Parental Choices
I find it hard to understand the choices that parents have to make these days. On one hand I think I can understand why so many have messed up, where is the line?
My parents have personally never touched me wrongly. They have always done the best they could, and I love them. Emotionally they can be insensitive, they don't take others feelings into account. For example my mom has a strong personality, no matter what people tell her she's not bothered by it. I'm not like that, but she'll tell me that I'm incompetent and scream at me from the top of her lungs not realizing how much it hurts. Still, I know they love me and so I try and push all of the hurt away since I know that they won't understand it from my perspective.
Thats mine, and I know they are kind. Where do you draw the line though? It disturbs me when I hear people talk about how they were punished with a belt at home. I know that it was how there parents were raised, heck it was how mine were raised. Those people would never say there parents abused them, and they know that there loved and that happened to teach them. Still I can't help but get uncomfortable every time it's mentioned.
I think maybe it's because I know how it feels. My parents have never made choices like that, but people in my life have hit me before. It felt degrading and terrible, and I don't want to think about going home to that. No matter if it's done out of love or not, I can't imagine messing up and going home to know that your going to experience something like that. Sometimes im terrified of my parents, but I'm grateful they didn't treat me that way. If they did, I don't know how I would ever stand in front of them confidently.
Does it actually work for some people though? I have a friend who jokingly talks with her parents about it, and she's perofectly fine and they have a mutual love for each other. Sometimes there relationship seems healthier than my home experiences, and she doesn't think a thing wrong about it. I just can't help but find it unsettling. It puts knots in my stomach.
I know this is ultra long. It was just on my mind and I felt like I needed to let it out. If you actually made it to the end of this entire thing, thank you for reading through my ramblings.
Replies
There's a huge difference between a transactional hit and a non-transactional hit. Let me liken it to an icecream.
You go into a shop and you look at the icecreams. You want one. You don't want to have to pay the $2.50 for the icecream; you just want the icecream. Will you expend that $ for that icecream, or not?
Well, a smack or the belt is (if punishment and not abuse) a transaction. I really, really really want to punch my brother. He is pissing me off. The urge is strong, the desire is overwhelming.
I know the pricetag is a whack on the bum from mother.
Will I pay that price today?
This is why the child doesn't have a problem with the smack. He chose it already. He chose it with the action it was tied to, because he considered the price worth it.
Mothers' job is to increase that pricetag till it's not worth paying. She is wanting her children to think of this bad thing they want to do, and decide not to do it.
If they do not decide not to do it, she is not arranging things properly. If they CANNOT choose not to do it (eg bed wetting) then it is a non-functional punishment and must be stopped.
What you find is that corporal punsihment of this kind falls into 3 camps:
1. moral training
2. survival issues
3. Getting to 3.
So if you hurt or steal, you feel the pain. The pain is part of the theft or the harm you cause. It offsets that psychological jolly of pulling your sister's hair. it offsets that pleasure of eating the stolen chocolate.
If you do not 'stop' or 'come here' and you run away often, you are at greater risk of dying. You have to not die. That's the no. 1 obligation of the parent, to produce offspring that are live at maturity and not dead. So you smack for not coming here, you smack for running on roads.
3. Getting to 3. This is where children who get out of bed have to get back into bed. No, they don't stay up all night because they're hyper intelligent and just need less sleep: they get a whack and put back to bed where they sleep their 8 hrs and don't develop overtiredness hyperactive problems.
oops. got to go. :D could rant all day. Smacking is a specific narrow field and comes with regulations handed down through the generations. It is not a free for all of whacking whenever you are annoyed. That is quite specifically something that is trained out of a person via smacking: hitting others when one feels like hitting.