queerbychoice | Massive Culture Shock

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Massive Culture Shock

Teachers in nearly half the United States can legally beat students black and blue. Including when parents specifically forbid it. And the teachers are immune to being sued for it, even when parents who caused similar bruises would lose custody immediately.

So, um, how many people reading this were beaten by teachers? Or saw other students beaten by teachers?

I grew up as the child of two parents who were both employed in the business of taking kids away from parents who beat them up. Nobody mentioned to me that there are no similar people out there in the business of taking kids away from teachers who beat them up.

Good goddess. No wonder people resort to home schooling.

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Oh god!@LJ posting before I was through.

Anyway. Don't get me wrong, I don't think parents (or teachers for that matter) should beat the hell out of children. But Jesus Christ, Gayle, have seen the ways fucking kids act now? I don't have enough fingers to count the many times I've seen children literally go into hysterics over something completely stupid. As in, not getting a treat, toy, etc. I threw a fit like that once, once, and I was rewarded with a smack and my mother telling me that if I wanted something, I was to ask nicely. If we had the money, I could have it. If not, then no was no and that was the end of it. I learned. Quickly.

My girlfriend's nephew is a prime example. He is the brattiest, most obnoxious child you would care to see. Gets whatever he wants, does whatever he wants, and if he doesn't, by God, you better be prepared for a full-on attack of hysteria and screaming. He was over to our house a few months ago, and I caught him pulling my dog's tail and fur and laughing when she whined. I promptly proceeded to smack the living shit out of him, sit his ass down on the sofa and let him know in no uncertain terms that his shit didn't fly in my fucking house. You better believe he hasn't done it since then.

It's a vulgar manner of discipline, I agree. Then again, it's like Pavlov's dog. Ring bell, salivate. Crude? Yes. Effective? Again, yes. Then again, I'm extremely unsympathetic to whiners and victims, as I'm sure you've noticed. I'm tired of hearing people bitch and whine about being abused (or whatever). Realistically, how many people have had ill effects from being spanked or whatnot growing up? I would suspect very few. For the few who do constantly lament their alleged abusive parents, I have on bit of advice. Build a bridge. Then please proceed to get over it.

By the way, it's so nice to talk to someone about this who has a good grasp of the English language. I was caught in a debate about this a few months back in an LJ community, and the most intelligent response I could get was "omg liek u don't kno how it is 2 be beat up by ur parents and liek omg u suck and i'm glad u don't have kids b/c u probly would b a horrribble mothur and liek omg."

You're refreshing.

There are huge differences between (a) rewarding a child for throwing a tantrum, (b) hitting the child for throwing a tantrum, and (c) telling the child that the tantrum is unacceptable and taking away privileges as a nonviolent punishment.

I do not believe in hypocrisy. To try to raise a nonviolent adult by behaving violently does not make any sense. To try to raise a non-tantrum-throwing adult by rewarding tantrums also does not make any sense, but those are NOT the only two options available.

Children are human beings growing up with no money in a world where everyone is bigger than them and has virtually absolute power over them. It isn't a life you'd want to live - thrown into the household of two random adults upon whom you are absolutely dependent for your food and shelter and from whom you have no possible way to escape. I had pretty decent parents myself but you couldn't possibly pay me to actually cohabit with them again.

To generalize about them with sentences such as "I abhor children" while making no mention of the fact that you would certainly find the powerlessness of their life circumstances excruciating is like saying "I abhor homeless people" because homeless people's propensity to stink and commit petty theft or other crimes gets on your nerves, but not even bothering to contemplate how the social system has treated them.

To generalize about them with sentences such as "I abhor children" while making no mention of the fact that you would certainly find the powerlessness of their life circumstances excruciating is like saying "I abhor homeless people" because homeless people's propensity to stink and commit petty theft or other crimes gets on your nerves, but not even bothering to contemplate how the social system has treated them.

See quote in post below. First, I do not like children. It's matter of taste, such as you saying "I do not like dogs." That's a moot point. I personally believe people who prey on children [and this does not include parents who spank, for fuck's sake] should have their sac's sliced off. Let's not forget, Gayle, that childhood is something we've all experienced. It's not like saying "I don't like homeless people" if I, in fact, have never been homeless. Which I have. Which is besides the point. ANYway, I was once a child, minor, what have you. I was not, by any means, powerless. There is so much legislature and bemoaning and figurative teeth-gnashing over "the children" that I couldn't even being to list them. I'm no expert on policy, by any means, but I would not be suprised to find hundreds of statute books filled with laws to protect the "children". Laws, that more often than not, inconveinence and irritate me.

Yes, abuse is horrible. Again, that is not debated. The hysteria that enters the picture whenever the child card is pulled out is.

*Apologies if this is slightly incoherent. I'm on my third B&B here!

I don't think you suck, but I do think you aren't quite knowledgeable about the affects of abuse. That's okay--I'm glad you're not, as a matter of fact. But you've pushed one of my buttons.

Spanking isn't abusive in itself--sometimes kids understand a swat on the butt better than anything else!--but it can *become* abusive. I say this as someone who was routinely spanked with a thick leather belt or ping-pong paddle, over 50 times per session, with my mom literally on top of me to keep me from moving. Once I passed out.

You can't necessarily "get over" abuse. The lessons you learn from physical and mental abuse can stay with you for a lifetime--the voice in my head that says "You're ugly, you're stupid, you're wrong, you can't do that, you fat fucking lazy bitch" sounds just like my mother's, and it's so hard to shut her up sometimes. (And idiot that I am, I maintain contact with her!) You can learn new lessons and you can work to break the cycle, but it is *hard* work. Do you know what a palimpsest is? In medieval times, parchment was hard to come by, and so to save money, scribes would scrape the ink off of useless documents and write over the cleaned pages. But traces of the old document were usually readable under the new, creating a palimpsest. The human mind is like that. Scrape, scrape, scrape, write, write, write, but the violence and fear are still legible....which is why how we as adults treat our children is so damned important....

My boyfriend, girlfriend and I worry that we'll end up "disciplining" like our parents did, because we don't really know any different approaches. We don't want our children to turn out sneaky like us girls, or utterly cowed and fearful like I was around my mom, or openly engage in fistfights with us like the boy ended up doing with his father. (I intend to take parenting classes so I can learn non-violent alternatives. Also, some of our friends seem to do a good job of it.)

I agree with you that there are some awful-acting kids out there and so-called parents who just let the little darlin's run wild. That's another extreme. Isn't it possible to find the center, both in schools and at home?

I don't think you suck, but I do think you aren't quite knowledgeable about the affects of abuse.

Incorrect. (Not that I'm pissy that you are or anything.) Both of my parents were alcoholics and my mother was a vein-hopping junkie. CPS were dinner guests at least once a week. My father once punched me in the kidneys hard enough to leave me pissing cranberry juice for a week. [Beat my sob story, goddamit! ;)] That was, in fact, abusive. Absolutely. Getting smacked for being snotty, was not.

I do not pretend to know what you personally have gone through, nor do I pretend to know how you deal with it. From my perspective, "getting over it" was, in fact, quite easy. It was a matter of me saying to myself "Things suck. Grow up, move on." Again, this is from my personal perspective.

Being abused sucks the root. That's not a question up for debate. As that big old lesbo Ellie Roosevelt said, however, "One cannot be victimized unless one chooses to be a victim."

[Don't miscontrue the quote. All I'm saying is this, bad things happen to those who can't prevent them, yes. How one deals with it and goes one with life is a choice the individual makes.]

My boyfriend, girlfriend and I

Polymorous? Er, polygamist? Hrm. What does one call that?

I'm sorry about what you went through and sorry I made assumptions. Maybe it's just that we're two different people with two different minds, you know? Not everyone's gonna react to a situation the same way.

Yeah, I'm poly. (Gayle knows that well.) Polyamorous is one word for it, but I prefer duogamous or Katarina and Randle's girlfriend.

Maybe it's just that we're two different people with two different minds, you know? Not everyone's gonna react to a situation the same way.

Bravo. :)

Polyamorous! Huh. I've been trying to figure out which term was correct forever.

Hitting a child for behaving badly is a lazy and crude form of discipline. I know parents who never hit their kids, but who use myriad other forms of discipline, like the ones Gayle mentioned. And these kids are well-mannered and they never pull dogs' tails. It teaches kids that acting quickly and violently is the way to rectify something they're not happy with. As soon as they go to school they're told that hitting other children is not acceptable, and it continues to be unaccaptable to hit another adult (even if they are behaving in a childish manner and deserve to be taught that their behaviour is wrong). Why should parents have the right to hit their children? It's barbaric.

-ink

Quite frankly, I know plenty of adults that need slapped. I don't find it unacceptable to smack the shit out of someone who's being a dick.

But then, that's me.

Yeah, didn't you know? Violence solves everything. And if someone is being a dick of course it's our right to be the one appointed to demonstrate that fact by knocking them into line. And hey, why shouldn't this work on a global scale? If a small country is being a dick we'll just bomb the shit out of it, and it'll behave.

-ink

The analogy is nonsensical. Bombing a country, for argument's sake let's use Iraq, inflicts harm on those who are guilty of nothing. Placing a well-trained sniper on, say, Hussein himself is a totally different story.

Are you in favor of the death penalty then?

Yes and no. I am for the dealth penalty in theory, but the criminal justice system is so corrupt at this point that I know it's not applied correctly.

Same reason I lean against teachers having the right to use corporal punishment. The theory is good, IMHO, but what's to keep a teacher from picking on the poor, the stupid, the minorities?

Eh.

I used to share that opinion on the death penalty, but I don't anymore. I am opposed to censorship, and when you execute people that censors them. If the government is capable of locking them up alive where they can't harm anyone else - and the U.S. government's maximum-security prisons have almost never been escaped from - then I believe that is what should occur, in order not to censor them.

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