This Isn't About Spanking
Recently the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a strengthened policy statement that called for a ban on spanking, saying it harms children. This position is backed by rigorous and longitudinal research and I would like to say, common sense and our natural human compassion.
Maybe we should stop using euphemisms. Stop using cute words like spank, or dry words like corporal punishment to describe what is really happening. Adults who are charged with the care of children are using their larger bodies, voices, presence to violently coerce their children into compliance, submission, subordination.
I am well aware of the different paths we all take that may lead us hurting our children. There is no perfect parent or perfect way of parenting any particular child. One of the most humbling and familiar aspects of being a parent is navigating that excruciating territory of recovery after making a mistake. Our children are being raised by flawed people in a flawed system. Such heartbreaks are inevitable.
It's interesting how triggering any statement from an institution like AAP can be. I feel those drops in the pit of my stomach every time I read about the perils of screen time or picky eating or gifted & talented programs. Parenting is personal. We hate being judged for our lives.
But it's equally interesting the extent to which some people will go to defend something like using violence to elicit a specific behavioral response from still-developing humans. It ranges from it's not that bad to I turned okay to that kid is hard to manage to this is the only way. Those people will not name it violence. They will call it discipline. Tough love. None of our business.
The thing about this is that it centers the emotions, motives, sensibilities of adults, parents as a class. We've created a whole culture where crying children in pain are seen as both inevitable and intolerable. Where it's entirely normal to withdraw from your distressed child under certain circumstances, having mostly to do with adult needs. Where we prize independence and autonomy, then wonder where all our connections to each other went. Not to mention how we erase and devalue the labor of people who care for children, and how we've structured dependence to mean weakness and justify our limitless power over children.
I am intimately aware of the price children pay for our parents' violence. But of course, this kind of knowledge is discounted by those who think we shouldn't judge. As if being parented isn't personal. As if our resilience is proof of harmlessness.
Or perhaps, they think we lack compassion for the difficulties of raising a particular child. But what kind of compassion extends to one group while excluding another? What kind of compassion requires a narrowing of imagination, a settling for good but struggling people to be less than their wholly attentive, attuned, resourceful self? A compassion of collapsing circles? Why would I want such a threadbare and ineffective world for my children?
I don't think that people who resort hitting their children are monsters. I think they need help and support. They are human, people at the end of their rope, who don't have any other rope, who were never given any other rope. In my mind, the idea of fault is entirely absent in these situations. Tragically enough, the short-term effects (the rapid compliance) of such punishments don't last and eventually don't even work in the long run. In these most intimate, most vulnerable moments, I see where we've lost touch and filled that vacuum with fear. If people feel shame about hitting their children, it is not from my, or anyone else's, disapproval. I think it's from the pain of that absence of connection, that rupture of trust. A betrayal of both their better selves and their children.
I am not a better person for believing that children should not be hit by their parents under any circumstances. Such evaluations are meaningless. I just still carry within my body my smaller body that was harmed by people who loved me. I am letting go of the anger and the judgement that would shrink me back into that scared, shocked little girl. I am opening up to hold space for a different way of dealing with the real and sometimes overwhelming challenges of raising rarely-obedient small children. I have faith in you, in me. There is no need to coddle us with low expectations.
Maybe we should stop using euphemisms. Stop using cute words like spank, or dry words like corporal punishment to describe what is really happening. Adults who are charged with the care of children are using their larger bodies, voices, presence to violently coerce their children into compliance, submission, subordination.
I am well aware of the different paths we all take that may lead us hurting our children. There is no perfect parent or perfect way of parenting any particular child. One of the most humbling and familiar aspects of being a parent is navigating that excruciating territory of recovery after making a mistake. Our children are being raised by flawed people in a flawed system. Such heartbreaks are inevitable.
It's interesting how triggering any statement from an institution like AAP can be. I feel those drops in the pit of my stomach every time I read about the perils of screen time or picky eating or gifted & talented programs. Parenting is personal. We hate being judged for our lives.
But it's equally interesting the extent to which some people will go to defend something like using violence to elicit a specific behavioral response from still-developing humans. It ranges from it's not that bad to I turned okay to that kid is hard to manage to this is the only way. Those people will not name it violence. They will call it discipline. Tough love. None of our business.
The thing about this is that it centers the emotions, motives, sensibilities of adults, parents as a class. We've created a whole culture where crying children in pain are seen as both inevitable and intolerable. Where it's entirely normal to withdraw from your distressed child under certain circumstances, having mostly to do with adult needs. Where we prize independence and autonomy, then wonder where all our connections to each other went. Not to mention how we erase and devalue the labor of people who care for children, and how we've structured dependence to mean weakness and justify our limitless power over children.
I am intimately aware of the price children pay for our parents' violence. But of course, this kind of knowledge is discounted by those who think we shouldn't judge. As if being parented isn't personal. As if our resilience is proof of harmlessness.
Or perhaps, they think we lack compassion for the difficulties of raising a particular child. But what kind of compassion extends to one group while excluding another? What kind of compassion requires a narrowing of imagination, a settling for good but struggling people to be less than their wholly attentive, attuned, resourceful self? A compassion of collapsing circles? Why would I want such a threadbare and ineffective world for my children?
I don't think that people who resort hitting their children are monsters. I think they need help and support. They are human, people at the end of their rope, who don't have any other rope, who were never given any other rope. In my mind, the idea of fault is entirely absent in these situations. Tragically enough, the short-term effects (the rapid compliance) of such punishments don't last and eventually don't even work in the long run. In these most intimate, most vulnerable moments, I see where we've lost touch and filled that vacuum with fear. If people feel shame about hitting their children, it is not from my, or anyone else's, disapproval. I think it's from the pain of that absence of connection, that rupture of trust. A betrayal of both their better selves and their children.
I am not a better person for believing that children should not be hit by their parents under any circumstances. Such evaluations are meaningless. I just still carry within my body my smaller body that was harmed by people who loved me. I am letting go of the anger and the judgement that would shrink me back into that scared, shocked little girl. I am opening up to hold space for a different way of dealing with the real and sometimes overwhelming challenges of raising rarely-obedient small children. I have faith in you, in me. There is no need to coddle us with low expectations.
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