Pro-Active Parenting WA
In April of 2013, a video of a father whipping his two daughters, 12 and 14, after allegedly catching them dancing provocatively went viral. The father, Greg Horn, was charged with child endangerment and corporal punishment after he grabbed a T.V. cable cord, used it to repeatedly strike the girls, and filmed the encounter before posting it online. The girls had welts, bruises, sores, and open wounds covering their legs, thighs and bottoms. During the video, the girls cowered in a corner behind the T.V., screaming for help, begging him to stop, while their legs thrashedwildly about trying to catch the blows. The sound of the whip cracking against them and soaring through the air were .
SOCIETY v. REALITY
unavoidably audible in the footage. The rest of the family, close by, ritualistically watched the abuse take place as the girls, one after the other, obediently approached the belligerent man before them.
This footage was reposted on YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites thousands of times as well as independent websites. Millions are in commemoration. Not of the girls for their bravery and hardship or for enduring such a slavish act, but toward the father, for administering it. Whoever the reader is may believe that their pro-spank agenda is nowhere near that cruel. What that reader fails to realize is that they are on a different end of the domestic violence spectrum, but on the same spectrum nonetheless.
Pro-spankers grow to identify the treatment they received, no matter how intense or frequent, was necessary if raised
to believe so. If you were raised to believe you deserved a wooden spoon or a belt, then you will say so. If not, then you will likely identify what situations, circumstances, and weapons were used as having been necessary. No matter what end of the spectrum you are on, I assure you, you did not deserve it. You developed a paradoxical gratitude for your situation, and so did those whipped in a corner like mongrel dogs.
You may recognize the same traits amongst these parents and children who commented in favor of the “discipline” that flooded the web and appeared on national headlines. Telling jokes, discussing their whipping sessions fondly, cheering on the father for being an ever present force in his children’s lives. Many laughed endearingly at the thoughts of when they too cowered in the corners of their own homes and begged for salvation. They relished on the various scars that littered their bodies and how they had earned each permanent mark. “The wounds will heal (or maybe not) but the lessons will remain!” "The scars are a reminder" they said. “He should have whipped them again just for crying” encouraged others. “That’s not abuse, that’s DISCIPLINE” they roared. “I was whipped almost daily and it was the best thing that ever happened to me!” Of course, my all time favorite, “I got the same whippings and I turned out okay!”.
Police, social services agents, teachers, prison guards and far more applauded him for his outstanding parenting skills. Entire communities pooled together in attempts to post the fathers bail exercising their belief his absence would do more harm than good. After all, no one will whip his kids while he is gone. The mother also received serious criticism for contacting local authorities and pressing criminal charges.
You are raised to believe that what you received was deserved, depending on your parents views that is. If you were spanked for a lack of understanding regarding a danger and always as a first resort, you will likely admonish that children deserve such a treatment and perpetuate it. Not unlike the more conservative spanker who believes that it should be dealt no more than three times in a child’s life for predetermined offenses. Both will criticize each other, and others. Surprised at what some claim to be necessary, and what others swear not to be. Their perspectives are more than just a matter of opinion.
These individuals are equally as sick as those who condemned Greg Horn’s daughters to the fate they were born into. Not sick in the sense that they are disturbed, but in reality they need help, as do the rest of us.
We live in a cruel and heartless world. Parents have begun identifying that there are serious and irreparable damages and, instead of turning from the practice, continue with greater frequency. They claim, “I would gladly trade in higher test scores for a well-behaved child!” “Get those kids in line” “Put them in their place”. Trade in somebody else’s self-worth? What place? They did not ask to be on this Earth and were not brought here for the purpose of blind obedience to you. You are here for them.
While shock collars and rolled up newspapers are not condoned, I suggest that they are fitting replacements for use.
"There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children." — Nelson Mandela
A centuries old brainwashing process has led us here today. As a result, we believe that domestic violence is funny, only if perpetrated against a child. We believe that assault and aggravated assault are educational tools. We believe that the only biological protector should be the only one violating a child’s private parts, and that it is healthy.
We believe that violence, weapons, hitting, assault and aggravated assault are horrendous, so we sugar coat them with euphemisms to ease our minds at the behest of our children. We believe that these are unhealthy and a violation of human rights, and we are entitled to protection from them. Unless we are the youth we must preserve.
We live in a world where symptoms of traumas are adorable and mock them to the victims demise only if below the age of consent, where the more you oppress someone, the greater they are. Where old wives tales and archaic myths rule our modern practices. Where less evidence is more.
We understand respect is impossible to gain through force, unless it is a child you are demanding it from. We know that love does not condone pain and resentment… or do we?
In defense of the Rutgers coach, public opinions favored his "old fashioned discipline" as he hit, beat, shoved, kicked, and threw objects at the players. At one point the coach was recorded making derogatory hate speech toward them. They claimed he was "bringing out the best in the team" and if they wanted championship, they needed intensity, which was positively viewed and "lacking". "It's the wussification of America", they cry. However...
THIS IS (not) SPARTA!
"Instead of toughening children up for a cruel and heartless world, why not raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."
- L.R. Knost
This is an eye opening analogy presented by Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Longstocking, in 1978. One year later, corporal punishment was banned from Sweden, her home country.
We tell children that we can inflict pain upon them so long as we use certain weapons. However, the weapon used does not change the act itself. Children only see pain because it is all it is. Why is that how we do so is viewed so drastically different? Just because of what weapon we use?
This is a tragic result of social norm. It has nothing to do with any evidence supporting any particular weapon. After all, the paddle is legal in schools and many states for domestic use and is used widely even where it is not condoned. This is an example of a lethal weapon.
Why should we raise them to believe that the only people you can harm, are those we never should? That the only people who can harm you are the only ones that never should? That the act is justified depending on what you use to do so, or depending on how old the victim is; the younger the better.
Is throwing a rock at a child legally and socially condoned? No. Is striking their private parts with a whip made from bark strips off a tree? Yes.
Would you imagine yourself laughing as hysterically as Hannity and Malkin? Telling yourself you deserved it? What if it was a spouse or employer?
People often ask, "Why do you keep bringing adults into the situation? They are not the same!" That's right. An analogy is used to present something you are familiar with in contrast to a subject you are not familiar with, so that you may better understand it. While children are not the same, we fail to realize that they are more deserving of protection, not more deserving of senseless harm.
I will never tell you that I deserve to be hit. Whether it is in recollection of my childhood or whether it is present day. Why? Because I am a healed mind. I am better than that. Nobody deserves to be told they are property.
If I recommended that people use a shock collar they would shut down. "That's horrible". Yet it seems a suitable painful deterrent from behaviors, is not directed at private parts, and does not leave as much damage.
If I recommended the use of a rolled up newspaper in the stead of their weapon of choice, they generally also shut down - save for those who actually use rolled up newspapers, which thousands of Americans do. They prefer their potentially deadly methods over a pile of paper.
The weapon used does not change the act itself.
Comedians, celebrities and public officials are joining together and fighting the opposition to the anti-spank regime. They are gaining traction with their rising tier of followers and the public eye has left them untouchable. Lewis C.K. is commonly quoted for acts he has performed against spanking. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has also won over millions while criticizing Hannity's personal assessment of his own behavior. Other comedians, such as southerner, Keith Lowell Jensen, are changing the atmosphere surrounding them.
Spanking is being used in the stead of parental guidance. In the stead of education. In the stead of a parents biological duty.
We are now conditioned to not only hit children when they throw temper tantrums, but to demand it. To make children obedient and convenient to us. The act has replaced the necessity for child psychology. The understanding that tantrums are not defiance, they are distress. Much like a baby crying, children do not have our decades of experience with their emotions and thus do not know how to express them in a healthy way. It is a parents job to guide them and help them through these critical learning experiences, not train them to bottle them up.
Fragile human beings are the target of legal domestic violence. We look to them to live with these damages, foster complete blame to them for their traumas and offer little to no venue for them to heal. We revictimize them claiming that more domestic violence would have solved the issues that plague us, which plague them, and promote the very vicious cycle that creates them.
We tell them we can, because they are 'ours'. They have no power in their lives, including that most sacred - over their own body.
Too many people confuse the feeling of admiration with the idea of obedience. Fear of non-compliance is not the same as a desire to please because of the love you have for another.
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
-Master Yoda
Since this map was published, states have changed their corporal punishment trends and policies. Three eliminated it altogether, others applied it more liberally.
People commonly suggest that a lack of corporal punishment and those who support a ban are what's wrong with society today. However, the blue states pictured above at the top show the states which do not use corporal punishment and the red represent those that do. The image on the right is a collection of statistics from obesity to teen pregnancy, from smoking to violent crime, illustrating the overall "wealth meets health" of the state. The image on the left, represents "peace". Areas with the most lenient laws on corporal punishment and the highest acceptance have higher crime rates, teen pregnancy rates, and other negative statistics, including drop out rates. Those where corporal punishment is strictly governed and has lower acceptance, have respectively, the lowest rates. States with corporal punishment in the schools and the home are the worst off by far, in close order, to number of students paddled annually.
To also suggest that crime is in an incline as a result of less violent parenting is a ludicrous conclusion to derive. The following chart was pulled from the FBI violent crime division site. It clearly reflects a steady decrease in crime, which has been dropping annually for the past two decades.
Data collected from the National Center for Education Statistics
We need to give ourselves what we deserve, by relinquishing that which we did not.
