X-ray wrote:
@ Dan
You said: "...There was a time when there was no child or wifeabuse and people had the right to hit their kids and wife, heck it was even legal to hit farmhands and maids. There was no such thing as rape inside a marriage either it was just "fullfilling wifely duties".
It was called the 1800s, it´s over. Get over it!..."
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If you equate child abuse and wife abuse with discipline then perhaps it is just as well you don't believe in smacking. My standpoint isn't about supporting abuse. It is about recognising that a timeous smack can prevent a whole heap of trouble later on.
Or maybe recognizing that it can bring a whole new level of trouble.
And where do you draw the line?
My point was that the Dutch Minister of Justice was rigth:
In the Netherlands, the Dutch Minister of Justice wanted to make it unlawful to hit a child. His argument: people should learn that it is not right to hit a child.
So I pointed out a period when it was socially acceptable to hit children. There was no difference between an educational smack and child abuse. That isn´t so long ago just ask my dad who is born 1923. In that time administering corporal punishment was a part of how you was supposed to raise your child. I was born 79 so I was a very late child, my dad became a pensioner when I was still in elementary school, people always tought he was my granddad. Now the law against corporal punishment became a line he would never cross,which was a good for both him and me. He just needed a excuse to not hit us, you know it was expect of him because that was the proper way to raise children for somebody of his upbringing. Apart from the usual punishments(no TV, being grounded, no pocketmoney, sent to bed/my room) he used another one, simply throwing me out of the house until dark/diner time I think that was a good one because it meant we both had time to calm down and think over the situation and I had time as kid to think over what I had done wrong. I realise this wouldn´t work in the city but thats just the cities faults.
Did you know that when my dad went to school in the 30s one teacher who used what we would call modern teaching methods got sent to a mental institution? That he didn´t use corporal punishment was just one factor, but the last straw was probably that he didn´t give a {bleep} if the kids learnt the daily psalm. Then they got a real sadist who pulled their ears til they bleed and the ruler over the fingers and the whole thing. My dad still hate that asshole 70 years later. But those where the good old days when there was discipline in the schools, eh?
Now where to draw the line between a "justified" smack and childabuse?
The only way is zero tolerance just like with drinking and driving(was also socially accepted once). Otherwise what can teachers and other people around the child do? There are many things that doesn´t leave any mark.
The Dutch Minister of Justice was absolutetly right and that supposedly educated people can´t see that is quite frankly scary!
I am suprised that Netherlands didn´t already have a that law. :-o
Ideally, nobody wants to smack anybody. We don't look for excuses to do it, we do it out of necessity.
The "necessity" is an excuse.
Now take a cow, cows are hardly the most intelligent of animals but if you use violence to get the cow where you want it then the cow are going to get payback someday. With an animal that has been threated that way you always have to be on guard because anything can make them snap and that can be lethal. If you are nice but firm towards the cow on the other hand you are going to get a calm eventempered cow.
It´s exactly the same with humans.
The only thing that prevents a 3 year old from hitting back is the sheer physical size difference. Quite a few of those hair-, earpulling and pinching mothers kids get very good at kicking adults on the lower shins at a young age. Is one of a kids first lessons in life gonna be that
Might is right? :pissed:
We once had a thread about "What is evil", I answered hitting children and animals. It really is as simple as that.
Wasn´t the first moral rule that you learnt: "Never hit anyone that is smaller than you and never beat an animal." It was the first I learnt and it´s the most important one.
