Self-righteousness: it's not just for the religious:
The Children's Commissioner for England is preparing a dossier for the United Nations to back his case that parents who smack their children are abusing their human rights.Prof Sir Al Aynsley-Green says parents must be banned outright from smacking. His report, that existing laws fail to protect children from harm, will be submitted to UN officials next autumn. He is supported by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish "child tsars".
Sir Al said: "Children and young people in England should have the same right to protection under the law on common assault as that afforded to adults."
The dossier comes after a poll found most parents believed smacking was an acceptable way to discipline children.
...
Dr Miriam Stoppard said parents who did smack should "never have had children in the first place". The key, she said, to good behaviour was knowing how to "achieve co-operation" and that involved a lot of talking.
Ms. Stoppard's a little too big for her britches.
My most memorable smacking? Dropping the F-bomb on my mother on a ride home from the mall when I was 9 prompted her to conduct a swift surgical strike to my mouth. Thus was I nudged back onto the path of wisdom and lingual control.
(Via FR.)
Posted by floridacracker at November 28, 2006 01:01 AMWe should call this:
Florida Cracker and the Big Ol' Can O' Worms
I have TWO most memorable smacks
1) When I said G D (still quiet) on a freezing morning trying to crank a tractor, my Grandfather (no less) was not thrilled... he loosened my toungue
up enough to speak regular...
2) When I told my daughter not to touch something
dangerous , and she reached for it with her back to me, and turned her head around and grinned as she touched it anyway... she knew...she knew.
no I did not bash her.. I popped her little bottom and freaked her out...AND I did it on the advise of my abusive father.
So now, instead of this being a 'self-esteem' issue, it's morphed itslef into 'human rights'?
Posted by: csason at November 28, 2006 06:57 AMis that you ??? Ms. Stoppard ?? my my
Posted by: csason at November 28, 2006 06:59 AMI got a lightning backhand that left my mouth numb for hours. What'd you get?
Yeah, they're not talking about a beating, or his little brother, a whuppin'; they're flipping out over a simple smack.
Posted by: Donnah at November 28, 2006 06:19 PMhe almost knocked me out Donnah... You see, he really believed God had relieved him of the burden of alcohol usage. I believed him too.
So, how was he supposed to let a little smart-aleck get away with cursing the Big Guy ?
Moreover, these people are stupid not because they have such insane ideas, but because the logic doesn't work. I have a bunch of kids, and was one of a bunch. If nobody teaches the principle of benevolent authority to them, where will they learn, in prison ?
Line up, boys and girls...it's time to pick a new War Daddy...
Oh just like the random Belgradian hacker that blows the security arguement about networks, sure some folks have raised responsible citizens having never diciplined them as children..but I wouldn't let them in my yard.
Most of these people have this infintile idea about self esteem..they have conjured up the notion that one is born with massive amounts of it, and that stessing the child out with threats of punishment (of various sorts..not all of mine were beatings, although that was the rule) will diminish said SELF ESTEEM.. WRONGO!!
I got more self esteem from completing basic training than anything, and it was there that I learned a whole lot about feeling ridiculed and punished. You just haven't lived till your prone
ass is on the parade ground in the sun screaming "I'm a Dead Cockroach" for at least a hour or two..
I have interviewed a few of these people. They are all pissed at Mama or Daddy. Everyone of them..I say get over it, wuss. Grow up and discipline your kids before it's too late and somebody else HAS to do it.
Posted by: csason at November 28, 2006 06:55 PMgeez, if this were the law back in the day both my parents would still be serving sentences in state prison for attacks with deadly weapons...e.g. wooden spoons and leather belts
Posted by: ric ottaiano at November 29, 2006 01:09 PMI was accidentaly struck with my fathers belt buckle, when he lashed out at me when I walked in on he and my mother preparing to have sex. The reason it was accidental, is because my mother was already topless, and he was removing his belt at the time.
See, now, stuff like THAT is seered in your mind. Sen. Kerry needs to learn the difference.
And I would take 30 or 50 thousand more lashings from a belt, if it could delete that memory from my mind.
thanks for opening the wound Donnah.
Posted by: Wickedpinto at November 30, 2006 04:41 AMAlso, I think I was about 8 years old, in 4th grade, and I learned about electro-magnetism, I thought it was AWESOME! because the first "experiment" is making a DC electromagnet to demonstrate how magnetism is related to electricity.
so I went hope, I took a nail, and a 9V battery and I did it again, then I dismantled one of my fisher price tape recorders (I didn't use it anymore except for karaeoke like play) and I removed/cut out the magnet from the speaker, and then I wrapped it just like I did the nail and it worked BETTER!
Then, I thought to myself, cuz I had this GREAT! idea, "what if I plug the nail magnet into the wall outlet?"
well, I went into the kitchen while mom and dad were talkign bills, I climbed onto the counter, and I leaned over the toaster, I remember distinctly, I unplugged the toster, because you don't want metal near the toaster, and then I grabed the two exposed leads of my brilliant invention, and I shoved them into the wall outlet.
I got a small shock, but it scared the HELL! out of me, and I fell the height of the counter (3'4"?) and I landed on the ground, the lights went out. After my father reset the breaker?
"Did you learn anything from that?"
"......."
"I hope so, cuz I don't wanna see you do anything that stupid again"
about 11 years later, I was screwing around, bouncing around the house (the actual story is VERY GAYish) and I cracked my 17 year old noggin on a short arch we had in our house, and I dropped like a rock about 3 maybe 2 feet from my fathers feet while he was reading the newspaper.
He didn't flinch. I was laying on the ground, not making a sound but clearly in pain and as soon as I got the pain under control, I started to get up and my old man said. (I love this one, cuz I totaly had it coming) "for a smart kid, that had to be the dumbest thing I ever seen you do kid."
I got up and went to bed.
None of those situations of serious pain, and some sort of danger were abuse, but my father, while never striking me, had no problem tolerating my being in pain, cuz I just screwed up that bad, once he knew I was safe.
If they are safe? It's not abuse, it's education.
Posted by: Wickedpinto at November 30, 2006 04:54 AMGodamighty, Pinto, that first story needed to stay locked deep within your subconscious. (Wouldn't it be nice to have a pensieve?) All of them had me laughing my ass off. Your dad's a cool customer.
My dad sat and watched through the window as the silly neighbor messed with his fusebox with a screwdriver. Dad knew what was coming, and when the inevitable happened, he shuffled over and knocked on the door to calmly inform the guy's wife her husband was on the ground out back, knocked out by electricity. I asked him why he hadn't called to the guy to be careful, but the question just puzzled him, so there must be a male dynamic in there somewhere.
On the hand (literally), when I cut my thumb off as a kid, it was non-stop cursing all the way to the hospital. An unbroken blue trail of profanity from our kitchen all the way to the emergency room. AAA could have used it as a triptych.
Posted by: Donnah at November 30, 2006 08:50 AMjust to be fair...
The first teacher that struck me, was also my first
African American teacher, in the third grade..Mrs. Pursley.
She called me to the front of the class because during my jaunt to the restroom she so graciously allowed me, I snickered through the window to a classmate. I didn't do anything else, just snickered.
She extracted a gold-metal 2" wide 12" ruler from her desk, a present from her husband, the pastor.
I was instructed to open my hand, and she introduced me to a whole new world of corporal punishment.
That was at Beverly Shores Elementary school in Leesburg, Florida...1965.
My father visited her the next day. She was instructed to send me to the office next time, so the Principal could do the honors, although I never gave him the chance.
I think she just wanted to whack my white hand.
Maybe I should sue. It wasn't the first time I was beaten by an older African American woman as a child...we had a lady who came over three or four days a week to help out.
One day she caught my four year old butt down in the basement with a hammer, a nail, and a shotgun shell. I wanted to see if I could make one of those little dents in the place where my Dad's all had them..(on the spent cartridges)
She made me holler some nonsense about never something or other before she would stop. I remember, because I didn't quite get the last part right, and she started in again....
When my Dad got home, he finished the job.
He probably gave her a tip that week. Thank God.
my electronics teacher in High School threw a combination lock at me once..lol
Our football coach had a softball bat sawn in half for punishment...
Posted by: csason at December 1, 2006 12:32 PMMy first black teacher was in fourth grade and she was really something. She got me into the gifted program, assigned me time every time to write a poem, had me recite Robert Frost for the school, and even though I hadn't seen her for about a decade, sent me $60 dollars when I graduated high school.
She was a force in Ft. Myers and had organized and for many years led the Easter parade in the black part of town.
They must have integrated earlier in your county than they did in mine.
I only got paddled one time in school, in high school, though I'd long since deserved it.
Posted by: Donnah at December 1, 2006 01:57 PMwonder what would happen if Mrs. Pursley whacked a kid today...?
My favorite African American teacher was black also.
He was my shop teacher, and a crappy one at that.
What his calling card was though, is what led him down the halls of fame and glory.
He had a daughter that was the library assistant. To get to be the library assistant in the 7th grade at Bayshore Middle School, you had to be smart, way ahead of your class, and have the utmost in manners, etc...spotless behavior record, you know.
What got me was she was one of the prettiest girls
I have ever seen in my life. He knew it. Everybody knew it. She was just awesome.
Coming from where I come from..the whole psychosocial/southern culture/by God/get my drift kind of thing... that was something.
My Dad was the first guy to conjur up the idea of a 'superstore' for Scotty's..and this shop teacher knew him. One day my Dad told my Mom about this
teacher and the daughter he brought in to visit the store. Dad was dumbstruck too.
