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I was spanked, with a belt, and they left welts. The spankings are the sharpest memories I have of childhood. I do not spank my children. I think that my spankings were abuse, but my brothers have told me that they don't think they were abused. My brothers were spanked more than me. I am the youngest, but the reason I was given for not being spanked was that I was too smart, serious, and sensitive. Here is what I have noticed:
-Dad was a drug addict, never really tried to teach or parent, very materialistic, quality time with kids was six flags or the movies
-Both brothers and I have very small emotions
-Brothers seem very superficial
-Brothers have explosive anger at the breaking point, I did, but i have resolved this issue
-Brothers do not respect our Dad, and one brother holds a lot of rage and I think he projects that onto everyone else but his family, when we are the ones he should be mad at i think.
When I say spanked, I mean with a belt. I have no experience with single hand swats, but there is evidence against even that saying it is not effective, harmful, and illogical.
My brother and his girlfriend spank the girlfriends son. I am having a hard time with speaking in a vague and unbiased manner. What would you do?
I was spanked as a child, with belts, hangers, spoons, shoes, etc. I was kicked and had my hair pulled until it left welts on my scalp. I had my clothes torn off and was locked out naked. My mom used to stop the car and put me out on the side of the road any time she got mad, no matter how far from home we were.
When I had my own kids, I decided never to spank them. I thought spanking them would be abuse and I didn't want them to live in fear the way that I had. My husband also had an abusive childhood, so he agreed with me. We kept our resolve until our daughter was about three years old. Then she started to act up in ways that were dangerous to her (running across streets) or otherwise unacceptable. We tried to reason with her. There was no reasoning with her, she was acting on impulse. I spanked her for running across a street, into a back yard and into the swimming pool in that yard. I spanked her on another occasion for hitting a walmart employee. She learned more from one gentle swat than she did from several hours of trying to tell her why her behavior was unacceptable. When we spanked, it was always with an open hand on her clothed rump, which has always had ample padding, and always only one swat.
We don't spank anymore, now that she's old enough to listen to reason. We never spanked our youngest, because she never did the kinds of things her sister did, and she never went through a stage where her behind could listen better than her brain. But that was all that seemed to work for our oldest for a while.
8 and 3. Extension cords are the worst and I am sorry that you were treated like that as a child, I truly wish that it had not happened to you. I just can't see hitting a helpless little person. I have wanted to though, always because I was beyond frustration. I think that kids are going to do things that kids do. If my daughter runs across the street, I wasn't supervising. I would be angry with her, embarrassed, then angry at myself for not being more careful. I don't think a swat would be too harmful, but I also doubt it's true effectiveness and the ethics of saying "children are not people, they are children". It's the in-group rationalization; slaves aren't people, beat them; women aren't men, beat them. Jews and Natives aren't like us, exterminate them. There is something contrived about these rationalization. A 3 year old does not have very strong reasoning abilities that is true, and they are quite impulsive. It reminds me of a sighthound though, when those dogs see something moving fast they just have to have it, bolt right out into traffic regardless of how well trained they are. If this happens, is it the fault of the owner for not training the dog properly, or the fault of the owner for not keeping the dog on a leash. Always the owners fault though. Of course, I do not say that there is NEVER a necessary reason to spank, like I would not say that there is never a necessary reason to steal.
Your stories are heartbreaking. I'm sorry you both went through that. I do not intend to spank either. My parents smacked me around a little, but not to the degree you experienced.
I was disciplined with somewhat more spanking than the "single hand swat" and somewhat less than the severe, injurious practices described by the OP (there is a pretty large range of possibility between the two). I didn't think spanking as such was abusive when I was a child, and I don't think so now that I'm a parent.
I'm not sure how to approach the question of "reconciling spanking with reason." In pure reason the only question one could pose is "Does it work (to achieve a particular result)?" Clearly a practice that is so hard to eradicate, despite decades of ongoing and hysterical opposition, has some practical value. One could take the position (I don't, but many do) that it is a moral wrong, but you cannot prove a moral proposition the way you can prove 2+2=4.
When I was spanked, it was for something SERIOUS... like playing with matches in the garage, or downright sarcastic talking back to my parents. I was spanked, not whipped, beaten, abused... I think that is what happened to some of the previous posters. There is a difference. That said, as a kid, a spanking was how I gauged the seriousness of my offense. Apparently, I didn't listen to reason, so they spoke to me on my azz. It worked.
I don't oppose corporal punishment. I benefitted from a mild form (open-handed smacks across the face). But if we believed that any human act that is difficult to eradicate is inherently good we would have to support murder, rape, theft, racial prejudice, slavery and even ethnic cleansing.
I don't oppose corporal punishment. I benefitted from a mild form (open-handed smacks across the face). But if we believed that any human act that is difficult to eradicate is inherently good we would have to support murder, rape, theft, racial prejudice, slavery and even ethnic cleansing.
Ineradicability does not establish anything as inherently good, but it does at least establish, as a basis of discussion, that it has been of some benefit to someone.
But what if the benefit is only to the parent and is only temporary (for example, helps them deal with frustration in the moment). I don't think that this is the case for all corporal punishment, all of the time, or even most of the time. I just think that the fact that it happens a lot and has always happened a lot is a poor justification for it. After all, child abuse has also always happened and presumably people think they and/or their children benefit from it, but that doesn't mean it anyone truly benefits in the long run. I don't think corporal punishment is inherently abusive, I just think this particular defense of the practice is not a good one.
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