Pope says smacking children is ok "if their dignity is maintained"

Be nice to RR. Outside of his "whitey is out to get me" mentality, he's good people.

 

Not Whitey . .. .. THE GUB'MENT!!!

Rocket River

 

What's controversial?

Probably the self-contradictory statement about corporal punishment being ok "if dignity is maintained."

That's just kind of a sick joke.

Beating your kids is designed purposefully to humiliate them and rob them of dignity (unless it's the physical pain that's supposed to teach the lesson, now that's nice and perverse)....the whole sorry spectacle represents the absence thereof, unless you think a stoic child accepting their beating from their physical & emotional superior is a dignified spectacle.

 

One controversy is we don't condone people hitting women for any reason... But it's all good to bully a child who is not an adult and can't defend themselves.

So why are you upset with the kids and not their mother.

Translation: Some kids need to be spanked and some kids don't.

 

Lookie here! In addition to being a world-renowned legal scholar, a recognized political pundit, and holder of a masters degree in "internet forum provocateuring", he is now an expert on child rearing!

The man can truly do it all!

 

The poll could be clarified a bit.

"Hitting" a child sounds like a closed fist blow. I can't imagine anybody would be OK with that. Most people are thinking about an open palm style spanking on the butt. Possibly with a device like a belt, shoe, fly swatter, wooden spoon, etc.

 

Spare the rod spoil the child that is the word and the word is good enough for me.

 

Didn't intend to be mean; was meant to be all in fun, like the RR poetry thread in the Hangout.

BUT... I really do have no clue what he was saying there.

For the longest time I took that to mean that you shouldn't hit the child - you should spoil him with love, kindess, gifts, etc.

 

I guess I wasn't clear enough. I absolutely blame the mother 100%. It's just that I have no faith that a woman like that can raise productive members of society so I am ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

 

First off, he wasn't talking about beating kids. Second, the entire history of society is built on inflicting punishment on people when they do bad things. Where it's jail or fines or launching drones, they are all intended to have negative consequences. Sending someone to jail, for example, generally involves humiliation and taking away of dignity. Sending kids to timeout involves the same basic thing, just in a different form.

Spanking is a milder penalty than jail for milder versions of doing bad things than we send people to jail for. Regardless of how well either works, they are meant as negative reinforcements for certain behavior - a general concept that we universally accept and use in society.

The concepts of humiliation or loss of dignity is not what makes spanking controversial. It's the physical pain that's involved, and whether any or how much of that is acceptable.

 

I do think it is interesting that society is basically ok with guys hitting each other when they do something wrong, ok with hitting kids when they do something wrong, but even grabbing a woman's arm hard is abuse. So if my daughter talks smack to me between the ages of say 5-15 I can slap the snot out of her and people will give me an atta boy, but if my wife talks smack to me and I do the same I go to jail.

Put me in the camp that spanking/slapping kids is unnecessary. Physical violence against people who can't defend themselves is lame.

 

Yeeeah.....I'm just not sure if I'm fomfortable deferring to the Catholic Church when it comes to tips on how to raise young boys.......

 

Maybe I speak RR more than I should

He is basically stating there is no sure way of raising a child. You can read all the child raising books you want and it will never fully prepare you for your kid. Every kid is different and each one has their own unique tick.

 

So presuming then what is a dignified smacking your kids around vs. an undignified beatdown of minors?

It's way too friday to hear out the "spanking with Dignity" campaign other than for amusement purposes, but go ahead.

 

I think we confuse issues when we try to compare parenting with other types of relationships - they have different purposes.

Lots of things we allow between parents and kids would not be allowed between adults and vice-versa. For example, you can pick up your 3 year old kid and take him to his room for timeout and not let him come out. If you tried that with an adult, it would be kidnapping and you'd go to jail. The general concept of "punishment" is something we allow parents to inflict on kids, but would not allow for adults to do to other adults outside of a court system.

 

I would suggest you ask most adults who were spanked as kids, and ask them if they feel any loss of dignity. The ones that we think of as abused probably would say yes. The vast majority probably would say no.

 

Yes and no. People are arguing, but the poll result is currently 7-0, which is more similar to what national polls show (obviously not 100%, though).

Of the people against spanking, I'd be curious how many think it should be illegal vs just not something they would do.