Well, that too is parenting while black. But they really don't need share the kid's pictures!
Actually, I'll start the trolling by saying that some of the linked allegations beyond this beating strike me as sounding coached just from what I know of how 4-year-olds make allegations of abuse, which is probably more than most people here but not the most in the world or anything.
None of that is excusing parents who choose excessive physical discipline as the way to respond to dumb shit kids do, which I hope is obvious. I'm grateful not to have to worry about it since we can't even spank while fostering, but I know that this is a situation where community norms don't always match well with the law and I'm in favor of the law in this case.
First they say you can't beat your wife.* Now they say you can't kick the crap out of your kid.** If this keeps up, pretty soon nobody's going to want to play in the NFL.
* If there's video.
** If there are pictures.
My dad hit me a few times, though never in such a way as to leave a bruise or break the skin. That was a different time, of course, but I was pretty sure, even then, that what he was doing was wrong.
I get that people have varying opinions about spanking, but these injuries (on a four-year-old, FFS!) seem to go way beyond the line.
I told Mr. Robot (a Vikings fan) that we're not putting the Adrian Peterson ornament on the Christmas tree this year.
Uh, heebie, if you're reading, maybe don't post my guest post for a day or too? I don't want to totally depress the blog.
The whole switch thing baffled me as a kid - it was in books, but no one I knew of ever got worse than a spanking*. It seemed like it would be horrible, and sure enough it is. Jeebus.
*that is, open hand on clothed bum - almost entirely about shock, not pain or humiliation (some of those things, but not much). I found out when older that at least some people I knew got worse, but it was outside my community norms.
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Holy crap. I am alone (but not quite alone, and not really alone: I have my dog with me) at my little cabin in the Adirondacks. I come up here with just my dog all the time. I figure the worst that could happen is that I see a bear.
Eh. I just encountered another form of Adirondack wildlife:
Earlier this evening, I heard music and laughter and rowdiness. Sounded like some young people partying down by the lake. No big deal. Weird to hear, though, because it's so so dark up here, and I couldn't really place where the noise was coming from. It sounded closer than it probably was.
But ten minutes ago, a pickup truck pulled into my driveway. Did I mention that this place is sort of really remote, and that no vehicle ever pulls into the driveway unless it's friends or family who were invited up here? Also, I might add that while I have really good internet coverage, I have no cell phone coverage at all. No phone, no 911. I am confused, and afraid. Real fear, the kind that gives you an adrenaline rush, that makes you shake, that makes you bold (or perhaps stupid).
I go to the door and open it (because fear has made me bold, or stupid, and in my confusion, I want to figure out what the hell is going on here), while keeping the screen door closed. Out of the pickup truck steps, or staggers, an oldish (not old, but oldish) guy who looks like a member of the cast of Deliverance. O sweet Mother of mercy, to thee do I cry. I mean, this is it, right? The man is drunk. Very, very drunk. And he looks rough, and not like the sort of man I'd like to encounter on a dark night in a remote place.
Meanwhile, my dog is making those low, growling noises that say, "Back off! Back off NOW." No barks; he is beyond barking. "Is he is a pit bull?" asks Deliverance Man. In fact, my dog is only half pit bull (the other half black lab), but I reply, "Yes, he's a pit. I think you'd best leave now." For the first time in my life ever, I feel some sympathy for the crazy wingnut gun fetishists. It is dark, so so dark, and very remote, and I am a woman alone (but not alone: my dog is at my side, and he is on my side), and some crazy Deliverance Man is on my property. Property is Theft? Yes. I am ashamed to report that "What the f*ck are you doing on my property?!" is running through my mind at high speed. I am holding my dog by his collar, and he is so agitated, so primed for a fight, that he manages to slip through his collar.
Long story short: it seems Deliverance Man was looking for the source of the rowdy, partying sounds, and he saw the lights on in my cabin, and thought I might be the source. And then I, or rather, my dog, convinced him to get back into his pickup truck and drive away.
But now I am nervous about going to bed. I mean, he wouldn't come back, surely?
If I were up here alone, I would be truly terrified. A dog really is a woman's best friend.
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Jesus Christ. If AP doesn't see jail time, there ain't no justice. Fucking Vikes.
But now I am nervous about going to bed. I mean, he wouldn't come back, surely?
I wouldn't think so, indeed, no.
Good dog, dog!
Wow. Good on your dog, Jane. And I understand about the automatic instinct to go to your door and open it. I probably would have done the same.
Hope the adrenaline ebbs and lets you sleep.
JPJ, that guy couldn't find his way back even if he wanted to. And if he did, he'd get eaten.
Hopefully, it never comes to that, but I think there are ways to dial 911 through the internet. It's been years since I used it, but the Gmail chat had a way to make phone calls online for free to any number in the US (and Canada).
I'm sorry you had an unsettling experience, but I think he won't come back. Not just because of the dog, but also he'll probably drink until passes out. It's sort of the most likely ending once you drink past a certain point. Also, people just dress like that in some places. I wouldn't read much into him looking rough.
Anyway, in my opinion there's quite a bit of distance between "right-wing gun fetishist" and keeps a shotgun in a house when there's no good way to call the po-po.
14: Yeah, it's the little phone icon in the chat sidebar next to your icon. I used it once when my cell phone broke and I had to wait a few weeks for a new one to arrive (because Alaska). It doesn't appear to be free anymore in general, but it may still be free for 911.
13: He did a 3-point turn in the driveway that impressed me, given his state of advanced drunkenness. And I'm pretty sure he'd know how to handle a bear. But likely he has passed out by now, and won't even remember our encounter in the morning.
Probably not a bad idea to find the real number of the local police, and have an active skype account (or something like it), so you can make the call if you need to. "Yes, hello, my dog just ate a drunk man. Is my dog going to be drunk now?"
18: Yeah, probably a good idea. Areas that remote don't always have 911 coverage anyway.
If Mengele were alive today...he'd be the head of a multi-million dollar startup.
9: That's a good dog you have there. It doesn't sound as if the drunk guy actually meant any harm, but I would have been terrified too, and it's awfully good not to have had to rely on his good intentions.
Fucking Vikes
The Minnesota Vikings have had the most players arrested since 2000. The number of arrests by team range from a low of 11 (tie between the Arizona Cardinals and St. Louis Rams) versus a high of 44 (the Vikings)
And ironically, that's the only team in the NFL whose front line is half women.
20: I don't get why diet. I mean, if you're going to have artificial flavors, the full calorie flavor would be preferred.
9: Good dog, and I hope the rest of your night was quiet and calm.
I didn't want to plant the idea during the night, but I thought Jane was going to say that she realized a bunch of people had been partying in the cabin in her absence.
Good dog, though!
AP must be awfully tough and strong to need a switch to beat a four-year-old. The NFL -- the game of football! -- molds men!
God, fuck you, football. Just fuck you and your martinet coaches and your disingenuous high school administrators and your perennial university athletic department budget debates and your unholy marriage of stupid white-trash machismo, oppressed-underclass violence and bureaucratic suffocation and everything else about you to death.
[Bitter, guttural, sneering jeremiad continues.]
With the latest report on the actuarial data, football might indeed be fucked. Though I might be overestimating how much people value their brain function.
Though I might be overestimating how much people value their brain function.
[Collapses into heap of obvious jokes.]
AP must be awfully tough and strong to need a switch to beat a four-year-old. The NFL -- the game of football! -- molds men!
I don't think the machismo of the NFL necessarily has much to do with a Texan who was raised with corporal punishment doing the same to his kid.
I agree that it should absolutely be flagged and punished, etc, but this is how you slowly change social norms around corporal punishment, and it just happens to be a celebrity in this case.
I assume average people value football WAY more than brain function, right?
And Jane, ditto on hoping the night was uneventful after that! When our police chief is asked what people can do to feel safe in their homes, a dog is always at the top of the list and you showed why!
Would you rather have a dog, accidentally shoot your kid with your gun, or be killed by an intruder? Those seem like equally bad options.
Probably the vast majority of people value their brain function more than football, and value the brain function (and general longevity and good health) of linebackers less than football.
I don't think the machismo of the NFL necessarily has much to do with a Texan who was raised with corporal punishment doing the same to his kid.
What the hell, I'd push against this. Football, at all levels, valorizes and encourages regeneration- correction-through-violence -- technical correction ("You did it wrong!"/kicks the player's knee to illustrate stance's weakness), moral correction ("You gave up!"/makes the player run a mile after practice and clips him for cutting a corner of the field, per a recent colorful anecdote on Deadspin -- making success, and the successful, the products and sustainers of the cult of violence. To say nothing of the fat, drunk morons at home.
34: You think if you take a group of people who were raised with corporal punishment (and haven't consciously splintered off from how they were raised) that you'd see a meaningful difference in how they were raising their own kids, according to whether they're in the NFL, or whether they love Duck Dynasty instead?
36: The average child-beating dipshit doesn't enjoy ESPN and its legion of prostate-biopsy-survivors endorsing his Weltanschauung 18 to 22 weeks of the year.
All parents sometimes punish out of anger, and that's not a good thing, but generally you take the good/you take the bad/you take them both/and there you have the facts of life etc. What's super destructive when the parent is excessively angry, and that can be verbal or physical.
We don't really know if AP did this out of excessive anger or just run-of-the-mill anger combined with that's-how-you-raise-kids. Either way, it needs to be stopped. But if it's the former, excessive anger will pop up in a different form and need further intervention, and the NFL does take cultivate people with unrestrained anger. If it's the latter, then the court system should go a long way to curtail it, and it doesn't have much to do with the NFL one way or another.
I described here, a few years ago, that I was out to dinner with a job candidate and a few other faculty members on the search committee, and in the course of idle smalltalk, one woman began describing the extent of her corporal punishment on her own kids, who were all in their late teens/early 20s, and who we all knew because they attended Heebie U. (Generally lovely kids.) "I'd make them go pick the switch, and if it wasn't big enough they got extra licks," she said, and other such things.
The part I found most crazy was not that she whipped her kids, but that she was so tone-deaf as to describe it with (mild) glee in front of a job candidate. She is an upper-class rhinestone-cross Good Christian Texan, if that clarifies anything.
as to describe it with (mild) glee
Yeah, I run into this more often than I'd expect and it's just the weirdest thing.
24 and 32 are both funny. I don't like it. It detracts from the atmosphere of relentless interpersonal hostility we're cultivating these days.
She is an upper-class rhinestone-cross Good Christian Texan, if that clarifies anything.
If that doesn't clarify everything, I can't imagine what would.
Don't see as much of the unashamed child brutalization up here, although a former cow-orker, who was partially raised in upstate NY, admittedly, was very bitter about the apparently severe wooden spoon beatings he received as a child from his mother, an UMC alcoholic who once sent her martini back four times because it was not just right.
I'm afraid I don't get 24, but I haven't been following the NFL at all closely for the past decade. A reference to the Purple People Eaters? Or the names of the current lineup?
In elementary school in Texas, we got whacked pretty hard, by teachers and administrators, with solid wooden paddles. My Yankee parents didn't so much go in for that sort of thing, but sfaik no one lifted an eyebrow. UMC and above environment.
I never had to go get a switch -- Yankee parents -- but was certainly familiar with the tradition.
It was a long time ago, but not that long when you think of cultural change.
Yeah, even in my generation, my friends that grew up in Texas all got paddled. There was no paddling where I grew up, when I grew up, at least not in the public schools.
48: I think there's a guns and ammo warehouse about 40 minutes south of here.
As a kid, I lived in a small town near Ottawa for a couple of years, across the river in the province of Quebec. They still had corporal punishment at the (RC) school I attended, but only for the boys. Apparently parents would not tolerate corporal punishment for their daughters.
I was spanked with a spoon by mother and by hand by my father, both fairly regularly until I was 10 or so. We spanked our younger daughter under 10 times and the older one maybe twice. WHile I don't regret or apologize for our decision to use corporal punishment, I suspect the girls will never use spanking with their kids--probably a healthy thing.
No actual corporal punishment at school when I was a kid in small town South Dakota in the late 70s/early 80s, but our principal of my elementary school did have a wooden paddle prominently displayed in his office--I suspect the practice had only changed recently.
I ♥ 27 & 34. Let's just extend the baseball season through January.
They banned the tawse when I was about 14. Up until then, kids would sometimes get it in front of the class. I only think I saw it used twice in high school. Once by a widely liked art teacher, with a reputation for being a 'good guy, but a hard belter'. The other was a PE teacher [and Scotland football manager] who used to belt the desk, and then demonstrate how he'd taken all of the varnish off, and left a visible mark in the wood, and then leave the individual to decide whether to repent the error of their ways, or take the belt.
At primary school, we had a few vicious old hags who belted people all the time, though.
Never me, because my Dad always made it clear that I was to refuse the belt at school, and explain to any teacher who ignored the refusal that if they belted me, he would belt them.
Tawse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawse
I think there's a guns and ammo warehouse about 40 minutes south of here.
A cabin just isn't complete without one.
I ♥ 27 & 34. Let's just extend the baseball season through January.
Euugh. Fuck that, turn over the stadia and the tv time to MLS.
No way, Eurotrash. Watching error-filled September baseball makes me imagine the hilarious wonders of winter ball.
59: the only wondering would be when they'd actually get to play, since the baseball pussies can't deal with a little rain.
2430 regular season baseball games is already about 50% too many.
I've managed not to watch any of them for several seasons running now.
As a kid, I lived in a small town near Ottawa for a couple of years, across the river in the province of Quebec. They still had corporal punishment at the (RC) school I attended, but only for the boys. Apparently parents would not tolerate corporal punishment for their daughters
Ottawa Public Schools still had it in the late 50s and early 60s, and I got it. Boys and girls. You'd hold your hand out and the teacher would slap you on the back of your hand with a regular foot long wooden school ruler, the kind issued to every kid. Stung and was humiliating, although the teacher who did it the most, Grade 1, was the youngest, least in control and least-respected. I don't have many memories of it in later grades, I think it became much rarer, and many teachers must not have done it at all.
Adrian Peterson is pretty good at child abuse, but he's missing that je ne sais quoi.
See, Jane's story is exactly why people shouldn't have guns at home. She saw a random guy drive up to her house, unarmed, no violent intent, and if shed had a gun there's a good chance she would have murdered him right there and then because he looked scary like a man in a scary film. Than God she only had a dog.
46: Ah. Right. Well, knecht can rest easy that I took even longer.
My father said once he was beaten every week for four or five years at Hereford Cathedral School, where he had been exiled from Belfast to turn him into an English gentleman. Housemaster didn't like his attitude.
He used to spank me with his bare hand sometimes. We both hated it. At prep school [private, 8-13 in knifecrimean usage] I has beaten with gymshoes -- the usual punishment; flexible sticks -- the recognised sadist; and a heavy rigid stick -- the man who later became headmaster. Up to six strokes. That was the only version where the physical pain was incomparably worse than the humiliation. We would compare bruises afterwards. At public [private, secondary] school in the first year the housemaster beat me three or four times, but this was less to be feared than the violence of older boys, or of mobs of coaevals. Unpopular children would be anally raped by gangs.
You need character to build an empire.
And ironically, that's the only team in the NFL whose front line is half women.
I don't want to question the Tor editors' archaeological findings, but the only female names I see on their roster are Cordarrelle Patterson and Shamar Stephen.
Their female names are ritually buried with the head of the first quarterback they take off.
if shed had a gun there's a good chance she would have murdered him right there
I would have stood my ground, and fired a warning shot to the head.
No, that's why it's good she didn't have *ammo*. A shotgun without ammo could only have helped.
While I am a good ten years (cough) his senior, switching was common when I was a kid (I know, not apposite) in the south, especially among black folks (lower SES white kids were more likely to get hit in the face). The marks on this kid in the pictures look pretty much like what I'd expect from a good switchin'.
I would go so far as to say that in that context, public threats to switch one's children were probably sometimes an attempt to promote one's status as a good parent in a community judged for poor parenting -- the bad parents are the ones that do nothing while the kids run wild, or just scream ineffectually, whereas switching is "giving them the discipline they need." The way Heebie's Christian lady bragged about it, expecting approval, sounds about right.
There's no doubt that this is child abuse, but I agree with Heebie that there are still people coming around to current standards. From what I read of AP's statements, it wouldn't surprise me to find that he really *thought* he was being a good parent and is pretty surprised by the trouble he's in.
I guess my point is, I'm willing to consider whether AP is just a clueless dumbass before moving straight on to sadistic monster.
Value added!
The switching could definitely be the work of a clueless dumbass, but stuffing leaves in a four-year-old's mouth suggests some sadism. Note to tough-lovers: don't get creative.
Woman-alone-in-the-woods is a thing. By which I mean to denote, and connote a phenomenon with its own dynamics that I wouldn't think of by myself and that others wouldn't necessarily think to mention if it didn't come up.
Friends of ours have a cabin in the woods. He was part of a group that built it before they were a couple. She is a public health physician, very left and very assertive. Her biggest disappoint, which she constantly brings up, is the failure to impose single payer, like that was ever going to happen. I just say that to place her for the reader; she's tough, rigid but admirable, and walks the walk.
I love being there by myself or with our boys. But she's terrified when she's alone. She tried working and couldn't: she imagines someone out of Deliverance driving up to the door. Wouldn't have occurred to me, think the risk is minor, virtual background noise among risks. But for her, and by extension lots of others, huge. Rather than getting a gun, she just doesn't go there.
I dunno. Jammies is totally jumpy around the house at night, does not like going in the backyard particularly. Whereas I'm not especially skittish about being in the woods by myself.
Women have different/more risks than men in some absolute sense, but there are a lot of different non-gender factors in how much anxiety someone feels.
stuffing leaves in a four-year-old's mouth
Shit, I missed that part. Previous comment mostly retracted.
Yeah, I missed that detail too. That's sadistic.
She tried working and couldn't: she imagines someone out of Deliverance driving up to the door. Wouldn't have occurred to me, think the risk is minor, virtual background noise among risks. But for her, and by extension lots of others, huge.
I don't have a good sense of the stats, and I generally think people over-rate risks. But this sort of thing? In, e.g., JPJ's situation, I think it's very clear that the guy didn't mean any harm when he drove up. I also think that the risks of something opportunistically unpleasant happening when he realized she was a woman alone in the house out of reach of assistance weren't negligible, and it's a good thing she did have the dog.
Women have different/more risks than men in some absolute sense, but there are a lot of different non-gender factors in how much anxiety someone feels
I think so too, but I'm defensive about the implication I'm obtuse about universal female experience because privilege.
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I think Hawaii just plugged in a plug into an outlet for the very first time. There's no rule against her doing so, but it doesn't come up very often, necessarily, so she's never had occasion to do so. "So, what....do I do?" she asked, looking at the prongs. (She figured it out.)
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82: "Yes, that's how we charge Mommy's massage wand. No, you can't hit your brother with it. Godamnit, quit making those light saber sounds and swinging it around."
I still kind of want Hawaii to come to my house and organize my life for me. And she could bring Ace, whom I would cuddle.
It's unsettling to have somehow birthed someone more competent than myself. In some ways.
I would have stood my ground, and fired a warning shot to the head.
Just like the guy who slotted that Japanese exchange student who was looking for the Halloween party at the wrong house, and so many others. It would have been murder, you'd probably have got away with it. And that's exactly why it's a good thing you didn't have a gun. Even trained, experienced people (like police officers and soldiers) make stupid tragic mistakes with guns sometimes. Untrained, panicky people who think that everyone in a pickup truck wearing overalls is probably a redneck torture cultist cannibal zombie are pretty much the worst people to be allowed firearms.
That's not a fair comparison. They were in a town with police service. I'm not suggesting she answer the door holding a gun if the bell rings at night. But I don't think it's a bad idea to have shotgun in the house.
That too. But still, it's not like you have to carry it everywhere just because you have one.
Remember the murder of those Dartmouth profs many years ago? The murderers were kids just knocking on doors looking for victims, and at the house they'd gone to just previous, the homeowner flashed a gun and they went away. If you live in a remote place, having a gun around isn't a bad idea, even (especially?) if, as someone suggested upthread, it's not loaded.
You should load it before you are about to be murdered.
You could maybe use peppery spray, but you can't really get any satisfaction by shooting that into the air if the Steelers win another Super Bowl.
It's also really hard to get ducks to fly in close enough to hit them with pepper spray.
You have to use the University of California size can for that.
Well, obviously. For ducks you need the University of Oregon size.
I couldn't find the link, but earlier this year I read a harrowing account by a woman who got a remote cabin somewhere in New England to use as a retreat to focus on her writing only to be stalked by a guy renting a place a mile up the road. At the time of writing, the situation was still not resolved. I can't remember if she ended up getting a gun. The police eventually got involved and the guy may have even gone to jail for a bit, but that wasn't enough for her to be comfortable being alone there anymore.
Oh, I just found it. Link. Baseball bat at time of writing, no gun.
Stalking stories freak me out, precisely because, as she demonstrates, you never know when the stalker is going to jump to the next level of crazy, but it's probably coming, and it could be any time. It seems like such an intolerable way to live. It would be reasonable for her to buy a gun, wait for the next break-in, and shoot him dead.
More to the point, what the fuck is up with a system where the trooper can say "I've seen what he can do," but even a break-in isn't enough to get him put away for a long time? Now, if he'd come over and offered her a gram of weed...
If you live in a remote place, having a gun around isn't a bad idea, even (especially?) if, as someone suggested upthread, it's not loaded.
That's why you get something like the one I linked in 57 (20 gauge is more user friendly than 12). Keep it "cruiser ready" aka empty chamber but full tube. Also, why answer the door? Talk to them through it.
This response to AP by Cris Carter is pretty great. (This response is pretty funny.)
86: So much earnestness in response to what was clearly a joking comment.
99: I think she would have objected to the break-in no matter how much weed he offered her.
You stay classy, hiking fool that you are.
102: careful, Jane, for all you know I'm wearing lower-class clothes and driving a pickup truck RIGHT NOW. Better hide!