A Point of Commonality

I don't know if it's true, as Charles Barkley says, that every black parent in the South whips their children with willow switches. I do know it's true that my grandmother, who was Southern but quite white, certainly made use of them as she felt appropriate. I only received such a lesson from her once, and at the time I thought it was unfair because she was angry that we were playing ball near the street -- but we hadn't even gone into the street. I later discovered that my great-grandfather was killed by a car, walking across the street to get the mail from his mailbox. The woman driving the car that killed him never saw him, apparently.

I'm of the opinion that it did me no harm, even if the particular incident was in a sense unjust. My father, who was on the receiving end of far more whippings from her as a boy, is one of the best men I've ever known. He is generous, gentle, and -- far from being a 'child abuser,' as the overwrought discussion suggests of any parent raised as he was -- my sister would always try to arrange to be punished by him instead of my mother, because he was too scared of hurting her to paddle with any strength.

Ecclesiasticus gives advice on raising children that begins "Whoever loves his son will beat him frequently," and of course Proverbs 13:24 holds that "whoever spares the rod hates his son."

Certainly you shouldn't abuse children. But can we stop painting people like my grandmother as monsters, 'child abusers,' and the like? Is it too much to ask that we express our culture's desire to move away from spanking children in terms that don't require us to despise and hate so many who were doing what they thought was best, and had been taught was right, even by the wise of their communities and cultures?

10 comments:

Joseph W. said...

I got a few smackings myself (barehand, not willow switch) up 'til age 7 (death in the family, changed households). I could probably have used a few more.

My own observation meets yours - a little paddling, smacking, or spanking doesn't do any harm once you get over sulking about it; and if the species were really that fragile, I doubt we'd have made it this far. A "victim mentality" is far more insidious.

An advantage to corporal punishment is that a person with a sleepy conscience (or, indeed, no conscience) can feel it. Truly it is "education that touches everyone." Punishments that rely on guilty feelings will work on some and not on others.

Texan99 said...

My grandmother used a switch, too. My father paddled us on rare occasions, by hand.

Ymar Sakar said...

Is it too much to ask that we express our culture's desire to move away from spanking children in terms that don't require us to despise and hate so many who were doing what they thought was best, and had been taught was right, even by the wise of their communities and cultures?

You're old enough to realize that religions, especially the fanatical new ones, need scapegoats to crucify.

Or are you already aware of this and merely downplay the answer?

E Hines said...

The Progressives are right about this one.

My brothers and I always were invited by our mother to go cut our own switches, which she then would use on us. If she found them inadequate, though, she'd inform our father, who would cut his own and use that one on us, thus delivering a second switching for the same offense.

And Dad did knock my front teeth out when I was in the first grade. Of course, they were baby teeth, hanging on a thread, and he cuffed me lightly for lipping off at Mom.

And here I stand, and Evil Redneck Conservative.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

One of the barbarian kings around the time of the end of Rome -- I can't recall which -- is supposed to have refused to educate his son, because education requires punishing boys until they will sit still and do the unpleasant work of learning their letters. How could a boy grow up to be a great king, the barbarian reasoned, if he had learned to fear the schoolmaster's rod?

So I suppose it must be possible to grow up to be a barbarian even if you're never spanked at all.

Joseph W. said...

Henry VI ended up the opposite of a barbarian -- too much the opposite for the time he lived in and the role he had to play. I've read he was roundly thrashed throughout his education. Even the best medicine doesn't always work.

Texan99 said...

The mere presence of punishment doesn't tell us much. We know people can grow up fine in the presence of punishment, and that they can come out awful, too. All we really have established is that punishment is not a disaster per se. There's also the question of how and why a child is punished.

Grim said...

Funny you should mention Henry VI. I was just reading a history of that period last night.

In any case, I'm not sure I have an answer on the exact right way to punish children -- although I do believe it is necessary to punish them, and often, as part of a broader method of helping to shape them to be members of their civilization.

What I would like is just an end to the overwrought screaming about how all people who whip their children with switches are moral monsters and child abusers. That's not true at all. It certainly wasn't true of my grandmother, who was just doing her best. Even where I think she was wrong, I don't think she was wicked. I think she was over-reacting out of an understandable fear given the history.

And clearly, whatever she and my grandfather did with my father, it worked.

Ymar Sakar said...

What I would like is just an end to the overwrought screaming about how all people who whip their children with switches are moral monsters and child abusers.

So long as you ignore the Left on this venue, you ain't gonna get what ya want here.

DL Sly said...

I was sent to get my own switch many times which was then tested for "appropriateness" on my backside. If it wasn't right, I was sent to look for another, and another, and another, until I got it right. Then I got the whipping I for which I had been scheduled and was now horribly late.
Yes, I was stubborn.
Why do you ask?
Still, I'd take a switch over the belt with the big metal buckle any day.
0>;~]