rancher of monsters said:
So I was watching a comedian last night who brought up one of the greatest dividers between parents, the use of physical punishment. Now I'd like to be clear, I in no way advocate a serious blow on a child, that is abusive. That being said, I was spanked with hands and belts as a child and I think I am better for it. Time out has never worked on me, it would just give me time to let my imagination wander, but pretty much every child understands pain. so I thought I'd ask the Escapist community how do you feel about physiucal punishment? Also, how would you feel about a friend, family member, or neighbor who went out of their way to punish your child?
My grand parents liked to use the fly swatter when I acted up. And you know what? I'll be the first one to admit I was a bit of a brat in my youth, but at times I got in trouble over things I never actually did. But you know what's really fucking funny? One of my grandparents is extremely racist, homophobic, and prejudiced.
Why is it my grandmother gets away with being homophobic, racist, and prejudiced while I was punished for petty crimes? I personally think it's bull shit my self. It seems when you're a child it's all right for a parent to enforce every single one of their moronic beliefs on you while we just leave them with their stupid backwards beliefs simply because 'they're old.'
If you ask me, we're disciplining the wrong people. No parent should have the power to physically hit a child because some of them will hit their child over everything and some of them will use it to enforce their own beliefs on the child, as opposed to discipline. Is your son gay? No problem! You can just beat the gayness right off of him!
So tell me, why is it all right to hit me over petty things, but it's wrong to hit my grandmother who's going out and about stripping people of their rights, their freedom, and probably contributing to a decent sized suicide rate? Her bigotry and close minded prejudiced has caused far greater suffering then both my thievery and my behaviour.
And funny enough, I don't believe the disciplining made me a better person. I suffered through some bull shit during my middle school and I was pretty much enforced to completely change my ways to adapt to the environment. At a time I used to be a brat, but I was also sociable and energetic. Now though I'm an antisocial socially awkward 20 year old guy that has trouble even getting a job because I have troubles talking to people.
I'd gladly take the former any day. So basically,
Hitting me never did anything good,
If it did do anything chances are it's what fucked me up in the first place,
And if it really did do nothing for me chances are the most it ever did was just make me feel more resentful towards my grandparents.
The reason why the government likes you disciplining your kids is because it keeps them in line, and that's exactly what the government wants. No politician gives a fuck about how smart you are, they give a fuck about how well you can do what they tell you to. If they gave a fuck about an informed population then they wouldn't have Fox News, Drudge Report, or any other biased news souces. (I never watched MSN BC so I honestly don't know if it's biased or not. From what I've heard though it's basically the liberal equivilant of Fox)If they gave a fuck about an informed population, they would spend more on education.
But would you look at that, they don't. Instead they spend money on the military. Because no politician wants a thriving, intelligent population. They want dead soldiers. Disciplined dead soldiers. They don't want a moral, intelligent population. They want a lawful, obediant population. A population that does what they're told, but not what's right.
And in supporting hitting a child we're only supporting that it's all right to enforce our dumbass beliefs on a child. Behaviours should be promoted, not enforced. Because in hitting them we're only indoctrinating them to follow a certain behaviour. And as I stated before, if we're allowed to hit a child over doing something wrong then there's nothing stopping some parents from hitting their child over something they morally disagree with.