
161.2: I don't think this follows. If two methods of crowd control
Analogies between domestic discipline and crowd control are horribly inapt.
Is the thing on youtube? Can someone give me google terms? I'm now finding pandagon and obsidian wings confusing to navigate. I did just have some cider.
Analogies between domestic discipline and crowd control are horribly inapt.
Heh, I went to a call where this tiny woman was at her wits end over her high school aged sons physically fighting because she felt she was physically incapable of breaking it up. My buddy told her to buy some pepper spray and next time they ignored her orders to stop to hose them down.
Analogies between domestic discipline and crowd control are horribly inapt.
I don't think the two things are unrelated though. I think use of violence to and around people when they are children normalizes the violence, and that if we want people to grow up to prefer nonviolent tactics when they become police officers, we should model nonviolent tactics when they are three years old and throwing a tantrum.
Youtube is adults-only or whatever. The above gets you to Marcotte's post. Click arrow.
Because three year olds throwing tantrums are paying close attention to what you do.
No, because children copy the behavior of the people around them.
Just being nonviolent to a three year old wouldn't work, obviously. You'd have to keep doing it the whole time you were disciplining them.
In my experience, which is admittedly limited, three year olds are the worst people on the planet.
162: I think the rule generalizes. If nonviolent method X is available and effective, and A chooses violent method Y, then A should give us reasons why she chose that method.
I take it that the usual claim is that time-outs/reward withholding don't work (for some or for all small children, because they are made of willpower with no self-control), and so corporal punishment is required. (At least I've never seen someone praise the effectiveness of timeouts on their toddler and then go on to advocate spanking them instead.)
And my concern is first, that time-outs do seem to work, and second is that there are reasons to think independently of serious abuse cases that parents are bad judges of what kinds of corporal punishment are acceptable (how many advocate hitting with a belt as the way it was done in the good old days?), and others from the outside are really bad judges of what is going on in a given family (because people can put up with a lot and turn out relatively okay.)
Two year olds are cute babies, four year olds are actual children. Three is a weird age in between when they are strong enough to damage you, fast enough to be impossible to control, and new enough to have no caution at all.
Because three year olds throwing tantrums are paying close attention to what you do.
Three year olds pay attention to fricken everything you do. Not only that, but they remember it, and bring it up at embarrassing times.
173: Sure, they're six kinds of cute. That's why the human race hasn't died yet.
I want to beat the shit out of him. Especially that part about needing to turn over is extra sick.
Hope the bastard goes to jail.
174: Someone was talking about needing to move children. I saw a woman raise her voice at her child as she was moving him today. She didn't seem to be the most attuned parent, but they had gotten on the wrong bus and needed to get off, so she lifted him off. Is that violence?
I don't think my parents ever hit me as punishment. On the other hand, they (and I) did create some pretty intense emotional situations, mainly through mockery and shaming. It wasn't exactly abusive, but it was pretty clearly dysfunctional.
But I'm fascinated by this belief that "I deserved the super whipping."
It sounds to me like those people are actually proud of it, like it was a rite of passage or something. That's very different from students who blame themselves for failing a test.
174: I think the rule generalizes.
And I think you think wrong. There are a gajillion more X-factors involved in crowd control than the billion already involved in small-scale domestic discipline. Generalizing from one to the other would at best be a flawed enterprise, which I suppose is the kinder way of saying I think it's nuts.
I take it that the usual claim is that time-outs/reward withholding don't work . . . and so corporal punishment is required.
I don't know, who is this the "usual claim" from? James Dobson, or something? I'm not on one Side of this debate trying to prove that the other Side like, totally Hates Children and wants the downfall of our society or something. I'm just not convinced that the deleterious effects of spanking have been sufficiently proven to warrant criminalizing (or alternatively, demonizing) a potential tool in the parental discipline arsenal, or presumptively assuming that instances of domestic corporal discipline will skew towards abusiveness because all parents should presumed to be misusing them on account of Someone's Did, Maybe or Some Small Percentage Do, Obviously. I simply think there needs to be less moralizing all round.
(And the fact of the matter is that the world is not a philosophy seminar: in a practical sense, if someone wants to disestablish a customarily respected parenting tool, it's they who have to provide the positive evidence that said tool is actively harmful. The anti-spanking "lobby" or "movement" or... fad, as I think is the more accurate term, has shown awareness of this and made abundant attempts to provide such proof, but with mixed and methodologically flawed results that aren't as conclusive or convincing as they seem to think.)
No doubt there are parents who misuse corporal punishment, as there are very obviously parents who misuse time-outs and other strategies and have seriously out-of-control offspring as a result (I work with hundreds of kids on a daily basis and have ample opportunity to observe this firsthand -- and I don't dislike kids by any means). That doesn't mean that any of these strategies are invalid in themselves: what it probably means is that using them in concert is preferable to using one tool, or one paradigm, to the exclusion of all else. Unfortunately, the long-term multi-family studies investigating whether dogmatically nonviolent parenting produces monsters with an outsized sense of entitlement are decades off, yet, so all we have to go with at this point is gut and very incomplete data.
My gut, and what I know of the very incomplete data, tells me that countries that have refused to entirely criminalize domestic corporal punishment have it right, and those that have chosen to do so very probably have made a large mistake, and that the correct course is probably to validate strictly limited and controlled forms of domestic corporal punishment as a parenting technique. This has been Canada's course, more or less; though outlawing corporal punishment by schools or the use of anything but an open hand seems slightly overboard to me, it's no disaster and the basic heart of the policy seems to be in the right place.
It sounds to me like those people are actually proud of it
Of course I'm proud of it! Why, our Dad and our Mum would kill us and dance about on our graves singin' Hallelujah, and we're all the better for it!
apo's thought that it's sick to beat such a grown-up child is because we suspect in cases like these that the person holding the belt is getting some sexual gratification out of the situation, whereas we're less likely to think that about someone hitting a 4-year-old. you have to smack you baby on the hand when they reach for the hot stove, and yank them out of the street when they run into it, but short of that I don't see any good reason to hit them. I think you have under-cultivated your skills of maternal terrifyingness if you can't make their bowels clench in icy terror by looking at them funny. and whatever happened to yelling?
183: I also think that the pro-vs.-anti- aspect of Teh Great Spanking Debate leads to way too much weight being put on the spanking as a tool. Even in families where spanking occasionally occurs, Heavy Parental Disapproval or, worse yet, Saddened Parental Disappointment are often far more powerful and important disciplinary tools than spanking.
whatever happened to yelling?
Word. I've also had good results from calisthenic type punishments like alternating sets of flutter kicks and pushups.
honestly, lord castock, I think we're just slowly improving in our society's treatment of the powerless. the beating that girl is getting would have seemed just fine to a random witness in the 1600s, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have been painful or humiliating to suffer even for her at the time. it's possible for whole societies to be fucked up. narnian children get caned all the time and I can't see that it does them that much good; indonesian children get caned at roughly equal rates (to all appearances) and the resultant societies have vastly different rates of crime. if you'd be scared to do it to someone your own size you should think twice about doing it to a kid.
I had the foresight to stop hitting my brother during fights about 2 years before he reached and passed my size. I think that's pretty much all the adults are thinking in 90% of these situations. I can get away with hitting this small person, but that won't last forever.
even just to man up and give some 11-year-old kid 6 of the best requires a certain...fortitude? callousness? controlled cruelty? I couldn't do it. my personal experience is that some people like to dish out a good beating, and they are the very people least equipped to stop or play by whatever rules have been set down. it occasionally happened that my step-father would ask, in a rage, if I thought I was "too-old" for a whipping (such as would be implicitly appropriate for a younger child) and the results were decidedly unpleasant. and not because a whipping is the worst thing in the world! done properly it's over fast. it was that he found the situation enjoyable.
does it teach you it's OK to solve problems with violence? no fucking shit! how big does your son get before you can stop beating him? is this calculus based on appropriate disciplining strategies or the fact that he might haul off and get you good one time and the illusion of control would be shattered? fuck a bunch of hitting little kids. everybody having behaved a certain way for a long time doesn't make it right; plenty of people coming out of it OK doesn't make it right. it used to be considered part of a sober, sane discipline strategy to beat your child with a razor strop, but only a certain number of times (say, 10), and for certain infractions. how do you like that one? still OK?
apo's thought that it's sick to beat such a grown-up child
Well, I don't think I'd have reacted differently if it was a boy and I doubt sexual gratification was driving that judge. What I was trying to say with my original statement was that it should be obviously objectively *worse* to wail on a younger, smaller kid. But because one's own experiences--whether atypical or not--serve as your personal yardstick, my gut reflex turned that upside down. If the kid in the video were younger, I'd have found it much harder to watch (and sicker, as well) but less weirdly incongruent.
I think we're just slowly improving in our society's treatment of the powerless.
And I think way too many of us have a vastly overconfident assessment of what "improving" means on too little data.
it's possible for whole societies to be fucked up.
In any number of ways. It's even possible that there is some historical experience of what overindulgence leads to, and that the People of Yore were not just a bunch of violent morons who adopted corporal punishment out of wilfully sadistic enjoyment of beating little kids. That's exactly the kind of moralizing I think we need less of.
I had the foresight to stop hitting my brother during fights
I was categorically forbidden to hit my brother, or my parents would let him hit me back or would hit me if he declined to. Worked like a charm: siblings in our family almost never fought physically.
I don't give the absolute credence you're giving to the physical size business. Corporal punishment should be assumed not to work past a certain age because, regardless if the kid is a runt or a giant, once adolescence hits there are simply different developmental forces at work. The adolescent is in the beginning of the process of differentiating themselves from the parents, and trying to establish themselves as a separate agent. (Here's another point where I think the Canadian compromise is sane and reasonable; it recognizes this and bases the contours of the policy on it.)
my personal experience is that some people like to dish out a good beating, and they are the very people least equipped to stop or play by whatever rules have been set down. it occasionally happened that my step-father . . .
Yes, well: I honestly don't mean this to sound cold, but I'm assuming you do realize that your personal experience, being one of fairly out-of-control abuse (this was the infamous sexually-abusing kitten-wall-bashing guy, right?), is not necessarily dispositive for the general populace.
it used to be considered part of a sober, sane discipline strategy to beat your child with a razor strop, but only a certain number of times (say, 10), and for certain infractions. how do you like that one? still OK?
Sure. Like I said above, I think the Canadian "only an open hand" restriction is a little overboard.
A friend has gone to a few presentations at the (recently renamed) Center for Nonviolent Parenting, and came away impressed.
Further on 188.6: We're an exception to the local Canadian norm in this, accidentally. Other families we encountered were mystified, without exception, that we don't have any charming "sibling rivalry" stories about us kicking the hell out of each other.
"accidentally" s/b "incidentally"
So it seems like the best case scenario is that corporal punishment is not really extremely horrible or that big a deal in certain highly controlled situations and cultures. And the worst case is that it covers up and provides a justification for horrific abuse. Uhhh I don't think this is a hard call.
Yes, well: I honestly don't mean this to sound cold, but I'm assuming you do realize that your personal experience, being one of fairly out-of-control abuse (this was the infamous sexually-abusing kitten-wall-bashing guy, right?), is not necessarily dispositive for the general populace.
I don't think I ever claimed the man was normal; he was clearly out on the tail end of being a crazy sadist. nonetheless I see no reason my own experience shouldn't be noteworthy as a cautionary tale, as it were. if you heard that my brother set part of the window frame on fire with burning magnesium, which then dripped down the outside of the house and happily burnt itself out in a hole in the dirt, and that my step-dad beat him afterwards it might sound fairly reasonable. if you had been there, it would seem less reasonable.
192: Assuming the alternatives come with zero downside, of course. But therein lies the rub. (Cf. the common Canadian "sibling rivalry" example, wherein the parents refuse to hit the kids and the kids are ritually assumed to be hitting each other. All in good fun, of course. Not a hard call, right?)
193: It would depend on what "your step-dad beat him afterwards" concretely meant. If you assumed I was a moron who wouldn't think to question what's contained in that statement, you could assume that I was assuming it was reasonable. But I find that insulting.
additionally, trailing the quote off like that and then saying you didn't mean to sound cold, failed: because you sounded cold. but whatever.
also: kids, don't set magnesium on fire!
196: trailing the quote off like that and then saying you didn't mean to sound cold, failed: because you sounded cold. but whatever.
NB: Whole Quote Included.
I never said sensitivity was my strong suit. But seriously, I didn't mean it to sound cold. I simply meant that, as I've said above, the abuse by a minority of a strategy (any strategy, including the nonviolent ones) doesn't necessarily tell us what its utility is to the majority.
195: I didn't mean to do you the disservice of saying you were a moron who approved of horrible beatings. I merely mean to point out that in a culture in which it's ok to get a pretty decent whipping for (let's face it) setting the house on fire for fun, it might be difficult to convey the extent to which the punishment outweighed the crime. that is, in a society that approves of corporal punishment in principle, this is going to look like a good place for maximum application of force. someone who's seriously abusive is going to be able to weasel out of this one pretty easily, no matter what he does to the kid (provided no permanent scarring, etc., but people can be creative.)
198: in a society that approves of corporal punishment in principle, this is going to look like a good place for maximum application of force.
A society that actually approves of corporal punishment recognizes a difference between it and "maximum application of force" is what I'm getting at. That it's common for a society to approve of limited spanking does not necessarily make it common for that society to approve of beating the shit out of a kid for a stupid mistake. (I'm claiming Southern Exemption, here. The American South is alien territory to me and I don't pretend to have an informed opinion on how this all balances out in Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee.)
kids, don't set magnesium on fire!
But it's so awesome! I brought in some reloading powders of varying burn rates to my wife's class for the demo's on physical vs. chemical change. Nothing gets the attention of the whole class like burning piles of gunpowder.
199: dude, if you tell that story in south carolina and the kid is still able to walk out of the room, everyone will figure he got off pretty OK.
200: my brother's best ever science experiment for school was to test the hypothesis of whether fire would burn better in an atmosphere of nearly pure oxygen. guess what?!
The US is a very violent place, relative to Canada.
203: really though. people in america are beating the tar out of each other right and left generally. for true, in the south, it's ok to beat up your kid pretty badly if he did something really dumb, like set off firecrackers when he wasn't supposed to and light a bunch of stuff on fire. now, should he be in big trouble, however conceived? duh, yeah. should he be beaten like a red-headed step-child? I say no. castock, I honestly think we're arguing about different things. maybe you have canadian reformers who want to send someone to jail for swatting their 4-year-old on the butt after he ran outside. in america we have judges like that motherfucker deciding if something was "really" abusive or merely a somewhat extreme form of justified discipline.
I don't see the Canadian non-beaten kids turning out particularly badly (even if they have . . . Sibling rivalry!) so Ima gonna stick with a "don't beat your small children rule."
203: I often think that Canadians are actually somewhat in denial about how violent their society is or isn't, relative to others. That so many of us think parental violence is something of a no-no but that sibling violence is normal, acceptable and salutary is a perfect example of this. (And it connects to other, ickier, more damaging phenomena. The most prevalent form of intrafamilial incest is in fact sibling incest. Which suggests that outsized concern about whether parents are hitting their kids, or with what specific methodology they're hitting them, might profitably take a backseat to whether siblings are being permitted to commit violence against each other. Notions of "progress" can sometimes be illusory, and destructively so.)
205: Well, good for you! Glad you're comfortable with that.
yeah, I too am ashamed that the mores of house castock didn't extend to my own benighted family, such that I got into fights with my brother when we were 4 and 6 or whatever and I slapped him. no doubt those were the worst moments of his childhood.
Hockey is very punchy, and not in the drunk-love way.
yeah, I too am ashamed that the mores of house castock didn't extend to my own benighted family
The retreat into sarcasm doesn't exactly impress me.
it's against the rules for my daughters to hit one another and they do so very seldom, after which they get yelled at and must apologize, no matter who started it. but dude, little kids will fight sometimes.
nothing in the preceding comment is meant to endorse sexual abuse by older siblings. in case that wasn't clear for some reason.
Speaking of strawmen (I spoke of them recently), there's probably an argument that hockey is more violent than American Football.
211: it's against the rules for my daughters to hit one another and they do so very seldom, after which they get yelled at and must apologize
What, no beatings? Clearly you are destroying society. Your next update along these lines must include the words "razor strop" or the House Castock will pen you a stern letter. Very stern, indeed.
look m'lord, I'm just in a bad mood about this topic generally and it's a bad idea for me to get into a fight about it with someone of whom I am genuinely fond. it just makes me go cry in the corner. please let's just drop the subject. I'm sorry I'm having an emotional meltdown and "I'm sensitive" is a lame argumentative strategy; nonetheless, for real, why don't we just not talk about it anymore. I've already cried for like an hour today. I want to surf the internet like a meth-addled squirrel and not have intrusive thoughts about past unpleasantness. I know it's my own fault if I bring it up but I can't think about anything else. that's why I'm reading the internet instead of sitting around thinking generally. because then I just start evaluating whether a well executed swan dive out of my second story window onto the concrete might not do the job, despite it's not really being high enough. I concede, whatever, you win.
WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF? I AM A FUCKING IDIOT.
Jesus, I was joking. I promise you will receive no missives from us on anything but scented, floral paper, and that all of them will firmly and positively advise you not to jump out of your second storey window. Peace out.
But also? You know... if you could work a little on the "Not Requiring That I Agree With You About Everything or You Will Commit Suicide" thing? That would be great. Because it is in fact worse than just lame, and not even a little bit amusing, and fond as I am of you I strongly dislike being constantly reminded that the mere expression of my opinion might Send You Over the Edge. Okay? It really, truly is seriously not cool.
Like, I dunno. I could stop commenting here easily enough, and this would be no skin off my teeth. But it would sort of really suck if my relatively anodyne opinions in-line-with-Canadian-law on spanking somehow constitute that line.
So... I wanted to comment, late, in a very different direction. Probably too late for this but whatever, I have a thought and I Will Share It. Take that, internet.
I found the earlier discussion about self-blame really interesting, because I spent the better part of the past year in what amounted to an psychologically/emotionally abusive relationship with my supervisor. He was (is) crazy, for reals, and he made ME feel crazy. Which (sometimes) made me react in less-than-ideal ways (mostly withdrawing, procrastinating on work to the extreme, etc though also sometimes snide comments etc). (News flash: I am not a saint.)
My very real, not imagined less-than-ideal behaviour resulted in reactions from him that were massively out of line with the infraction: shaming, marathon meetings, micromanaging (recorded meetings and 50-item agendas with every comment becoming an agenda item)... In other words, he was crazy, which made me act badly, which made him act crazy. I _was_ at fault, but he was also crazy. However, especially given that he is my superior, well-respected, has many times more experience than me, etc, it was hard for me to be sure for myself that I was truly not at fault. Or that his reaction was still out of line even if I was at fault. Or something like that. Clearly I'm still working this out and the end of a basically dead comment-thread is a good place to do it.
217: I apologize, that is a shitty thing to say.
219: That an exchange like this prompts that extremity of emotion just really makes me seriously worried for you, is all. Cf. comments on an earlier thread about the Internet's incompatibility with therapeutic aims. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go off, it all comes from a place of affection.
parodie: having your superior consistently act in crazy and unexpected ways is bound to change your behavior as you try to modify it to alternately placate/stubbornly rebel in petty ways. workplaces can be as dysfunctional as families sometimes, especially if the relationships are of long duration.
219: it makes me think I shouldn't look at the internet ever, but it's hard to know what I'm going to do with myself otherwise. I'm sorry for being unpleasant. it's childish and manipulative to threaten suicide if people don't agree with you. I didn't mean that, I just meant that I was upset enough that I'm willing to capitulate if we can just please stop talking about this.
Well... I don't need capitulation, but we could certainly talk about Justin Bieber. That cad.
Thanks, alameida. It's surprising how helpful it is to have people who understand. I could add a lot about context, and why it mattered so much and why I care so much, but I am (quite thankfully, and thanks to some excellent allies) no longer his supervisee.
What I found interesting in observing my reaction to the experience, though, was how deeply my sense of having truly done something wrong could run, and how much that made me excuse his behaviour. As did my knowing that he was lonely/had few friends, etc. I made so many excuses for him, and because our (professional) relationship was by necessity and design largely conducted off in private, I had few outside voices to confirm my impressions (this is seriously fucked up) or his assertions (this is normal, get in line). There was no sense of perspective, and my (remember: accurate!) knowledge that I had in fact done wrong made it hard for me, an intelligent adult, to name it as profoundly unhealthy and get out.
Not sure I have much to contribute regarding Bieber. He's Canadian, though.
"He's Canadian, though" s/b "He's Canadian!"
And how.
Wish I'd thought of "it's my first time, so I want to feel everything" line when I was seventeen. I, too, could be a baby daddy.
parodie: it's crucial for this kind of mind-fuck to work that you not have sane people giving you accurate impressions of how fucked up things are. I honestly wasn't sure my upbringing was really all that messed up until I went to california for the first time and started just testing out stories on people. like, did they think this thing was normal? this? outside assessment would give you the perspective to judge that your abusive boss was in the wrong. it's also important that you have actually messed something up. then you can have had some influence on the situation and not be a passive victim. your inclination to say you brought it on yourself by messing up is very common. again, then you have some power, even if it's only for ill.
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Man I have spent too long with nerds. My first advice when someone asked how to format a hard drive to something other than NTFS on Windows was `install cygwin, then it will be trivial'.
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when I tell my husband I'm miserable from getting into an argument on the internet about whether it's ok to hit children it is really not going to elicit a lot of sympathy. I kind of already promised not to get into any such arguments.
It was! Kind of.
He's trying to install OS X on off the shelf hardware, but he's one of the least technical friends of mine. The kind of person who treats technology as a kind of magic incantation. And the incantation has fucked up!
I hate to attribute base motives to your friend, but perhaps he wants you to fix the magic box?
On external drives at least, Windows 7 gives you a choice between FAT32 and NTFS when you right-click on the drive and choose format. I have no idea about internal drives or other options. It's been years since I formatted anything other than a USB drive.
Pretty much. He's good at doing things with computers, but he understands them in quite a magical, do what the spell says way.
T problem is that Snow Leopard gets really unhappy when it has to talk to funny A/C/P/I things. And the motherboard has a funny A/C/P/I thing. So you have to either fuck with the motherboard or fuck with the kernel. I think fucking with the motherboard is basically out. Which leaves fucking with the kernel! And that pretty much requires a unix-like thing, I think, so I think installing cygwin may actually have been the best idea.
Wait, Keir, are you googleproofing ACPI? Are you worried that the computer is going to stumble across this thread?
Obvious solution: fix the computer, but in return he has to address you as "Mighty Technopriest Keir" for the next week.
Kinda. I may have picked up some incantatory beliefs myself in the past few hours.
I also have no idea how anyone ever solved any computer problems before the internet; what did you do when the computer crapped out and you couldn't just google the bizarre error message?
you went to the computer store and asked the nerds questions. keir, it sounds like your friend does need a unix-like kernel, so maybe you're spending the optimal amount of time with nerds.
I think that my parents spanked me once or twice. I have one vivid memory of my DAd saying that he would "spank me something hard" if i didn't stop something... I backed down,so he didn't.
He usually reasoned with me, and mostly I was a well-behaved child and my father knew that my own self-discipline was better than anything he managed as a child, but that was there once or twice.
And, I'm pretty sure that he would now consider spanking wrong, so there's some progress.
I used to fix computers in the days before the internet. You had to read books and manuals, and memorise a lot of shit. Beep codes, and the like.
I never fixed computers, and never touched a computer before the internet, but I miss having manuals (back before I knew about the internet) where I could actually look stuff up and could try to figure out what was causing me trouble.