Corporal punishment is a vile, barbaric thing. I was fortunate enough to grow up with parents who didn’t believe in it. We weren’t better off in the 50s(maybe financially, if you happened to be white) and I am sick of these people who are trying to turn back the clock.
That’s the thing, though – in these sorts of communities, they arguably were. As the old lead mining heartland of the nation, the southern half of Missouri isn’t far off rural West Virginia coal country or the Rust Belt in terms of post-industrial decline. I have my own theories about why that area is the way it is (and I suspect endemic low-level exposure to lead mining waste might be part of it) but at a fundamental level it’s not surprising that these communities would try to reach back into a mostly-imaginary past to reclaim the trappings of middle-class comfort. The present just doesn’t have anything to offer them.
States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
Sadly, the United States (of which Missouri is a state) has only signed, but not yet ratified, this Convention. Still, I think this warrants getting some international attention lest this becomes normalized again.
There is never a reason or excuse to hit a child. It’s disgusting, abusive and ultimately counter productive. Only showing that it’s okay to use violence to get your way and it’s okay to hurt people who you hold power over.
Edit: sorry for all my deleted comments, accidentally posted a bunch of duplicates!
While this is awful, I feel like I’m missing something? This article was published August 25, 2022. Did something change for this to be making the rounds again almost a year later?
What really concerns me is that the children who will be subjected to this will not be the ones with parents who are willing or able to deal with conflict in healthy ways. How many of them, I wonder, saw school hours as an opportunity to be safe from physical harm but no longer have that security? How much additional suffering will come from that, knowing what we do about the role of physical safety, bodily autonomy, and generally not feeling under threat as they relate to educational success. What guarantees or recourse are available to the parents and children who don’t opt in but are still among those who find it acceptable and appropriate to hit a child?
Those of us who were on the receiving end of emotional or physical abuse from adults we trusted know all too well how these types of behaviors can change the entire trajectory of someone’s life.
the children who will be subjected to this will not be the ones with parents who are able to deal with conflict in healthy ways
I’m not sure framing this in terms of ability is particularly accurate. Nothing is forcing those parents to abuse their children. Absolutely nothing. They are choosing that. They are perfectly able to choose not to and to try to find a way that actually works and isn’t incredibly cruel. ~Strawberry
I agree with you, but also respectfully disagree at the same time. I agree because they are perfectly able to choose a path that isn’t cruel, (that’s always an option) but disagree because sometimes they aren’t entirely - whether due to a lack of experience in healthy resolutions, or problems in their own lives, or some combination of those or other factors. It doesn’t excuse the abuse, at all, but they are contributing factors in the patterns of it.
Just as an example: my severely alcoholic grandmother used to beat the snot out of my father, and he never learned any healthy parenting skills from her or my grandfather. He didn’t use coat hangers to beat me like she did to him, because that was barbaric, but belts were acceptable tools in his mind. He quite literally did not have the framework to understand that it was essentially the same thing from other people’s perspectives, or morally unacceptable; he didn’t have the toolkit to manage his stressors and build better behavior patterns for most of my childhood. Having seen his journey (and my own) I find that I’m empathetic for the effort it takes to break this kind of generational cycle of violence even as I find the actions of abusers reprehensible.
I’m saddened that Missouri has chosen to normalize and promulgate more violence against children instead of investing that kind of effort into actually improving the lives of its citizens. I’m editing my parent comment to add something that I hope will show that I understand the agency that these parents, educators, and lawmakers have when making these decisions (because you’re right, they do).
I guess that makes sense? Maybe? I don’t quite get how someone could purposely hit children with anything and think it’s okay. I don’t get the thought process there. It’s certainly not “well my parents did it so it must be fine”. It seems so obvious and yet… I don’t know. I don’t get how it could take a lot of effort to not hit children. It’s an active choice, not a passive one, and it doesn’t seem like a difficult conclusion to come to. I’m confused more than anything. ~Strawberry
For some more context, when I was in my 20s I decided I’d never have kids because I didn’t want to have to spank them. My dad always said if you truly love your kids you’ll spank them to keep them from sinning. His parents beat him, and in his mind he was doing it right and not being abusive.
I have a lot of issues and it took a lot of time to unlearn that mindset. I have a daughter now and she’s great! She’s also exhausting but we’ve never spanked her and never will.
I understand why it’s confusing, but trauma changes how the brain works and once those neural pathways are created reinforcement becomes much more likely. Once everything is a fight-or-flight event it’s very hard to break free. Even now, decades later, I have a habit of over explaining as a defense mechanism just to proactively defuse potential misunderstandings (not always perfectly but I’m glad we’re having this conversation) both online and afk. Not everybody gets the opportunities to adapt and recover the way I did, so it feels important to respond with empathy for them.
Breaking a cycle of violence means confronting some difficult truths about the shortcomings of one’s own parents — from whom even adults can have a deep seated need for validation.
There’s decent evidence that ‘corporal punishment’ and plain old abuse have very similar effects on the psyche of a developing child, even if there wasn’t there’s something downright unmanly about hitting someone much weaker than you that isn’t allowed to fight back.
Pro tip: Yell “harder, daddy” while you’re being physically assaulted. You’ll still have physical and mental scars, but at least you’ll ensure that you’ll only get a beatdown from a trusted authority figure once.¹
¹ This advice is null and void if the teacher is a dom
I understand the desire to create some levity in the face of such sour news, but I do worry about how people who suffered abuse may see this content and what feelings it might inspire in them. I’m not asking you to take this comment down or chastising you for making it, but I do hope that it might influence how you frame things in the future. A content warning, softening the humor, or combining the humor with an acknowledgement of the real world harm that can happen might help.
I was beaten at school in the 80s and I know I can’t speak for everyone who suffered from abuse but for a lot of us, in my experience a plurality if not an outright majority of us, the jokes are the only way we can take any power back. If we cry, they win.
Thank you for endeavoring to create a safe space for us, though. Doubly so for doing it through dialog rather than force. Beehaw is a pretty special place because, so far at least, we can assume everyone is trying to be decent and willing to talk about and modify behavior to that end where appropriate. I’m grateful to y’all every time I pop on here.
Oh absolutely, I’m a big fan of reclaimed language (use it on myself) and humor as a coping mechanism, but it can be hard to understand from a few short words online where it’s coming from! Just trying to subtly remind people to make it as explicitly clear as possible so everyone feels welcomed 💜
I was abused in church but never in school (outside of racial epithets). Sometimes it’s easy to forget that not everybody develops a gallows humor as a coping mechanism. Thinking back to those times while in a depressive stage is a recipe for disaster.
But you are absolutely correct. Some things should only be joked about when in a group of trusted people. And I accept your advice in the spirit in which it was meant. To foster a more accepting and safer community for everybody and not as a way of getting a cheap joke.
I’d much rather be gently corrected than to be part of the background noise that might be making people feel uncomfortable.
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This seems like a bad idea
Corporal punishment is a vile, barbaric thing. I was fortunate enough to grow up with parents who didn’t believe in it. We weren’t better off in the 50s(maybe financially, if you happened to be white) and I am sick of these people who are trying to turn back the clock.
That’s the thing, though – in these sorts of communities, they arguably were. As the old lead mining heartland of the nation, the southern half of Missouri isn’t far off rural West Virginia coal country or the Rust Belt in terms of post-industrial decline. I have my own theories about why that area is the way it is (and I suspect endemic low-level exposure to lead mining waste might be part of it) but at a fundamental level it’s not surprising that these communities would try to reach back into a mostly-imaginary past to reclaim the trappings of middle-class comfort. The present just doesn’t have anything to offer them.
I would think not hitting children would be a pretty good offer, among many other things. ~Strawberry
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From Article 19, Section 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, November 20, 1989:
Sadly, the United States (of which Missouri is a state) has only signed, but not yet ratified, this Convention. Still, I think this warrants getting some international attention lest this becomes normalized again.
There is never a reason or excuse to hit a child. It’s disgusting, abusive and ultimately counter productive. Only showing that it’s okay to use violence to get your way and it’s okay to hurt people who you hold power over.
Edit: sorry for all my deleted comments, accidentally posted a bunch of duplicates!
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
While this is awful, I feel like I’m missing something? This article was published August 25, 2022. Did something change for this to be making the rounds again almost a year later?
deleted by creator
Protect kids from recieving gender affirming care so we can put them to work in factories and beat them if they get a maths problem wrong
What really concerns me is that the children who will be subjected to this will not be the ones with parents who are willing or able to deal with conflict in healthy ways. How many of them, I wonder, saw school hours as an opportunity to be safe from physical harm but no longer have that security? How much additional suffering will come from that, knowing what we do about the role of physical safety, bodily autonomy, and generally not feeling under threat as they relate to educational success. What guarantees or recourse are available to the parents and children who don’t opt in but are still among those who find it acceptable and appropriate to hit a child?
Those of us who were on the receiving end of emotional or physical abuse from adults we trusted know all too well how these types of behaviors can change the entire trajectory of someone’s life.
I’m not sure framing this in terms of ability is particularly accurate. Nothing is forcing those parents to abuse their children. Absolutely nothing. They are choosing that. They are perfectly able to choose not to and to try to find a way that actually works and isn’t incredibly cruel. ~Strawberry
I agree with you, but also respectfully disagree at the same time. I agree because they are perfectly able to choose a path that isn’t cruel, (that’s always an option) but disagree because sometimes they aren’t entirely - whether due to a lack of experience in healthy resolutions, or problems in their own lives, or some combination of those or other factors. It doesn’t excuse the abuse, at all, but they are contributing factors in the patterns of it.
Just as an example: my severely alcoholic grandmother used to beat the snot out of my father, and he never learned any healthy parenting skills from her or my grandfather. He didn’t use coat hangers to beat me like she did to him, because that was barbaric, but belts were acceptable tools in his mind. He quite literally did not have the framework to understand that it was essentially the same thing from other people’s perspectives, or morally unacceptable; he didn’t have the toolkit to manage his stressors and build better behavior patterns for most of my childhood. Having seen his journey (and my own) I find that I’m empathetic for the effort it takes to break this kind of generational cycle of violence even as I find the actions of abusers reprehensible.
I’m saddened that Missouri has chosen to normalize and promulgate more violence against children instead of investing that kind of effort into actually improving the lives of its citizens. I’m editing my parent comment to add something that I hope will show that I understand the agency that these parents, educators, and lawmakers have when making these decisions (because you’re right, they do).
I guess that makes sense? Maybe? I don’t quite get how someone could purposely hit children with anything and think it’s okay. I don’t get the thought process there. It’s certainly not “well my parents did it so it must be fine”. It seems so obvious and yet… I don’t know. I don’t get how it could take a lot of effort to not hit children. It’s an active choice, not a passive one, and it doesn’t seem like a difficult conclusion to come to. I’m confused more than anything. ~Strawberry
For some more context, when I was in my 20s I decided I’d never have kids because I didn’t want to have to spank them. My dad always said if you truly love your kids you’ll spank them to keep them from sinning. His parents beat him, and in his mind he was doing it right and not being abusive.
I have a lot of issues and it took a lot of time to unlearn that mindset. I have a daughter now and she’s great! She’s also exhausting but we’ve never spanked her and never will.
I understand why it’s confusing, but trauma changes how the brain works and once those neural pathways are created reinforcement becomes much more likely. Once everything is a fight-or-flight event it’s very hard to break free. Even now, decades later, I have a habit of over explaining as a defense mechanism just to proactively defuse potential misunderstandings (not always perfectly but I’m glad we’re having this conversation) both online and afk. Not everybody gets the opportunities to adapt and recover the way I did, so it feels important to respond with empathy for them.
Breaking a cycle of violence means confronting some difficult truths about the shortcomings of one’s own parents — from whom even adults can have a deep seated need for validation.
There’s decent evidence that ‘corporal punishment’ and plain old abuse have very similar effects on the psyche of a developing child, even if there wasn’t there’s something downright unmanly about hitting someone much weaker than you that isn’t allowed to fight back.
Pro tip: Yell “harder, daddy” while you’re being physically assaulted. You’ll still have physical and mental scars, but at least you’ll ensure that you’ll only get a beatdown from a trusted authority figure once.¹
¹ This advice is null and void if the teacher is a dom
I understand the desire to create some levity in the face of such sour news, but I do worry about how people who suffered abuse may see this content and what feelings it might inspire in them. I’m not asking you to take this comment down or chastising you for making it, but I do hope that it might influence how you frame things in the future. A content warning, softening the humor, or combining the humor with an acknowledgement of the real world harm that can happen might help.
I was beaten at school in the 80s and I know I can’t speak for everyone who suffered from abuse but for a lot of us, in my experience a plurality if not an outright majority of us, the jokes are the only way we can take any power back. If we cry, they win.
Thank you for endeavoring to create a safe space for us, though. Doubly so for doing it through dialog rather than force. Beehaw is a pretty special place because, so far at least, we can assume everyone is trying to be decent and willing to talk about and modify behavior to that end where appropriate. I’m grateful to y’all every time I pop on here.
Oh absolutely, I’m a big fan of reclaimed language (use it on myself) and humor as a coping mechanism, but it can be hard to understand from a few short words online where it’s coming from! Just trying to subtly remind people to make it as explicitly clear as possible so everyone feels welcomed 💜
Totally agree with you.
I was abused in church but never in school (outside of racial epithets). Sometimes it’s easy to forget that not everybody develops a gallows humor as a coping mechanism. Thinking back to those times while in a depressive stage is a recipe for disaster.
But you are absolutely correct. Some things should only be joked about when in a group of trusted people. And I accept your advice in the spirit in which it was meant. To foster a more accepting and safer community for everybody and not as a way of getting a cheap joke.
I’d much rather be gently corrected than to be part of the background noise that might be making people feel uncomfortable.
Genuinely, thank you.
I still have the scars on my knuckles from being hit by my principal with the cane across my hands.
I’m not naive enough to think this doesn’t still go on or worse all over the world, but I though America was better than this.
What in the fuck is going on with conservatives… They have completely lost their minds. So blatantly evil…