Hitting or spanking children for “discipline” or “to teach them” something (whatever that means) is never effective and never moral. And yes, I am absolute with this. And I don’t accept the absolute and self-defeating statement that “nothing is absolute”.
Plus, other forms of child abuse are just as unacceptable as physical violence: verbal abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect.
“Oh, but what if the kid runs in the road? I need to spank him to teach him to never do that!”
Sure, I understand that most parents think that spanking their children is for “the greater good”. I’ll assume that most parents don’t just seek an excuse to abuse just to satisfy their sadistic nature. You might think that it’s better for the child to feel some pain now than to be killed by a car. But that’s a false dichotomy, and an assumption. You are assuming that, if you don’t spank them, they’ll die.
Hear me out…
If you spank a child, the child isn’t learning that the road is dangerous; he is learning that YOU are dangerous. And this makes them disengaged from you, so they become more prone to peer pressure and bad influences from others as they grow up. And that’s truly dangerous. It also means that they will want to do what you forbid, if they know they can get away with it. This is because you teach them nothing about how dangerous the road is; only how dangerous you are.
“Oh but the child doesn’t understand reason! They need to understand through spanking!”
This is wrong on so many levels. If the child doesn’t understand reason, then they won’t understand why you are spanking them. If they do understand reason, then you can reason with them, and so, violence is unnecessary.
And if “being unreasonable” is an excuse to hit someone, would it be OK for me to hit you when I think you are being unreasonable? Is it OK for your children to hit you when you’re old with dementia, because you “don’t understand” and “you’re being unreasonable”?
Here’s how it works:
If a child is small enough to not understand that the road is dangerous, then why the fuck are you letting your child close to the road unattended? You hold the child’s hand, and you teach by example, showing how you mind the road, and repeatedly telling your child that the road is dangerous, and cars can hit you and make you hurt. You lock your doors, and you build fences, and you do your job as a parent to protect your children always, especially when they are small.
When your children are older, then they should understand why roads are dangerous, because they see and mimic you minding the roads, and explaining why roads are dangerous. If you show caution, then they will too. Children desperately want to mimic their parents, and to gain their parents’ approval, as long as the parent's aren’t assholes.
There is truly no excuse to hit children. Hitting children teaches them to fear you. It also teaches them that threats and violence get you what you want, and the generational cycle of violence goes on. Violence doesn’t teach them that something is bad or dangerous. It only teaches them that YOU are the only one who is bad and dangerous. And when they are not under your power, they will feel tempted to do the things you spanked them about, just out of spite. Abused children tend to go for extreme sports, and get a high out of danger.
There is no such thing as “tough love”. Tough love is an excuse to be violent.
So, the next time you say “it’s OK to spank children when they are being unreasonable”, I’ll say YOU are being unreasonable, and I should be justified to spank you, by your own logic.