queerbychoice | Massive Culture Shock

A couple of years ago, I read about a girl, a high school student who was never in trouble before, who got into a fight on the school bus with another girl. the principal gave her a choice, swatting or suspension. The girl was a very good student and didn't want colleges to see a suspension on her record. The man hit her only once, so hard that her entire buttocks was bruised. Doctors were concerned that her uterus may have been knocked out of place. I didn't even know such a thing was possible until I read the article.

This is a barbaric act that should not be tolerated in a civilized society.

Perhaps if parents would discipline their children, say, at home, teachers wouldn't have to whip ass.

While this is, of course, an extreme case (and somewhat doubtful), if it did indeed happen, the teacher needs jacked up for being that severe.

You know, I got my ass smacked as I was growing up, and all I can say is that I have impeccable manners. Compare that to children who are products of "no-spanking-no-in-the-corner-it-might-hurt-Tiffanae's-self-esteem" parents, and see what you have.

My parents spanked me extremely lightly, certainly never leaving any bruises, about four or five times when I was under the age of five - there was really no actual physical pain, just the sense of being humiliated. And then around the time I turned five my mother put her foot down and told my father that spanking was inappropriate, so I was never spanked again. I was disciplined in other ways - I was sent to my room and told that I had "been a bad girl," which humiliated me and injured my pride every bit as much as spanking ever did. I was not ever subjected to any other punishment - the only punishment was always "go to your room." I liked my room, but I abhorred the humiliation of being sent to it, and very rapidly learned by the age of 8 or so how to never ever get sent to it ever again.

I then grew up quite the most obsessively obedient ridiculously well-mannered child you could ask for. I also grew up unbruised, which is a good thing since my parents would certainly have lost their jobs with Children's Protective Services immediately if they'd been caught leaving bruises on their own kids.

It does not make any sense for parents to tell siblings to stop hitting each other if they themselves are also hitting. You don't teach nonviolence by being violent. You only teach "I'm bigger than you," which, while it may promote obedience very effectively, only promotes obedience for the sake of not getting caught rather than obedience for the sake of belief in the actual principles at stake.

Well, I also may be baised since I abhor children.

So, you know.

:)

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.

I'm not sure what's meant about the uterus. I know of three positions a uterus can be in: tilted forward, which is the case for the majority of women; tilted backward ("retroflexed"), which is naturally occurring in a minority of women and does not generally cause a problem; or outside the body, in the case of some women who've been pregnant so many times that the ligaments holding their uterus up got worn out and one day their vagina just turned inside out and . . . fell out, obeying the force of gravity, and the little walnut-sized uterus ends up inside the inside-out vagina. They then stuff it back in with their fingers, but if the ligaments are worn out then it's probably going to continue falling out on occasion. But if that happened the doctors would know it had happened because they could see it sticking out.

Anyway - as for beating up students being barbaric: yes, definitely.

I would not oppose a parent's right to spank a child "lightly", as you describe. (I don't intend to do it myself, but I'm not a parent yet, either.) And I think teachers should be able to discipline problematic students. But this is definitely beyond the pale. What really irritates me about this article is that the some of the very same conservatives who harp about "parents' rights to teach their values" when it comes to, say, multiculturalism or sex ed, have denied Alabama parents' rights to make decisions about their children in school. That disturbs me the most. You shouldn't have to worry that the bully beating your child is her teacher, for fuck's sake!

And what does this kind of treatment teach kids? That violence solves problems? Certainly makes the teachers' admonitions against hitting less believable...

On a lighter note, there was once a kid in my class who was called "Spanky". He acquired that nickname because, during our freshman year of high school, he got paddled fairly often. A friend and I asked why he didn't stop with the paddling offences, and he replied that being paddled, especially by a female dean, turned him on. I kept the secret until my friend spread it around the school. "Spanky" didn't mind admitting it--and he never got spanked again! (Actually, none of us did after my sophomore year--I think the school board changed the rules so high schoolers didn't get paddled.)

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.

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.

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!

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.

Not being girl-shaped, I don't really know that much about the internal workings of the female body. I remember I posted it on a message board when it happened, and some woman said that the uterus can be knocked out of place by a very hard blow, which this was. I wish I still had the article. It was truly horrendous. I recall that the doctors were amazed at the damage. Of course, being hit with a plank of wood and cause a lot of damage.

Words fail.

In my high school, one of the coaches taught remedial biology. Not only did he verbally humiliate the girls in the class, he picked one of the girls and started calling her "Dog." The athletes in the room quickly picked up on it as a way to get his approval. When she started crying in class, he took her in the hallway and slapped her.

She still wouldn't tell the administration, and she wouldn't back up the people who tried to tell on him for her.

This was a school that didn't allow teachers to use physical punishment of any type. Teachers have real power over students even when they aren't "allowed" to harm them physically.

Of course there are students who act up. There are adults who act up. Would you give your boss the right to spank you if misbehave at work? Why would anyone think it's appropriate to hit children if it isn't appropriate to hit adults?

I never witnessed any student getting hit when I was going to St. John's, although everyone heard rumors about it happening. In second grade, though, I did have a teacher who used to throw things at students, and once flipped over a kid's desk in the middle of class.

I'm fairly certain that corporal punishment is illegal in public schools in the sate of New York, and while I'm sure it applies to parochial schools, I don't know how they enforce it, or what the red tape around it evolves.

(An my parents paid for this privilege. Of course, my parents were not exactly the best example to follow.)

I'm a product of the hyper-liberal DC area. The kind of shit that happens in Alabama could seriously ruin a teacher's career. In fact, much less than that actually has.

A friend of my mother's is (was) a physics teacher. His class was experimenting with some sort of device that makes loud noises (I don't know what they were- I got this from my mom, who knows nothing about physics), loud enough to shatter an eardrum at close range. He pointed out to the students that they should keep those devices at least two feet from their heads, as a safety precaution. And what does one of those kids do?

He sneaks up behind the poor teacher, aims that device right in the teacher's ear, and presses whatever button makes the loud noise. The teacher is startled, and whacks the kid a couple times with his open hand (too lightly to cause any injury). Later the teacher had to get medical attention for his ear.

The teacher got fired for hitting a student, and the student got little to no discipline for actually injuring the teacher. Mind you, this student is known as a holy terror, and does this kind of shit ALL THE TIME.

Now I agree that premeditatedly hitting a student is pretty reprehensible. But if someone surprised and physically attacked you, wouldn't you hit them a few times? Just out of reflex?

I think the student should be locked up in juvenile hall for a few months on grounds of violent assault.

I'm not so sure about the teacher though. I can see not firing him, but I'd still reprimand him.

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

Definitely, that kid needs to be stopped before he permanently injures someone. I can totally see him turning into a repeat murderer, he's so spoiled and has so little regard for the people around him.

The teacher... well here's my take on it. If someone attacks you physically, and you give them less than what you got, and stopped as soon as you came to your senses, you should be praised. I'm not a terribly violent person, and I'd have pounded that kid into a pulp.

When I was growing up my mother had a policy of saying "nobody whacks my kid but me." She was quite committed to that policy. But once I actually attacked someone, she agreed that for the most part I deserved what I got as far as physical retaliation went (as long as the damages on both sides were about equal).

when i went to elementary school the teachers were allowed to paddle the kids unless the parents sent a note requesting otherwise. my parents were always quite clear that no one was to touch us. my friend nathan's parents assumed he would never be hit because there wouldn't be any REASON to punish him with any severity. then he was paddled as a punishment for some minor offense and the Websters started writing the notes too.

what i find disturbing is that there are now a lot of parents in that area who wish teachers would start smacking again, to help keep their kids in line.

i was spanked maybe twice. once that we all remember. it was an act of desperation and frustration on the part of my parents, a weakness, a failure. that's how they thought of it then and it's how they think of it now.

wheenever possible, discipline should not be a matter of fear. if the only reason children do what is "right" is that they are afraid of people larger than themselves, what happens when THEY are the large ones? that's how bullies are raised; it's how the old and frail are abused, etc.

go see Bowling for Columbine. i know you don't usually go to tghe movies, but you do like Michael Moore and the film has a lot to say about the connection between a people motivated by fear and a culture of violence.

My mother was spanked, southern-style, when she was young and not-so-young. She's yet to forgive her parents entirely for it, I think. So, when she and my dad started having kids, they swore "no corporeal punishment, EVER." For me it worked just fine - no spankings not even a "*swat* Don't run into the street!" sort of thing. And I came out disgustingly obedient. My sister, however... they were able to stick to their guns despite horrendous, HORRENDOUS temper tantrums until she was about eight. Then the "running away down an icy, muddy hill behind the school and shrieking at the top of her lungs and thrashing as I was trying to drag her back up" thing happened. Mom, always a believer in punishments that make sense, took her home and stuck her in a cold (not icy) shower on the premise that she'd gotten dirty. My sister screamed some more, carried on, thrashed around, tried to hit my mom, and the like. Mom told her that if she didn't stop that, she'd get a spanking. She didn't stop. Mom gave her about five or six good smacks on the butt. My sister was startled more than anything else, though she did start crying, but she stopped most of what she was doing and acted like a relatively sane human being for a while.

Mom, of course, needed a hug afterward.

As for schools... A couple of teachers in my (private) high school had a "board of education" or the like. One of them, a chemistry teacher, would call students up and give them a light smack with it if they gave a really, really dumb answer to something, usually something we had just been discussing heavily. The other one would occasionally come up and whack students who were misbehaving with it, but it was more of a big joke than anything else.

Corporal punishment is illegal in Wisconsin, but I've seen teachers beat the hell out of students who threatened their life.

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.

i remember a kid being taken out into the hall and beaten almost everyday because the teacher had talked to the parents and they wanted/allowed that...

(i was in 4th grade)

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.

Massive Culture Shock

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