I was spanked as a child.
Yes, I am a good person. I am loving, respectful, considerate, generous, responsible, and confident.
No, spanking did not make me any of those things.
I loved and trusted my parents. Like any child, I trusted them to do what was best for me...at least until I was old enough to understand that they were only human.
When they spanked me, I felt powerless, degraded, shamed, betrayed, hurt, and angry.
When I grew up, no matter how much I educated myself, no matter what I believed or practiced, I loved and trusted people who I let manipulate me, degrade me, shame me, betray me, hurt me, and piss me off. I didn't do it on purpose; I didn't even know I was doing it until the end of each relationship. But the reason I did was because from the time I was a small child, I was taught that love was something that happened between a bully and a victim.
The fact that people survive violence, neglect, and trauma and go on to do great things does not prove that violence, neglect, and trauma cause those people to be great. The fact that you were spanked and you are not in jail, or you know someone who was not spanked who DID go to jail, doesn't mean that spanking teaches respect for the law!
Respect is pride in oneself, and recognition of the inherent value of others. Respect is NOT fear of retribution.
Responsibility is self-control and desire for the good of all, NOT obedience.
Consideration is the willingness to work with others to create harmony, NOT the sacrifice of one's own needs in order to make other people happy.
Love is an exchange of encouragement, acceptance, and joy - NOT a power struggle!
I am almost thirty years old. I figured out all of this when I was in high school, I've been trying to heal myself ever since, and I am still struggling to reprogram myself, so that I don't pass on these learned behaviors to my son, or my future children.
Is spanking the only thing my parents did wrong? No, of course not. Someone who spanks out of anger, or worse, while calm, has problems. Spanking is not a technique, it's a symptom.
Spanking is a symptom of feeling a need to control, rather than cooperate; to dominate rather than educate. Spanking is a symptom of believing that children are less than human, and do not deserve the same respect and consideration that their parents expect from them.
To illustrate this concept, imagine you are a police officer, and you witness a stranger in a store get mad and throw something. How are you going to respond?
a) Walk up to him or her, calmly bend him or her over and pop him or her on the butt, while saying in a firm voice, "No! We do NOT throw things. Use your words!"
b) Get angry and proceed to beat the living crap after him or her. Maybe afterwards you'll apologize. Or maybe you'll threaten to give him or her something to cry about.
c) Arrest him or her at once.
d) Roll your eyes and walk away.
e) Ask him or her to clean up his or her mess, and talk with this person until you are sure he or she is calm. Then, teach him or her some techniques to recognize frustration before it becomes anger, how to cool his or herself off before the frustration reaches tantrum level, and make him or her laugh so you know they will remember this lesson.
Okay, there are a lot of other options. the first four options are what happened to me most often when I was a child, and what I witness most often among other parents who do not practice conscious parenting or positive discipline. The fifth option is one example of something I would do for my child. There are many, many other examples of turning conflict into a teaching tool, and into cooperation.
If you believe in treating others how you would like to be treated, and you want your kids to grow up to do the same, then spanking is counterproductive. Unless you allow your children to spank you when you make a mistake. Actually, even that can not possibly replicate the emotional and psychological damage that you cause your children when you hit them, because you will never believe that your children know what is best for you, and even when they are bigger and stronger than you, you will never be as vulnerable to them as they are to you.
Discipline means teaching. What are you teaching your child? What kind of adult do you want to populate the world with? Obedient ones, who will follow all rules without question, and let more powerful people make their decisions for them? If so, you are probably Republican.
Couldn't help myself, sorry. Okay, political jokes aside...
I want my children to grow up able to love themselves, able to give and accept love, able to say no to people, things, or activities that feel wrong to them. I want them to grow up knowing that we never stop learning, that learning is fun, and that growing up is a lifelong process - there is always something new to learn, and that bettering ourselves should be the main focus of our lives. I want them to be happy as their norm, with punctuations of stress, and the ability to understand and trust their emotions and intuition. I want them to accept responsibility for their accomplishments as well as for their mistakes, to value themselves and their contributions to the world, and to know themselves, their likes and dislikes, their hopes, dreams, and nightmares.
I intend to teach my children these skills by practicing them myself. When I lose my temper or make a mistake, I apologize. When I want to change their behavior, I show and tell them exactly what I want them to do and have them practice the new technique, and then make them laugh, keeping in mind that play is how humans and all mammals learn best. I set limits as teaching tools, and as boundaries for harmonious living, and I explain the reasons for the limits at an age-appropriate level. I read a LOT. I talk to other parents, and more importantly, observe their children and their parenting, and see the results.
I don't have to spank my two year old, or put him in time out, or yell at him in order to change his behavior. All I have to do is calm him down and show him what he should do instead, and then show him how happy I feel when he does the appropriate behavior. The times that I have lost my temper and yelled at him proved to me beyond a doubt how useless anger and violence are as teaching tools. He was too scared and hurt to learn anything until I calmed myself down and then calmed him down. He learned to give me kisses when I start getting upset, to make it all better, like I give him kisses when he is crying.
I believe that abortion should be a woman's choice. I believe the government has no business telling adults what they can do to their own bodies, or to force us to to put something into our bodies or the bodies of our children that we or they do not want. I believe the purpose of the government is to keep order so that millions of people can live literally on top of each other with as little conflict as possible - and part of that immense job is to protect us from other people's behaviors that cause bodily, emotional, and psychological harm.
Assault is threatening to hurt an adult. Just threatening to hurt an adult can put you in jail. Why is it legal to threaten and strike children, who can't defend themselves, who depend on us to protect them, keep them healthy, happy, and strong, and teach them so that they can do all of that for themselves when they are adults? How can that possibly be considered okay to a sane mind?
