Even in our current era of cancel culture, it’s not uncommon for people to justify using corporal punishment on their kids. Individuals will often share repugnant memes showing things like rolling pins and wooden spoons with the caption “tools used to teach respect.”
The sentiment is part of a larger social misconception that finds delight in heaping unjustified criticisms on the youngest generation. The underlying faulty premise is that all the problems of society would “go away” if more parents beat their children.
It’s important that good people speak out when they see this sentiment expressed publicly, even at the expense of close friendships and the risk of embarrassing family members. Striking your children is wrong under any circumstance, and it’s quite disturbing that so many people in our society will defiantly claim otherwise.
The video
A friend of mine recently shared a pro-corporal punishment video which was among the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen on social media. It’s bad enough that people take this position, but that somebody would write a script, film actors, edit, and promote a pro-punishment video is shocking.
The video depicts a pair of police officers dispatched to a house. They knock on the door and a woman answers, surprised to see the police standing outside.
“We’ve received a complaint about child abuse,” the police say.
“I did punish my son for skipping school,” the woman admits. She looks at the boy and realizes he’s the one who called the police to report her.
The police ask to see the boy, and soon the young man arrives at the door. The police pull him aside and ask him a series of questions to determine the severity of the issue. When they’re done, the police officer pulls off his belt and hands it to the mom, “Hit him again,” he states. Then he turns, enraged upon the boy, muscles rippling beneath his uniform, “You never call the police on your parents.”
Why this video is dangerous and wrong
You might see this video shared on social media, or it might turn up in a link in an email from a close friend. It is one of many videos and memes that’s part of a culture which contends the world would be a better place if more parents resorted to physical violence in order to “teach discipline” to their children. Every time I see this kind of propaganda, my response is the same. I scroll down to the comments section, and type, “Hug your children, don’t hit them.”
Our society is in a constant state of change, and what was once the norm becomes recognized as an act of evil sometimes within a few decades.
As recently as 1965, Sean Connery said without hesitation that he felt entitled to hit women with an open handed slap under some circumstances. Although there are still repugnant people that agree with Connery, at least today you can rightfully, and justifiably, expect to be shunned socially for making such a horrible comment in public. However, there is a large percentage of people who will state without embarrassment that they would strike a child, either male or female, as a form of punishment.
Corporal punishment is abuse
If the general advancement of society can be taken as any indication, it’s inevitable that there will come a day when parents who use corporal punishment on their children will be perceived as abusers. That day cannot come soon enough.
Increasingly, there are studies which indicate spanking, hitting, beating or otherwise assaulting your children only increases their propensity for misbehavior.
To put it simply, hitting doesn’t work.
We know this already. No adult, having been pulled over by the police, would submit to a caning as a consequence for their illegal behavior, because such a thing would be demeaning, abusive, and not likely to persuade anyone to change their actions. Indeed, almost all parents, even the ones who strike their own children, are appalled at the notion of corporal punishment being applied in the local school system.
Treat your children with decency
“Nobody else is going to raise their hand against my child.”
Take away the ‘else’ and you have a worthy statement of life purpose. Include the ‘else,’ and you’re a hypocrite.
Oddly, if you publicly suggest that parents should not be allowed to strike their kids, you will find a surprisingly large amount of opposition. Debates on social platforms like Facebook, become abuse echo chambers, where individuals reassure one another that what they have done is for the long term good of the child.
Deep down you know it’s wrong
“This is going to hurt me, more than it hurts you.”
The above phrase is the long used motto of abusive parents everywhere. And no, a beating does not hurt the parent more than the child. It hurts the child at that moment physically, and it inflicts long term damage upon the developing person’s psyche that cannot easily be undone.
Abuse doesn’t work
“But how will you teach discipline to your children otherwise?”
You’ll notice that people who defend corporal punishment, become touchy if you insist on calling it child beating. They’ve developed a special mindset, a cognitive blind spot through which they don’t allow themselves to recognize the horror of physical violence being used on a child.
In the aforementioned video, for example, the actual act of striking the child is only discussed, it’s never shown. On some level, the producers of that video knew that if they actually showed the act of whipping a child with a belt that they were endorsing, it would undermine the effectiveness of their video as they would be demonstrating child abuse.
You have to show respect to teach respect
To insist that corporal punishment is equal to teaching respect, and that parents that don’t strike their children are responsible for rearing disrespectful adults, is incorrect, offensive, deceitful, and morally repugnant.
The simple fact is that resorting to violence is an acknowledgment of incompetence. Watch how teachers, who know they will be subject to the full consequence of the law if they raise their hand against a child, effectively manage rooms full of students.
The teacher is the authority figure, they have power, and they can punish misbehaving children without striking them. Taking away privileges is a highly functional tactic. But also, simply listening to a child is very effective. Most of the time, when a child is misbehaving, it’s because he or she has an issue they aren’t equipped to manage. To strike a child when they’re crying for help, is the worst form of abuse.
Break the cycle
The underlying problem is that many people have completed their child rearing duties, and now they feel the need to defend the tactics they used.
“My parents hit me, and I turned out okay.” My response to that is, “Obviously not, if you think it’s acceptable to hit children.”
It is very difficult to break out of the cycle of abuse created by tradition. But even parents who no longer have their children in the household, would be well served to acknowledge the error of their ways.
If you have ever hit your children, apologize to them
“I won’t apologize for spanking my children, I taught them respect, and that served them in the long run.”
It’s easier for a person to deny that their actions were wrong, than to accept responsibility and make amends. But for the cycle of child abuse to be broken, parents at all levels; young parents who have not yet hit their children, and older ones who did so long ago, need to speak out against this action.
The first rule is, starting today, you never hit a child again. The second rule is to call up and apologize to any children you did hit. You have to acknowledge within yourself that the action was wrong. That is a greater lesson of respect, than anything you can ever convey by lifting a hand in violence.
We have to be committed to this social change
It’s often said that you cannot change a person’s mind by having a debate on social media. However, I don’t believe that’s entirely true. You don’t engage in a debate necessarily to change the perspective of the person with the contrary position. Instead, you are making an argument for the observers. Any statement that corporal punishment is necessary to instill the value of respect in a child must be contested.
Hug your children, don’t hit them
When people post memes endorsing physical violence against children, perhaps they are doing so as a cry for vindication. Some part of them, deep down, the one which whispers to them at night, knows that their behavior is and was abusive.
They want to be told that they were good parents, that their actions were justified. Don’t let these kind of statements go uncontested. You are doing a far greater service encouraging these people to make amends for their behavior than you are by being an enabler that allows the cycle to continue.
Life is short, our children are precious. It’s not acceptable to “lose it.” No self-respecting person should tolerate any other position on this issue. You can’t teach respect if you deny your children the right to respect themselves.
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Previously published on “A Parent Is Born”, a Medium publication.
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Photo credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash