Epic Father's Day Rant

Hey, I trivialised the thread with a joke a little earlier. More to take the sting out of it than anything else as it's a debate that the intelligent, pacifistic parent can never win against the set-in-stone ideals of the corporal punishment brigade.

Well I'm going to have my two cents worth now, and more.


Make that multi-millions.


I agree 100%.


Don't feel you can't strongly defend your beliefs and feelings on the subject, because you can. You may be a relatively new member on WF but many others feel the way you do on this topic, so don't be intimidated.

I come from a family of 7 children. My mother came from a family of 13 children. NONE of the children were ever beaten or struck, and all of us grew up with respect for our elders. We committed a lot of "bads", just like all children do, but were punished in a variety of ways. These included no sweets, cakes, or puddings for a day or even a week. Being grounded. Time in our room. No pocket money. Having to do chores all week. Even being frogmarched to school to see the head teacher, or (even worse) being embarrassed in front of our school mates. There's a hundred and one other deterrents where those came from.

My own children soon stop the misbehaving if their mobile phone or laptop is taken away from them for a length of time. If you've got children that are truly out of control then there's authorities who can deal with that. There are homes, borstals, and other institutions that can take up where you leave off if you're unable to cope. What does that tell you?

It tells you that violence in any form is not necessary to rear, admonish, and educate children in the rights and wrongs of life.

I don't believe for one minute the total crap that people spout about a slapping or beating being beneficial to the child, and letting them know they've done wrong. In what sense is someone 2, 3, or even 4 times your size and angrily striking you, right?

Anger issues, lack of intelligence, exasperation, upbringing, domination . . these, and a whole lot more I could write are the reasons for resorting to what amounts to blatant assault of a minor - whether it has any effect on them or not. As adults it's our responsibility to control our emotions, or seek help if we are unable to contain them. Unfortunately, too many innocent children suffer at the hands of parents who've simply not got an IQ level to analyse what an appropriate and correct punishment should be. They strike first.

Public beatings, floggings, and hangings in most countries were all abolished years ago. They were only for adults.

Before the bully boys (and women) and corporal punishment supporters jump on the thread with their holier than thou attitude, and "it didn't do me any harm when I was a kid" quotes, let me tell you this: I won't be responding to any of the child beaters on this thread. I've said my piece and won't bother farting in a wind tunnel against you lot, because it won't get anywhere.

I'll leave you with this . . .

If you made a blunder in work, or even stole money, whatever, . . . would you expect your boss to slap you, or worse? Hey, maybe the shop assistant was rude to you, or you got carved up on the road, or that builder wrecked your new garage. No bother, lets just give them a gentle slap or two.

if you were assaulted on the street by someone twice your size would you expect a prosecution, and retribution?

If someone else struck your child how would you feel?

How do you feel when you see the bright red weal you've just left on your child?

Do you honestly believe that children seeing or being in receipt of violence - in any form - is educational for their future behaviour?

If you hit your children, do you also strike your pets?

Do you think your children sleep better at night after having received a slapping?

If you inadvertently burst a vein, or seriously injured your child and they had to be taken to hospital, do you think you should be prosecuted?

If an adult - who has full mental faculties - deliberately does you wrong, would you strike them? Why then strike a small developing child?

Beating children is for cowards. If you've not got the mental capacity to develop more humane ways of reprimanding your own flesh and blood then you don't deserve them. There are countless loving, yet childless families out there who'd give anything to be in your shoes.

If you want to be aggressive take up martial arts or boxing, and pick on someone your own size. Better still go join the army. Be prepared to be struck back though.

My husband wanted to weigh in, but he is anything BUT an internet marketer (his loss). So I let him post the following.

To this point, all that has been said has been mere opinion. There have been some unsubstantiated claims with no links for verification, but beyond that, nothing more than one person saying, "I believe in spanking" and another saying, "I believe spanking is bad.". To remedy this, we should give at least something with some merit.

http://prdupl02.ynet.co.il/ForumFiles/12221272.pdf

In case you don't have the time to read the entire report (21 pages) here is the last paragraph

The take-home message I have tried to convey is this: The certitude with which one
conveys one's findings to the public should not exceed the limitations of one's science.
Public trust in the integrity of evidence-based social policy recommendations is
undermined by selective use of weak evidence to support an unqualified assertion that
physical punishment harms children and hurts society, and therefore should be
criminalized or stigmatized. Methodologically strong studies have not established that
normative physical punishment is a causal risk factor for the detrimental child outcomes
with which it may be associated. Although a value judgment that spanking is wrong is
properly defended by its adherents on ethical grounds, a blanket injunction against
disciplinary spanking is not warranted by causally relevant scientific evidence (Baumrind, 2001)


The above study finds that there is no causal relationship between spanking and negative behaviors later in life. Of course, it has its critics, but all studies do. In all fairness, it is important to state that the above study does NOT endorse spanking, but merely argues against a tenuous conclusion that spanking is bad for children.

The spousal abuse argument is a distraction at best. Not since the mid 20th century have husbands had any authority of that sort over their wives. Husbands are not responsible for training their wives or ensuring their wives' behavior is acceptable. They are not, in short, responsible for disciplining their wives.

Parents, however, ARE responsible for their children. They are responsible for molding their children into socially acceptable (if not productive) members of society. Lacking any strong scientific support against spanking, a parents choice of discipline is up to them.

As a side note, I have a degree in Psychology (Chapman University, 2010), and my opinion of the APA is suspect at best. Many consider psychology a soft science, and I tend to agree with them. They [psychologists] work with unobservable phenomena and are reliant to a great extent on self reporting. Even those observations that do not fall under the title of "self reporting" are tinged with a subjective element (i.e. What is abuse? What is pleasant? What is unpleasant? What is unbearable pain and what is merely painful?) Additionally, psychology, more than any other science (I think, so yes this is opinion here) is plagued with more bad science. The behavioral drug modification fad has already been mentioned, but it is not the only case where the APA has made recommendations and determinations based more on popular opinion than on good science. This is ironic, as one of the goals of psychology is to differentiate between "pop psychology" and the way things actually are.

Thank you for allowing me to offer my opinion.

--ImWendy's husband