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I seriously cannot thank you enough! I have been thinking about this the last couple of days and have not been able to put my thoughts into words like you have done wonderfully.
I’ve read so many articles on the subject and it literally makes me sick when I read so many comments about people claiming that this is the worst generation of kids because they aren’t being spanked. “My parents spanked (beat) me and I have 3 PhD’s and nothing is wrong with me!” Yeah, something is wrong and it’s called empathy. There’s a lot wrong and you nailed it:)
....because a question was posed....so without enough info do we automatically agree with the OP (not the style of this forum), or do we answer the question, or.....?
BTW I already replied in support of the OP in that what she endured was indeed abuse.
I would like to add that in 100 years time giving kids junk food will probably be seriously considered a form of abuse (with the rate of obesity in English speaking countries).
It is easy to look backwards and place blame. Why don't we look forwards? We have more to learn from looking forwards IMO.
12 year old girls are still being legally married in the United States to this day.
Chronic stress is being found to be the culprit in many of problems today that finally science is able to prove. You may not have PTSD for being spanked or abused in some form or another but take something like obesity, for one out of hundreds choices, and find the root of the problem. The REAL seed of the root of why a section of the population is obese. Could it stem from some childhood trauma? How about (fill in the blank)? How do we know something didn’t negatively harm a child when we didn’t have the technology to even understand what we are just barely beginning to understand now?
As I posted before I never viewed the discipline I received as abuse. It wasn't imho extreme. Different times back then however my cousins were punished with a yardstick that my parents felt was extreme
Everyone has differing perspectives on what abuse is or the thresholds allowed or disallowed, i.e. a hand once across the backside is ok but more than that is abuse, a yard stick is ok but any other object is abuse. Courts have ruled on individual cases. I've seen parent charged with assault and acquitted at trial and I have also seen the opposite.
If your perspective is that any form of corporal punishment is abuse, then that is your opinion however, others, including the courts may either agree or disagree. I don't think anyone however would disagree that anything even remotely resembling a beating be it with a hand or any object is extreme and is abuse.
With my children I never saw the need for "spankings" as time outs and other behavior modifiers that were reward based worked. Personally I believe that spankings etc are unnecessary.
We are all human and very imperfect to say the least. Don’t we want the best for our kids and the next generations that will live here? By having more knowledge of how to raise healthy adults wouldn’t that be something we all want and strive for? I don’t see anything to suggest we’re on the right path so obviously many things aren’t working and shouldn’t we change that?
Hi,
So I appreciate everyone's responses and am open to reading a wide variety of opinions.
I have had many thoughts since starting this which is what I wanted.
I should have specified my situation as individual at the start and some people wanted more context.
I am thinking about how we even define abuse in the first place. That is what the "spanking debate" brings up for me.
In my own therapy, we go through the actions of my mother. I was very enmeshed with her and lead to believe that she was the perfect mother, so for me specifically I do the whole "taking stock" process and lable what is abusive. This process is hard and I end up with a lot of dissonance, but I feel like I am getting pieces of myself back.
I am able to label the emotional abuse, but when it comes to the punishments this gets tricky for me.
I have arrived at the fact that we got hit for really small reasons.
Like having a sarcastic tone or voicing a complaint.
Especially the sarcasm. That was a big thing. We would get yelled at and then hit if we had a sarcastic tone. I was a young child too. Young children are not really sarcastic, so this doesn't make sense and I don't think it did then.
My mother made the punishment about who we were. She wanted to beat us into being respectful children. She felt we were inherently bad or disrespectful and we deserved the punishment.
She was almost irrationally strict.
So, I think you can start to label abuse from this stand point.
I feel that hitting/spanking children creates a slippery slope for some parents to cross that line into abuse.
Also, spanking can easily get sexualized.
I personally don't do it at all. I did it 3 times in my life to my children. It was a smack on the chubby thigh. Twice it was a safety thing and once was when I was pregnant and tired and lost my patience and smacked my two year old lightly on the thigh because he would not stop squirming around. I still feel horrible for that and never did it again. I guess there are parents who can spank and it is not abusive.
But I do think there is a diff between using a hand to spank and an object. Being hit with an object is terrible, even in a controlled way.
Also, I was left with raised marks, bruises, and sometimes bleeding and I could not sit down. The bleeding was from my mother's boy friend. But all of this seemed normal because it was delivered calmly with counting and all of that.
I think that is my gauge. Did I feel terrible in that sick, shameful, traumatized way?
The answer is yes.
I think, as another person said, every context with every parent is different.
It really comes down to the question of what constitutes abuse?
Sometimes I believe just being human is abuse. Everyone experiences life different from each other and like I’ve said previously, what is traumatic for one child isn’t for another. Religion is a good example. Religion really traumatized me but it didn’t do the same with my siblings. There’s even a Religious Trauma Syndrome to address these issues with how traumatic religion can be for many. But religion is what gets people through this life and gives them hope and purpose. Also male circumcision is identified as being abuse. There’ll always be controversy over what abuse is but I would like to hope that we are willing to learn from each other and care for each other and want the best for our children and society as a whole. Thank you for the thread:) I hope you are doing okay:)
Before I answer this, let me be clear I don’t agree with physical punishment and don’t hit my children. But the “you wouldn’t do it to an adult” argument is nonsense.
My child is a child, there are lots of things I do to and for them that I don’t and wouldn’t do to an adult. I don’t bathe the adults in my life, I don’t spoon feed them, I don’t take them on my knee and hold them while they cry over a broken toy. I don’t remind the adults in my life to say please and thank you, I don’t dress them for school, I don’t control how much chocolate they eat, nor do I actively try to get as much fruit and veg into them as I possibly can. I don’t talk to the adults in my life about consequences or about good and bad choices, I don’t direct and steer their behaviour, I don’t take toys to entertain them on a long journey and I do t take s change of underwear for them in case of accidents, I don’t clean them up after said accident.
There are a thousand things I do with my kids that I don’t do with the adults in my life, because I am my child’s parent and my role is to guide, support and care for them into adulthood so that they are able to function in society. In days gone by an acceptable, in some cases preferred way to do that was by using physical force. Society has moved on since then, thank god, but at one point physical punishment was not considered abusive and I wouldn’t necessarily say that labelling parents in those circumstances is fair and reasonable.
The OPs circumstances are different, she talks about a pattern of abuse beyond physical punishment but surely you can see why there would be a debate around the abusive intention of parents who use physical punishment even if you yourself are clear on it.
I agree with @Suzetig there are circumstances and context imperative to the term child abuse.
@Scarlet13 it is clear that your circumstances are completely different from mine in childhood - we are worlds apart. So you are correct context is everything. That does not mean that even with limited information I cannot empathise with you. I can. I believe you were physically and psychologically abused by your mother and her boyfriend. If it helps you in any way to deal with this and heal from it or even just live with it, I support you.
You seem to have a had some very effective therapy so far. I commend you for your progress and that you recognised this abuse and did not pass it forward onto your children.
@MoonCat I respectfully disagree. There is scope for discussion and differences of opinion. The term 'abuse' becomes very difficult to pin down. Wouldn't it be too easy to just sit in judgement of everything and everyone who is a parent and have a one size fits all approach? Easy but disastrous?
The meaning of child abuse has a legal meaning with it's own benchmark's which must be met for a successful prosecution. (Depending on what country etc the child is in).
The psychiatric definition of child abuse is different again and much wider in scope. For example a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker or even general practitioner may be needed where a child has been subjected to some type of parental or adult behaviour which has affected the child but it is not a 'mandatory reporting' issue and it's in that grey area where context & circumstances could fall either side of the social & psychological meaning of child abuse. It doesn't fall into the definition of what would be required for a legal definition. However the child, adult or both requires assistance, support or another type of intervention.
The social and cultural norms of what is or is not considered child abuse is huge. It is extremely important to keep that it context. There are many cultural and social norms I think are not normal & I might be tempted to label them as child abuse. But I'm from a completely different culture. So I have a bias. First I must be informed and respectful of culture.
For example:- Indigenous tribal initiation rights for children. In general & broadly brushed - white western cultures may be less informed of the critical impact in a positive way 'rights of passage' have & it would be very easy from an uninformed view to label a lot of things that do happen within that context of the cultural environment, as child abuse. But that would be misguided.
Everything has it's context and we have to be careful and respectful before we, as one form of 'civilised society' judge some cultural practices in a well ordered and maintained society with a different culture. A lot of long term and irreparable damage does happen if we impose our standards without proper consultation and education.
I suppose I should add just for clarity a caveat: there are human rights and some intrinsic rights of the child that should never be violated regardless of culture.
@Scarlet13 I think as your describe more of your particular situation on from your OP and I say this respectfully...there is a lot more going on in your mother's mind apart from wanting to just keep some sort of order, respect and guidance. This includes the aspect of your mother allowing an adult male to exact physical punishment on you.
NB: Ok, this is going to be a long post, so, if you're actually going to read it, brace yourself. Make some tea, get yourself some snacks. I have a lot to say. Not sure it'll fit in one post as I don't know what the word limit per post is here. And, in advance, sorry for the typos.
Before I answer this, let me be clear I don’t agree with physical punishment and don’t hit my children. But the “you wouldn’t do it to an adult” argument is nonsense.
Well, I don't think it's nonsense at all. I do agree it isn't a perfect analogy, but the closest one I came up with on the spot. Let me explain why it's not perfect.
There's a thing triune brain model. A very simplified model of what part of our brain is responsible for what. (Here I was going to post a picture but can't. Anyway, just image search triune brain.)
When a child is growing up however, he doesn't have all those parts fully developed and matured. The development and growth go from the base up: the reptiliancomplex first - responsible for our bodily sensations such as hunger/thirst, instincts and impulses; then the mammalian complex - responsible for feelings and emotion; and only when you reach adulthood is your primate, or human complex done developing - the one responsible for logic and thought, self-reflection, self-control, problem resolution.
Keep in mind, human complex is the last to develop: (Again, wanted to post pictures of MRI scans of a developing brain, which I hope you can look up worself, since the board won't let me)
(I get a message that my text contains emails, but it doesn't so I suspect I don't have the authorisation with my newb account to post pictures and whoever coded the boards probably forgot to custumize the error messages).
A grown woman from my example has a completely developed brain and a sense of self. She is capable of questioning the slaps she gets from Bill, she might go online and ask for reassurance or advise on some relationships forum, she might decide go to a therapist or reach out to a friend. If things get worse, she might have an option to spend a night on her friend's couch, move in back with her parents or ask help at a church or a women's shelter.
A child has none of those options, none or very little of logical thinking, asking for help will most likely not even occur as an option. After all, how many children actually report abuse to authorities when it's happenning?
So, yes, it's not a perfect example. A child is much more fragile than a grown woman. Much more attached to and dependant on the caregivers than a grown woman is on her partner. Did you notice that I used a man slapping a woman in my example? In real world it is sometimes the other way around, of course. But a man is usually physically stronger than a woman. The disproportion of physical strength between a child and it's parent is usually much greater than between a grown men and a woman (with the exception of some teenage boys maybe). So it is actually worse, when you really think of it.
What I was trying to point out is we are eager to extend our validation and protection to a woman being slapped by a man, but we are not so willing to do it if this same woman is an 8 year old girl and the slapping hand belongs to her parent.
But if you don't like the husband-wife example, here's another one. Imagine a healthy adult taking care of another adult, who, say, was in a car accident and, as a result has, a severely damaged prefrontal cortex and has behavioural issues and emotional-control problems, and is also physically frail. His MRI scan would show lack of activity in the same parts of the brain that a 5 y.o.'s brain would not have yet developed. What would you think if you came in a room of caregivers of such people who were discussing whether it's ok to slap their charges, how hard should the slap be to not be considered abuse? "Is it abusive if we hit him with a brush, but is a yardstick too far? What if our intentions are pure - we're just training him to recognize what's right and wrong again? We're basically guiding him."
There are a thousand things I do with my kids that I don’t do with the adults in my life, because I am my child’s parent and my role is to guide, support and care for them into adulthood so that they are able to function in society.
Right. Exactly. And this long list of parental duties is what every normal parent or caretaker does, these are the things kids can't do for themselves, this is what you sign up for when you chose to become a parent. I don't have my own children but I had worked as a kindergarten teacher and a full-time live-in nanny for a family (a very functional, healthy family with zero corporal punishment). I did all those things for the kids too. However, never once did it occur to me that caring and catering to child's needs somehow entitled me to spanking or hitting them. Neither would baring a child or contributing my eggcells to a child's conception give me this right.
(And yeah, the list isn't a logical argument that would convince me that my analogy is completely invalid.)
In days gone by an acceptable, in some cases preferred way to do that was by using physical force. Society has moved on since then, thank god, but at one point physical punishment was not considered abusive and I wouldn’t necessarily say that labelling parents in those circumstances is fair and reasonable.
The only reason I hesistate to call all physical punishment 'abuse' is because I would be labelling my grandparents, greatparents and nearly all my ancestors as abusers. Not to mention the countries where smacking is a cultural norm.
All my friends got smacked as kids at least once. The truth is 12 years olds could marry old men 300 years ago in my country. Those grown men were not sex offendors. They would be today. Still shocking in both time frames, but of course a thread like this would spark debate.
Stating that in the day's gone by something was normal or acceptable doesn't make it right or benefitial. So what if it was? This is not a pro-spanking argument at all, it's just a sad historic fact. It isn't nice to think we or our parent, or grandparents did something wrong. But is it worth protecting the status quo in your mind? Is preserving a sugar coating on a dusty box of memories of our grandparents or some distant ancestors more important then looking out for our children's interests and mental health and development today?
I don't care about labelling people, it's not changing anything. I do call the behaviour what it is though, in a hope that people will really look at it and reconsider it.
A grown man having sex with a 12 year old girl, basically raping her, will cause harm to that girl in any time and place. This is just how human, especially child's, brain reacts. It doesn't matter if these men were called sex offenders in their time or not, if the marriage was legal, if her parents and society approved. These girls were harmed. Even if you live in a society where something like this is normal, you don't have to follow suit. You have a choice. These man did too. Raping a crying/paralized with fear 12 year old was their individual choice. Again, are we looking out for the interests of children of today or are we sparing the feeling of some adults that lived in the days gone by?
Yeah, I know labelling some historical men paedophiles or abusers, even thought that's what they were, isn't going to change what happened, it's not going to change anything now. And that is not my point, that's not what I'm doing here at all. It does, however, scare me that this reluctance to look back in history and call a spade a spade is somehow influencing our worldview on child abuse now. I mean, what's with this sacred cow, really?
Regarding cultural norms and rites of passage - still, it doesn't matter. A slap is a slap, no matter if it's done for some sort of ritual. Why are you afraid to question something just because it's traditional somewhere? What's more important - traditions, or a child's well being? Do you just condone violence because someone in the bronze age had a brilliant idea to beat up his kids as a rite of passage? Is that society really that well-oiled and functioning in your view? "Who are we to judge and speak up?" Well, who will if not us?
Well, actually, smacking is part of it. Child abuse is a big evil that is being slowly abolished by humanity all over the world.
I suggest you check out the ACE(Adverse Childhood Experiences) studies and watch a TedTalk by Nadine Burke Harris. (probably don't have the authorisation to embed vids either, sorry.)
^It summs up the effects of child abuse on the child's health and, as a consequence, how it affects our society, according to recent scientific research.
Smacking is a lighter shade of child physical abuse, yes. It is lighter, but it's the same thing, guys. It's on same spectrum. It's just a somewhat less pungent flavour of the same old sh**.
What would be the approximate example of smakking on the spectrum of child sexual abuse? Something light, something that until recently was considered ok and not criminal. Hmm. Well, there's a video on youtube of Jimmy Savile going with his hand under a young girl's skirt live on tv. (I can't bring the link here, but you can easily find it).This isn't rape. This could hardly have had any legal consequences in the 70s. Before the truth about what he did behind the closed doors came out, this was considered acceptable and condoned by the majority. The girl from the video did complane to the BBC management after the show, but she was dismissed. I bet they said something like "Well, obviously his intention was to make a joke. That's just how Jimmy is."
There was another kid's show host from the 70s who casually kissed preteen girls on the mouth on his show, against their will of course. Forgot his name though. Everyone just laughed along. No one stood up for the girls or called the adult out.
I suggest to you this is the same thing you're doing if you condone spanking, smacking, hitting and don't offer your advocacy and validation to the kids. You're silently accepting a lighter form of child physical abuse, which opens doors and widens the Overtone window for those who'll go further.
Society's greatness is measured in how it treats its weak and vulnerable. We form our society by our actions and inactions. Fellow adults, it's up to us, really.
Besides, all those great evils that were abolished, how do you think this happenned? All the rights we enjoy now, especially in the western world - how did they come about?
I gaurantee that nearly everyone on knows or is closely related to people who got hit as kids...All my friends got smacked as kids at least once.
Again, this is not a pro-spanking argument. It's just a sad fact. Moreover, it's anecdotal.
I'm not a fan of anecdotal evidence, but I can share some of my own with you if you're interested. I will put in blue so that you can easily skip it if you're not: <mod edit - placed behind spoiler instead>
I grew up in one of those post-soviet, rough, Eastern European countries where some corporal punishment is seen as ok. If a kid is spanked in public most wouldn't bat an eye. Everyone I knew was spanked too. I was not just spanked, but severely abused, even though the latter is illegal in my home country. Our neighbours and my teachers knew it, but they remained silent. Most people in my home country don't even call the police when they hear a woman's or child's scream and sounds of a physical struggle through a thin wall coming from an apartment next door. Because that's how it's always been - you don't tell a man how to treat his wife and you don't tell a parent how to treat their kid.
Now I live in one of those liberal, very progressive Western European countries where any child abuse, spanking inclusive, is illegal. I am yet to see a kid spanked in public here, but I bet witnessing adults would step in and stop it. At least that's what I get talking to my boyfriend (a native) and his family and having worked with kids here. Unlike me and you, my boyfriend grew up without any corporal punishment aimed at him or his mother or sister. They were just kind of respectful too each other, this was the family model he grew up with. He's a very grounded, capable, respectful young man now. Hitting a child or a woman is inconcievable to him, and he's never even been in a fight with other men/boys while growing up. Most of the people he knows also were never spanked.
I worked with kids in both countries, by the way. And the anecdotal difference that I can attest to is that, I'm going to generalize now, kids in my home country are indeed more silent, but they are also more frightened. They seldom look you in the eye. If you sit down to learn shapes and colours with them or do homework, they avoid eye contact and are generally more clammed up. They are usually less interested in new material we are learning and are afraid to ask questions or point out to me if I, an adult, a teacher, have made a mistake.
Here, in my current country, kids are more vocal and curious. They usually don't avoid eye contact. They engage with you. Doing homework with them, especially when they're somewhat older, is much more fun. They will joke, interact with you and challenge you intelectually. And they will point out if they notice I got something wrong, or forgot our normal routine, like awarding a sticker for the right answer. Yeah, they're also whinier and louder, but that's kind of normal.
When I look at the adult in my home country and my current country, I see the difference too.(A huge generalisation ahead, of course individuals are different, but these are the big patterns that I see): Adults in Eastern Europe are generally less sensitive, especially men, less intellectually curious and less likely to challenge the authority or a corrupt politician. In fact, they sort of accept the submissive victim role with this bitter, sarcastic, doom and gloom world view: "Well of course the politicians are corrupt, what did you expect? That's just how the world is. Nothing's gonna change." "Yeah, I know my boss violates labour laws and exploits me, but there's not much I can do about it, is there." The relationship between an employer and an employee, a teacher and a student, is vertical. Statistically, we have much more corruption, alchoholics per capita, domestic violence, street violence and other societal problems.
In my current country, the difference between the rich and the poor or medium income is minimal. There's less corruption and all the factors that determine the health of a society, that I mentioned above, are incomparably better. People here would not tolerate a corrupt politician like they would in my country. As soon as the evidence gets out, he's booted out. An employee usually can question the employer's decision directly. There's more dialogue between teachers and students.
Are all those differences a result of how these two societies bring up their kids? I bet it's a big part of it. Simply anecdotaly, I have seen the difference. And I have lived in both societies. I know which one I want to live in and one day bring my kids up in. (Also, had I stayed in my country, I would still try to change the views on child abuse and I wouldn't condone it just because it's accepted and legal there.)
But we don't have to rely on anecdotes. You don't have to believe me.
There's science! Yay! It's 2018. Reliable information is easily accessible. The scientific databases are open and a lot of the latest research is free to read. I suggest you go to any scientific database, I guess Google Scholar is the biggest one (but there are many more).
Just put in some keywords, like "corporal punishment effects" or "physical discipline children" or "children spanking discipline". Research it for yourself. Look at what corporal punishment really leads to. When you read these research papers, you will probably connect the dots yourself as to why corporal punishment is not a disciplining tool. In the long run, it results in a lot of things, but discipline and moral development is not one of them.
Here you might say: "But MoonCat, when well-meaning, kind mothers smack a loud child with an open hand, there's no bruise on the body and the kid gets the message. The kid does get quite." To which I want to say, yes, you get a "good child" for a moment, but at what price? What are you actually accomplishing?
Things you're actually teaching a child when you smack, spank, hit him or her:
- How to smack, spank, hit. (Those who are weaker.)
- Might makes right.
- Hitting, spanking, smaking are all appropriate ways to solve problems and express emotions. (I think in psychology it's called "teaching through parental modeling.")
- Ok, so I can't do that when they're around. (Misbehaviour is often a child's way to satisfy some sort of a need, which he maybe can't even recognize or verbalize properly yet or doesn't yet have a concept how to meet it in a socially appropriate way. So you smack a kid and stop the misbehaviour, but it's like treating headache with a pill. You don't really know what the cause of it it. If it's something serious, it'll come back anyway.)
- I feel frustration, fear, anger or some other strong emotion. I don't know how to express it safely yet and what to do with it, but when I try to express it the best way I can, they spank, smack or hit me. So I'll just bottle it up inside me. (Dear parents. If you think the problem is solved, wait till he/she becomes a teenager.)
Sidenote on physical punishment: I get that you want to teach your kid discipline and good manners and how to be mindful and kind to others around him or her. But when you scare a child - the actual learning stops dead in its track. You will not be able to explain those wonderful sophisticated concepts to him or her in this state. Have you ever tried teaching a kid another new difficult concept, like, say, explaining a math problem, while he's scared, anxious or shut down?
And another sidenote on physical punishment: not only does it not work the way you want it to, after a time, it inevitably needs escalation.
Special sidenote on spanking on the buttocks: someone has already said in this thread that it can easily be sexualized. Yeah, it's true. That's an erogenous zone on the human body. Think about the associations and neural connections it might build in your child's developing brain. Don't... just don't do it. If you're still not convinced, please, go to any open scientific database (Google Scholar was mentioned above) and type in some key words like "spanking children, sexual problems adults" or something like that. I remember reading a very interesting research on this from Murray Straus (or Strauss?) of UNH's Family Research Lab, but I'm too sleepy to look for it right now.
Also, not sure if it's the case, but, if you were meaning to say "Hey, MoonCat, look, these people I know got spanked and they're fine now. They grew up into great, kind, functioning adults." What you'd really be implying is "in spite of", not "thanks to".
Everyone has differing perspectives on what abuse is or the thresholds allowed or disallowed, i.e. a hand once across the backside is ok but more than that is abuse, a yard stick is ok but any other object is abuse. Courts have ruled on individual cases. I've seen parent charged with assault and acquitted at trial and I have also seen the opposite.
If your perspective is that any form of corporal punishment is abuse, then that is your opinion however, others, including the courts may either agree or disagree.
The OPs circumstances are different, she talks about a pattern of abuse beyond physical punishment but surely you can see why there would be a debate around the abusive intention of parents who use physical punishment even if you yourself are clear on it.
Ok so, as I said, something being the law at a certain point in time doesn't make it correct, non-abusive or benefitial. It also doesn't take away our responsibility to question it and protect the weak. The law and the court system are there to serve us, not work against us. And societies do change or modify the laws in order to become better and push forward. We, as society, as we progress learn and develop, can and should change these laws. (Assuming we're talking about democratic countries.)
Right, there are countries where corporal punishment is legal. But look, there's also a bunch of countries in the world, including the one I'm typing this message from, that have also completely outlawed corporal punishment. Where you're born is a lottery. You don't have to agree with all the laws of a certain country just because you were born there, especially if some legal practices have no scientific basis of being beneficial and extra especially if there is reliable scientific data to show they are harmful. You have a choice.There are legal ways to change those laws, by being a politically active member of your society, or on a smaller scale of your community.
Ok, so, saying this in this thread implies you're saying that hitting kids is human? If you're a human, you have no choice, you're just gonna hit a kid at some point? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Everyone experiences life different from each other and like I’ve said previously, what is traumatic for one child isn’t for another. Religion is a good example. Religion really traumatized me but it didn’t do the same with my siblings. There’s even a Religious Trauma Syndrome to address these issues with how traumatic religion can be for many. But religion is what gets people through this life and gives them hope and purpose.
Yeah, so, you're right as to saying some experiences will traumatize some children while these same experiences will not traumatize some other children. That's a good point. And this phenomenon is not as random as you think. There is scientific analysis of this too. If you look at the somewhere-above-mentioned ACE studies, you will see that they not only looked at adverse childhood experiences in isolation, but also at resilience factors. Resilience factors could be something like having at least one loving parent, or some family member who helped take care of you and enjoyed playing with you, or a mentor at school that validated you and showed you compassion and empathy. After an impact of an ACE those saving graces would tip the scale the other way. Would they make an adverse experience, such as corporal punishment, any less abusive? No. They would not. They would just compensate it. A physical abuse experiense, however big or small, whatever impact it had on a specif circumstance, still remains on that physical abuse scale.
I don't know much about the Religious Trauma Syndrome so I don't feel confident commenting on it and why your siblings don't have it and you do. Maybe it's ACE's vs resilience factors, maybe it's. It does seem awful though.
Also male circumcision is identified as being abuse.
Well, I'll be honest with you. When I was wring the list of the therrible evils that were/are being abolished by society, I wanted to put male circumcision on it too. I do think it's abuse as well, mainly because it has no real scientific proof of any benefit to hygiene (it's usually what proponents of it use as an argument) and, you know, it was established as a bronze age religious practice. (These two big religions, you know who you are, still keep it acceptable in this day in age, even in the western world. And I knew if I'd mention it, these religious people would bring their sacred cows here. And yeeeeah, I could talk about it, but, I didn't want to make the post too long, and get into the religious discussion and bla bla bla. I just wanted to concentrate on physical punishment. But thanks for calling me out on that.)
There’ll always be controversy over what abuse is but I would like to hope that we are willing to learn from each other and care for each other and want the best for our children and society as a whole. Thank you for the thread :) hope you are doing okay :)
Yeah, that's right. There always has and always will be some controversy and discussion. This is the nature of progress and civilizational maturity. Controversies are growing pains of a society. Some things we keep and improve, some thing, that are harmful and serve no purpose anymore - we toss or change. This is ok.
On the willing to learn from each other thing. Ok, so, we're talking about physical punishment, right. It's not really some smudgy, impressionistic painting people look at at the museum and then exchange their impressions and how it made them feel. We're civilized people. We have science,research, psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience. These MRI scans at the top of this topic, those research results in open scientific databases - they're not opinions. They're facts.
If you dig through those researches, you'll find more MRI scans of normal kids at a certain age, of abused or neglected kids of the same age. Some parts of the brains are literally different.
( Btw, When I am writing this message I see an advertisement for Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score." This very book, it's paper copy of it, is on the table to the left of me as I type this. It's a great book on tauma and what it does to our body and our neaural system. There you will also see some MRI picture, illustrating a person't brain going through a PTSD flashbacks. Guys, we read these books to better ourselves, to learn about our condition and re-program our thoughts. I bet reading books like that, having access to scientific information like this, changes our perception of trauma and our views on many thing. Why don't we use the same tactics for challenging our societal views on child abuse and physical punishment as well?)
So, do we just learn from each other by asking things like "Well, honey, did you feeeel abused? Hmmm?" or do we look at the data first? Doesn't doing the former without the latter seem irresponsible and kind of futile?
This is a forum for adults. A lot of members here will have kids. Statistically speaking, some of these peope will spank their kids...Is calling them all abusers really the right way to engage with this issue?
To illustrate this thought process I am going to, once more, use the example of a man and a woman (since I'm not convinced it's completely invalid):
"This is a forum for adults. A lot of members here are men and will have wives. Statistically speaking, some of these men will spank their wives.
Is calling them all abusers really the right way to engage with this issue?"
Well, I don't know if it's the right way, but I will say this. If you're and adult, and you're going to have a kid or a wife or a husband in the future, and if me or anyone calling you an abuser, or calling spanking/hiting/smacking your partner/child abuse, if any of this stops you in your tracks and makes you really think, or maybe even shakes you awake - good. Because you're an adult, and that neo cortex that you can see on that top image of this post is completely developed in your brain. And because you're an adult I trust you to not only have emotions (which are totally fine btw) but I trust you to also have logic, reason, self-reflection, an ability to analyze facts and learn and improve yourself. I also trust you to have self-guidance and self-control. You are not statistically doomed to hit a child, you have a choice. You got it.
Corporal punishment and child abuse is the topic that I am passionate about. And I know I'm fiery about it. But, guys, I do believe adults can take some heat in a discussion. Don't take what I'm saying about corporal punishment being abuse personally. In my mind, you're not labelled an abuser, sentenced and ostracized, if you spanked your kid. You probably didn't know better. No one's past is perfect. We all did the best we could with the understanding and knowledge that we had. When we know better, we do better. We got this.
Also, to those saying "Why is it so hard to imagine there's going to be a discussion about it? Everyone has their opinions."
Right. If you tell me that X frappuccino is the best, and a Y genre of music is superior to a Z genre of music, I'll accept those as your opinions. I don't care what they're based on, if on anything, because they're trivial. Howeve, when you're forming your opinion on something hefty, like is corporal punishment ok, why don't you do the research? What do you base your opinions on? I bet you do your research before you buy a smartphone or a washing machine. All those sources I've mentioned, all the researches, why not use them? What do you think they are conducted for if not our benefit and imrovement?
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. No one is entitled to ignorance.
Look, if you will go to google scholar and read at least 5 research papers on corporal punishment, if look into ACE studies, watch a workshop on NVC parenting and read at least one article by Murray Straus and then, after all this, you'll come back here and tell me "Yeeeah, MoonCat, I still think spanking is ok", then fine, I will accept it as your opinion. But I will still stop your if you raise your hand on a child in front of me. And I will still urge the people in your community to outlaw corporal punishment, if it isn't already outlawed where you are.
There is another option. Maybe I've missed something big. Maybe there is a whole hidden body of research done by a respectable institution(s), that quantitatively and qualitatively surpasses and outweighs all the research that I've mentioned, and this yet to see research actually proves that corporal punishment is ok and a good discipline tool - then show it to me, and, you know what, I'll change my opinion.
I did it once. Because, having grown up in an Eastern Europe I, too, used to think that spanking was a small necessary evil, and in the long run it's beneficial, like vaccination. Until I actually checked it.
Why I'm surprised that it's a discussion here is because we, people with PTSD, especially those who got it as a result of child abuse, know better. We must educate ourselves. We're working on our traumas - the least we can do is question the ways we were brough up to spare some pain to the next generation. We must, at least, try, to be better and shape our society accordingly, after what we've been through.
When you look at politics, even on a local level, ask yourself:
Who stands up for the rights of veterans? Veterans and their supporters.
Who stands up for the rights of workers, pushes to increase minimum wage and for better working conditions? Worker unions and their supporters.
Back in the days, who pushed for the women's right to vote? Women and their supporters.
Civil right? People of colour and their supporters.
Who stands up for the abused children? They can't do it themselves. Their parents or caregivers may not have had access to the abovementioned information, or they did but do not care. Who's left? That's right. Us. Adult surviviours of child abuse.
Someone has also mentioned that in the future feeding kids junk food migh be considered abusive. I can kinda see that, it probably will be. On this note:
A Just-in-Case Letter to Distant Future
Dear descendants
If you, a concerned parent/child's caretaker/nanny/teacher/whoever from the distant future, are pushing for healthier foods for the kids in your care and, by some bizzare twist of fate you're reading this, I'd like to tell you this: I respect and support your effort. And you feel that classifying junk food as child abuse will help your cause - it's all right, I support you. We kind of knew it in my time too, the World Health Organisation was pointing us to research that indicated that top causes of death, such as heart problems and diabetes, are often cause by obesity. I regret we didn't do more about it. I trust your future science is even more sophisticated, your data and knowledge more precise and polished, and that if we could meet you could teach me a lot about dangers of unbalanced diet and how harmful refined sugar actually is.
Please do not make your memory of me a sacred cow blocking your way on the path of improvement. We, your ancestors from the good old 21 century, were not some perfect, innately wise spirits. Do not be afraid to question us. If you're feeling extra pious and doubtful, I urge you to go to your Digital Archeological Internet Database and type in "Buzzfeed food" or "Will it deepfry" or, if you're brave, look up something called "Pizza Hutt Hot Dog Stuffed Crust Pizza".
And if you need to call me a child abuser for taking kids in my charge to McDonald's or getting them that eye-burning-blue Smurf cone from that devilish icecream truck at the park - I'm cool with that. I am not offended. For several reasons. Firstly, because I'm dead. Secondly, even if I were not dead, I'd support you, because I'm proud of you for creating and maintaining a society sophisticated enough that in your time feeding kids junk food is a burning topic, an issue that you're improving.You got this far, it's amazing. You know better, and you are doing better.
And if you have a time machine, I'd love to see your world. Beam me up. Or forward. (Seriously, PM me, I'll send you the coordinates.)
