CNN:
In a study Gershoff co-authored that examined 20,000 kindergartners and their parents, she found that 89% of black parents, 79% of white parents, 80% of Hispanic parents and 73% of Asian parents said they have spanked their children.
But why do so many black parents approve of disciplining their children that way? The answer is complicated, experts said.
Some researchers have suggested it’s a legacy left by the brutality of slavery. Some say it’s rooted in fear – that if parents don’t use force to demand obedience, someone else will. Others said African-American parents, in aggregate, are disproportionately lower-income, have less education and are more likely to follow a religion that implores them not to spare the rod for fear of spoiling the child – all factors that correlate with use of corporal punishment, regardless of race.
Still, 79% of white parents! That’s fucking high. Black Americans are hardly exceptional. This is the 21st century. How is this barbarism able to persist? Hitting a child in our day and age. There is no such cutesy thing as spanking, there is only hitting. Hitting another human being.
@49, the fact that you got three warnings means you didn’t respect your parents enough to heed the first two and that spanking really didn’t mean anything other than a few moments of discomfort. That doesn’t mean that you were abused, only that spanking didn’t work.
grew up with just my mom. she had an angry look and an angry voice that could KILL. she was never verbally abusive; she just knew how to get angry in a way that it would mortify a little kid and get them to behave. so, she never needed to touch us. i had a friend who would tell me about getting spanked. when she did that i would get frightened and also thought that her parents were barbaric.
i just remember that thought from being a kid – that her parents were barbaric. i don’t necessarily think it now (it’s all relative – maybe for certain kids a little spanking is appropriate). i just remember thinking that.
In an online group of half Americans and half Europeans, it was found that most of the Americans approved of spanking, and none of the Europeans did. The Europeans hadn’t had spanking used on them, the Americans had. “But how were you disciplined?” They couldn’t explain/remember. Seems to have worked though.
My dad fairly well traumatized me, with just spankings, and the threat of further violence. Our family lived in fear of my father, and to this day I can’t stand “father figures”, and have no desire to be a parent.
I believe that violence towards children leads to violent children, in some cases.
I’m in favor of spanking. Planning to give the wife a good spanking later on this evening. 🙂 But, and this is a very significant point, first she has to BEG for it. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Seriously, though- worked in children’s education for a lot of years. There are many flaws with corporal punishment, but the one that clearly trumps everything is that it DOES NOT WORK.
Teaching children that those who are bigger, stronger, and in authority can use violence to reinforce their will is not going to result in better behaved children. Just NOT gonna work.
My partner is Nigerian (born in the UK just after his parents immigrated here.) He feels it is simply culturally accepted/expected in African families to use severe physical “discipline” with kids.
He told me that his mother once put his sister in the hospital after hitting her with a cast iron frying pan. I said, “That’s terrible! What could make her do that?” He said “Well my sister was trying to stab my mum.” After this episode his sister left home and wasn’t heard from for two years – nobody to this day knows where she was.
He also told me plenty of stories about his dad beating him as a punishment for nearly being run over in the street (WTF?!) and his mum taking a rolling pin to him after he went to an all night party.
Despite the fact that this abuse clearly didn’t work in bringing the kids into line – in fact my boyfriend was even sent over to Nigeria for a year when he was 15 as his mum couldn’t cope with his antics – he still just shrugs his shoulders and says “that’s how we do things in African families, you have to teach them respect!”
He applied the same principles to raising his own kids (although not to the extent of beating them, thank god, he did smack them) but will then tell me about how his son regularly stole money from both parents and his daughter would deliberately ruin things, for example pouring a can of drink all over the back seat of a new car!
Although I freely admit making many mistakes when raising my son, failing to hit him definitely wasn’t one of them. My son may be sometimes lazy and reluctant to help around the house, but he has never stolen from me, shouted at me or sworn at me, and in general obeys his curfew times, helps out, etc. He loves and respects me rather than fearing me, and me saying “I’m disappointed in you” or “You’ve let me down” has a far, far greater impact than a whack on the bum could ever do.
For the record, my white, middle-class, well-educated father beat me and my sister, and neither of us have had any contact with him since 1989.
I’ve heard that physical punishment, delivered well after the transgression and after tempers have cooled (the proverbial “wait till your father gets home”), can be an effective disciplinary tool. I wouldn’t know because I never experienced that. Whenever my mother “spanked” me it was because she was out of control emotionally and taking it out on me. She didn’t teach me discipline, it was more like, “OK, Mom’s losing it again.” When I was big enough to hit back I did, and that was the end of that. It did the exact opposite of instilling respect.
Mudede writes something sensible . . . are we in the Twilight Zone again?
I don’t have children, so I’m the last one to be an authority. As a child, I was spanked (not nearly as many times as I deserved) so I would have to say that it certainly is an effective method of getting a child’s attention, redirecting them, etc. I always “thought” that if I had children, I wouldn’t be opposed to a swat on the bottom, and I’ve certainly seen stranger’s children in public that I thought merited the same.
However, when I chose a trainer for my dog, I made sure that the training was in no way corporeally based. In fact it couldn’t be since much of the training is based on hand signals, and if the dog learns to fear a raised hand, it would be counterproductive. So I REALLY have no idea what I’m talking about. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m glad it’s a decision that I’ll never have to make.
I tell you what charles, I would rather beat my child ass now, then have the police to beat them later!