The Case For Spanking My Child
Picture this scene: you’re out to breakfast with your significant other, having an otherwise unremarkable meal, when a table full of unruly children arrives. You try your best to ignore the increase in noise and finish your meal in peace, when, lo and behold, a child from said table walks over to your table and without prompting, sticks his hand into your open purse. The mother, gently chides the child for touching other people’s purses and you are left sitting, dumbstruck and awed by what just happened.
Having been a waitress as well as a hapless consumer, I am constantly surrounded by children and their parents. Hell, I have my own, whom I pick up and take to a school filled with MORE children. My point, roundabout as it may be is this: I see tons and tons and tons of kids. I genuinely like kids, truth be told, maybe I’m not the most gooshy of parents, but I dig the shorties. They crack me up.
I’ve been waiting awhile, trying to place my finger just on what I’ve been thinking, and on Monday it dawned on me. With the whole PC-bullshit generation of Baby Boomers kids having their own kids, it became highly fashionable to eschew the harsher punishments that were often handed down to us. I mouthed off as a kid? I got smacked. I didn’t listen to my parents? I got smacked. I lied? I got smacked AND grounded, and so on and so on.
Parents today want to subscribe to the whole new-agey parental role of being a guide to your child, a resource for them to use to navigate through the more tricky paths that life can offer. They are expected to reward positive behavior with praise and adoration (NEVER bribes) and overlook the negative behavior so as not to reinforce the attention. Yelling is passe, talking quietly (but don’t be TOO NEGATIVE!!!!) is in.
I think it’s bullshit. Your kids should respect you. They should respect you and they should respect authority.
I shudder to think of the generation of Special Snowflakes that will grow up and be SHOCKED to learn that really? We can’t all be fucking astronauts. Or ballerinas. Hell, we’re not all winners. I love my children and I’m not about to try and stomp on their dreams like tiny bugs, but at the same time, disappointment and failure are both real things. I’ll be there for my child when it happens, because it WILL happen.
And when my kid is wrong, I’ll say so. When he needs a spanking, he’ll get it. And he’ll respect me because I am his mother. Not his friend or his playmate, his mother. Which, at the end of the day, is a kazillion times more important.
I am his mother.
I agree!!!!! I am so tired of the pansy way of raising children!! It’s crazy that our children are raised this way now. Oh and to add to your thoughts agencies like cps while needed in some cases are bull shit.
AMEN! I don’t know who started this crap of trying to explain to your child WHY he should do what he’s told but they ought to be flogged! My husband is a tyrant, no two ways about it. It makes some folks uncomfortable when they witness him disciplining our grandchildren. BUT, when our RV caught on fire and we needed to get out of it in a hurry our grandson, asleep in the big bed in back did not stop and ask why when Grandpa yelled for him to get up and get his shoes on. Me, the grandson and our three dogs were safely out of the RV in less than a minute. Even half asleep Ryan knew Grandpa wasn’t messin’ around!
Just stumbled across this today – could not agree more with you!!! You hit the nail on the head!
I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that each child is a “special snowflake” who should never have to experience pain, disappointment, or healthy competition. But this is BS. There is no philosophical/ethical argument here for hitting a person outside of a self-defense scenario. Yes, I said hitting; drop this “spank” shit because “spank” is a dirty euphemism and if you were to initiate the same force against someone who had already had their 18th birthday (that’s the magical age, after which you receive your full rights as a human being, don’tchaknow), you’d be charged with assault. You’re f*cking 3-5 times as big as a small child, so grow some balls, use your imagination, get on board with every major medical and psychological organization, and realize that children are rational human beings who do not deserve to have another person hit them just because you’re bigger and the law doesn’t protect them against your “spanking.”
Look – I don’t know if you realize how late you are to the party, but I haven’t spanked one of my kids in over five years. I’ve never abused them and I don’t intend to start.
Adios NAILED IT! Spanking is hitting. You are beating your child. You are teaching lack of control of your emotions. Read the studies on how spanking lowers IQ. What is really going on is IQ is genetic, and parents who spank have lower ones. Congratulations on showing how unintelligent you are to the world, or at least to other mongoloids who have figured out Google well enough to back up their reasons for abusing their children. Time to evolve. Read a book.
Baby, I don’t know if you can possibly know how low my IQ is.
This I do not find intriguing nor do I find it as any kind of proof that spanking a child has any benefits whatsoever, besides short term, which does not account for anything in the long term. The only thing I’ve taken from this article is an emotionally backed excuse, from a cowardice abusers standpoint, to cause harm towards children. . There is scientific proof that spanking your kid will lead to increased aggression, lower IQ, and an increase in mental disorders later in life. Good for you, but I suppose that you turned out just fine, right?
If you want to discuss emotionally backed excuses, trust me, you have that covered. Yes, I’ve spanked my kids. No, it’s not often. It’s probably been 5 years since I did.
And thank you for pointing out how well I turned out. You’re totally right.
Ok I am actually doing a research paper for school on how discipline has changed over the years. Let me tell you, when I was growing up I got a crack on the butt for misbehaving. It is not like parents are spanking their children everyday. I can count on 1 hand how many times my boys got spanked. As for lowering their IQ, give me a break……I mean seriously!!!! Come on people why do you think children today are so disrespectful to people and do not appreciate what they have. I seen an article in the paper a few years ago stating “Why are children so out of control?” HELLOOOO!!!! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. A smack on the bottom once in a while is NOT a beating. Grow up people, use your brains.
I agree spanking (we are not talking about abusing just gentle reinforcing) worked for my mother, a single parent of four, and I still believe in spanking. It kept me and my siblings in school, out of jail and not having a bunch of children before the age of 18 and you know at the time I thought see was abusing me but I realized as I got older and after having my own that she did do it because she loved me and wanted me to have more out of life and for that I thank her.