Men who agree with corporal punishment

Waking-Dreams

WeeWilly wrote: »

Interestingly, I note that no-one has made any attempt to square up to my arguments, examples, and philosophy. Instead they must needs focus all on my choice of words (that I specifically offered up as a distraction), or simply mouth off a litany they long ago ceased thinking about.

No one has really bothered because your arguments, examples and philosophy do not really need to be ‘squared up to’. I simply can’t get passed that fact that your basis for the style of parenting you endorse in couched in terms such as “I firmly believe” and “the basic truth”.

You call yourself an atheist but it is those exact kinds of terms that religious people use to justify their irrational ideas long after evidence has demonstrated otherwise.

All you have to support your case is your own anecdotal experiences which, as have been pointed out on this thread numerous time, do not hold much water.

I could tell you a story about how whenever I misbehaved my parents tortured the family pet in front of me as a means of regulating my behaviour, to try and trigger my sense of empathy. That it “worked” would in no way justify the behaviour when better methods have been proven to exist.

Alas, I feel that this corporal punishment style of parenting is very last century and understandably many from that generation will have difficulty seeing how it has run its course.

I also have no doubt that even if you were handed research and evidence which documents that corporal punishment does not work, you would still find a way to disprove it. That is what usually happens when you hear phrases like “I firmly believe” and “the basic truth”.

WeeWilly

Candie:

In a world where small boys are told that big boys don't cry, grown men are told to man up, and where male suicide figures are a damning indictment of the cultural pressure for men to be strong, silent, but above all stoic.

Thank you for at least addressing the posting squarely. Yours is one of the few postings that is not mere litany or a derogatory remark about me (or my children). It is, however, completely wide of the mark because, in fact, this is exactly what small boys (and, indeed, boys of all ages) are NOT BEING TOLD today, and they haven't been for some time. Again, I apologize for shouting, but you had better have a good look around you, candie, because you couldn’t be more wrong! Your comment fits far better into last century, perhaps up into the 80’s, but no further.

Moreover, your comment shows the dangers of casually interpreting statistics, and in applying them to cause and effect in a world that has many factors at play, because I have seen these same suicide statistics being applied as a damning indictment of the [recent] cultural pressure on men to behave as women, and of society’s marked new-age tendency to castigate male values as bad and deficient! If you think this is fanciful, just look at how men and their values are portrayed everywhere today. Look at movies, TV ads, etc. to note this marked tendency to show men as rather silly children, and women as strong, indulgent (of men’s silliness), mature, and wise pillars of sanity. This is either subtly or overtly woven through practically everything. For example, laws have an increasing tilt toward female concerns, and there is marked social pressure to credit female testimony with greater credibility, and to give special privileges to women in some kinds of cases. But this is for another thread. In schools, this feminization of agenda is in full swing, and overwhelmingly prevalent! [Aside: if you watch a police show with a male and female policeman both running after a big tough bad guy, you can bet your money that it is the female who runs him down and beats him into submission to cuff him. Curiously, actual exchanges of blows are never shown – presumably because we do not want to be promoting a world where men beat up women!]

To return to the schoolroom, women have taken over pretty-well all of the school curriculum, now for perhaps a generation, and your “be strong, boys” message forms no part of school doctrine today, and it hasn’t for quite some time. To explain, over this time, circumstances have depleted schools of male teachers as role models and as leavening to an entirely female agenda! I impute no concerted evil to this, it is merely what has happened as children have been handed bigger and bigger weapons that are most devastating to men, as opposed to women. The result is that, as I mentioned before, men want to be nowhere near children (habitually and in groups) and are fleeing from the teaching profession. I already referred to a story in a Toronto newspaper that a couple of years ago stated that over a 15 year period, the number of male teachers in high school had dropped to 10% of what it had been (in Ontario?). I have discussed this with a couple of female teachers who are friends, and they are very well aware of the general truth of this trend. My grandson's school (up to junior high) has but 1 male teacher.

In fact, for some time now (since my son was a child, for example) boys are told to behave like girls, and to be judged as girls are judged. Moreover, when they don't measure up to these standards, they are assessed as deficient, slow or as lagging behind. This is a huge subject, and much has been written about it, but it is far off topic here. But the first line of my grandson’s poem is exactly a measure of the times today, and not some sort of exception to help him "modernize" his thinking!

candie:

…. suggests this is a bit of a crusade for you

Heavens, I am glad it shows. So now we have a label for it, but how does this advance the discussion?

WeeWilly

Of course, I knew this would ruffle feathers, and I did invite it! We are straying far off topic, but I’ll address the comments to the best of my ability. I shan’t do this any more, for it is so unrewarding, and a dismal confirmation of the state of events around child-rearing. Moreover, writing posts like this is it is exceedingly time-consuming!

I could tell you a story about how whenever I misbehaved my parents tortured the family pet in front of me as a means of regulating my behaviour, to try and trigger my sense of empathy. That it “worked” would in no way justify the behaviour when better methods have been proven to exist.

I expect that it would not work in triggering a sense of empathy, but, if it did, it SHOULD BE CONSIDERED, for in some way it has justification! However, I suspect that, after looking at it as a technique, it would rapidly be obvious its negatives would overwhelm its benefits, don't you think?

But again, you avoid addressing the issues, and inevitably, choose instead to attack the messenger in that familiar substitute for having nothing to respond with! Identifying evidence as "empirical" or "anecdotal" does not make it go away; it merely labels the evidence.

You call yourself an atheist but it is those exact kinds of terms that religious people use to justify their irrational ideas long after evidence has demonstrated otherwise.

Actually I call myself an atheist because I am one. And I am dumbfounded at your remark “after evidence has demonstrated otherwise”. This is simply not true, because evidence is absent in droves. Please, your comments should have some grounding in reality. I said I am facing very religious-type arguments because that’s what they are – to wit, all, or most of, the feedback to me is mere recitation of litany that reduces to one of the following:

• “Spanking children is bad”
• “You are bad”
• “You are wrong/silly”
• ”You are brutal”
• “Your children must be hideous” (sorry for the whimsy)

… that is to say, all statements without support, illustration or reason – viz, religious ones. No-one of you has demonstrated anything! The feedback is simply mechanical and fatuous reiterations of beliefs, or they are comments attacking me. On the other hand, I have given you observation after observation, as evidence, each with a conclusion, and with a tacit invitation to engage with me about them. But nothing emerges!

For example your comment

Alas, I feel that this corporal punishment style of parenting is very last century and understandably many from that generation will have difficulty seeing how it has run its course

... reduces to the first of these – to wit, “spanking children is bad” or "you are wrong/silly" … no sign or vestige of supporting reasons or anything like.

… and your comment

I also have no doubt that even if you were handed research and evidence which documents that corporal punishment does not work, you would still find a way to disprove it. That is what usually happens when you hear phrases like ‘I firmly believe’ and ‘the basic truth’.

… reduces to “you are wrong/silly.” It also has the remarkable irony of illustrating (“I also have no doubt”) its very own content!

And BTW, you are absolutely right, if the only sources of that research are from those who have already drunk the KoolAid, and who are highly motivated to find only the result that supports their already-occupied position! "Fruit of the poisonous tree." The evidence involved in this kind of research is, by its very nature, tenuous, highly subjective, and correlations between actions taken and results, likewise extremely tenuous. See candie’s comment in the posting I addressed to her to get a sparkling example of subjective interpretation of “evidence” to support a desired point of view! In terms of supporting my concerns here, it cannot be topped in this respect.

… and your comment

I simply can’t get passed (sic) that fact that your basis for the style of parenting you endorse in couched in terms such as ‘I firmly believe’ and ‘the basic truth’.

is the same, even to committing the same ironic sin that it accuses me of doing (“I simply can’t get past”)! Wow!

… and walshb’s comment, in reference to me: “ His children grew up, and they also seem to be well educated, yet they too don't seem to be able to discipline their children without resorting to beatings?” … reduces to “your children must be hideous” (which is really “you are bad”). Actually, walshb sounds quite delightful, and I am a bit tongue-in-cheek here, for I take no offense, even if it is hard to hear my extraordinarily charming and delightful daughter (whose faults I am well aware of, so please, no nonsense about “better than others”) so unwarrantedly castigated!

On the other hand, my arguments are not religious-like in the least. For example, I indicate that I have great doubts about the wisdom of the modern child-psychology-based type of soft discipline and I lay down on e-paper an illustration of the reasons for this belief, thereby inviting comment.

Or I say that I have grave issues with believing parents’ claims about their children and I give, actually, very cogent reasons why I do. And so on. You are invited to comment on those reasons. This is exactly NOT religious argument.

All you have to support your case is your own anecdotal experiences which, as have been pointed out on this thread numerous time, do not hold much water.

Argument (perilously close to paraphrasing John Cleese) is not merely pointing out “your arguments do not hold much water”, even if it is done numerous times!

I don’t expect rational people to simply give my arguments some sort of label (“anecdotal”, “empirical”, for example) and then to walk away from them with a feeling that they have been adequately dealt with. You see, I don’t believe that I am alone in observing these things I use as illustrations for my point of view. They are far too common, because one “trips over” them every day. Hence, I hope to “ring a bell”, or to raise a “chord of recognition” for each reader, as they observe and classify what they see, and then to give that reader one point of view as context to assess what is being observed – to criticize, castigate or agree with, as may be.

So what do I expect, then, when I tell you about the anecdote about the Canadian forum, where I summarized the kinds of problems people wrote in about, and gave samples of the bleated responses of the forum’s putative child-rearing experts? I expected forum participants here to say, “Just how should those ‘experts’ have responded” to, for example, the parent who wrote in about the wayward 10-year-old? And I would expect being questioned about my using the loaded word “bleated”, and so on.

I would then reply to the first question, “For such an extremely difficult child, the first issue must surely be to gain control of the relationship“, and I might dramatically add “at all costs” to stir up something to focus on. I would then follow by introducing the notion of corporal punishment as a tool that has some applicability in this respect”, and away we would go debating the wisdom – or lack of it – of that approach vs alternatives. Rational debate.

I would reply to the second (about using “bleat” as I did) that it was an appropriate word to use when the expert advice continued to spew implacably out, machine-like, and with no alteration or adjustment in recognition of the massive and recurring feedback on how ineffective that advice was. And away we go from there, etc.

My anecdote about the TV show with the Child-Psychologists and the one-vote-per-family-member deserved much better than “your anecdotes don’t hold much water”, especially when none of the counter postings hold any water whatsoever! That example illustrates very well the sort of manure upon which this very silly child-psychology grows and gains root. It should have been a good subject for really interesting debate. But all that came back was empty silence ... or another remark castigating the messenger (me) as brutal, or another fatuous equivalent of "spanking is bad", or a navel-gazing discussion for what appropriately maudlin or gentle synonym there might be for "beat".

When I gave the example of the Child-Psychologist who actually worked in Family Services (a PhD, and friend and colleague of my daughter who works in cancer research) and her quite extraordinary inability to manage her own child having a tantrum, why did no-one question me on this? Does nothing interest any of you? Is all you can do is to sit there squawking away at me variations of “your anecdotes hold no water” or “spanking is bad”? Do you realize that that woman is trained up to the hilt with all that pseudo-scientific rubbish we have been bandying around here about how to deal with children, that she is employed in that capacity (and paid big money), and yet she was so helpless in dealing with her own child that she had to resort to asking my daughter to deal with it? Where in heaven’s name is your curiosity? I am hardly surprised that many of these comments are so remarkably ill-considered, lackluster and without content, or perhaps, more moderately, disinterested.

The point is that corporal punishment is effective with many children for some issues, and, to me, the question at hand is whether its [meager?] downsides are sufficient to throw it out as a child-rearing tool! You see, I think that the downsides with it are not particularly consequential, and are probably smaller than those inherent with the muddled-message consequences that are the "modern" substitute for punishment, or more accurately, non-punishment. The issue of removing corporal punishment from the child-rearing toolkit, even now, is still a very controversial one, and even in the PC-driven headwind that is the measure of our society, corporal punishment for children has strong proponents. Indeed, I see most of what is driving the anti-corporal punishment movement, if I may so characterize it, as the simple desire to avoid the painful and unpleasant part of the duties of parenting, and much activity is being directed at back-filling extremely whatever subjective arguments can be concocted to adopt and hold that doctrine.

That's how I see it, anyway. Whew!

Waking-Dreams

WeeWilly wrote: »

No-one of you has demonstrated anything! The feedback is simply mechanical and fatuous reiterations of beliefs, or they are comments attacking me.

If it makes you feel better, then I’ll agree with you. We haven’t engaged, demonstrated anything or deconstructed your observations and anecdotes to your satisfaction. I understand that it can come across as irrational to simply dismiss them out of hand but it is because of their very nature why they are being dismissed.

Your stories are no different to the other posters on this thread and the reasons have already been made clear. If you can’t accept this, then that is too bad. Trying to draw a huge generalisation from your own small samples of observation just doesn’t measure up to controlled research which removes or, at the very least, minimises bias and yields a much truer picture.

While it might be easy to play the victim card, attacking someone’s ideas is not the same as attacking the person. If you believed that a purple marble in your pocket kept tigers away, attacking this idea as being laughably irrational is not the same as attacking you, though many people do conflate the two (especially in religious circles). You’ll have to grow a thicker skin I’m afraid.

WeeWilly wrote: »

On the other hand, I have given you observation after observation, as evidence, each with a conclusion, and with a tacit invitation to engage with me about them. But nothing emerges!

Actually, if you re-read the thread from the start you will see many counter-arguments (and academic studies too) have been put forward by posters as to why corporal punishment should be questioned as being an effective method of parenting.

Predictably, these counter-arguments didn’t really sway the people who think that corporal punishment has its uses and, in many cases, questions put to them such as “how can you be sure it is corporal punishment and not other forms of parenting (i.e. enforcing boundaries, raising your voice, etc.) that does the trick?” went unanswered. This appears to be an example of the so-called ‘silence’ you speak of, when you referred to those who questioned corporal punishment.

Anyways, then you turned up and did pretty much the exact same thing as many of these posters, referencing your own positive examples of corporal punishment and listing negative examples of other parents who can’t control their kids because, seemingly, they don’t utilise corporal punishment.

To be fair, I don’t think there is quite the dichotomy of pro- and anti-corporal punishment, as several people here have stated that while they don’t agree with it, they would still consider it as a last resort.

Pawwed Rig

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26883902

Sure it did me no harm