Okay, I sometimes preface some of my posts with “I don’t mean to offend or condemn”… And this should be one of those times. But I’d say it half-heartedly. I am not trying to offend, but I am trying to explain why hitting a child is heartbreaking regardless of the reasons and regardless of whether the law says it’s okay.
And yeah, maybe this is slightly my personal propaganda towards why corporal punishment should be deemed illegal in every single corner, center, everywhere in the world.
While a minor – hell, all the way until you’re 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds, and 9,999 milliseconds away from your eighteenth birthday, you can’t legally vote in the States and several other countries, you can’t legally get married unless there are extenuating circumstances, you can’t legally consent to sex with individuals above eighteen in several states inside America and several out, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t do drugs, you can’t get an abortion without parental consent, you can’t do a lot… And yet, somehow, it’s okay for you to be hit? That too, by the people who are meant to care for you the most in the world. Meant to love you the most.
I get it – People make a claim that it’s not child abuse. They say it’s for disciplinary purposes. For children who don’t understand the difference between right and wrong when you try with words. For the disrespectful types. Except by tacking on a fancy label like “corporal punishment” and making it legal, society is basically giving people a chance to physically and emotionally abuse their children and get away with it.
There are so many ways this can go wrong. And here’s how.
- Some parents/legal-guardians (and in some parts of the world, other adults in a child’s life like teachers – and for the sake of easy writing, I’ll just say “parents” as an umbrella term to include any adult that is legally allowed to use corporal punishment in any part of the world) might hide under this legal version of abuse to genuinely abuse their children. They train them to nod along with every strike and pretend like they’re okay. So, when someone from social services or the next door neighbor starts poking around, they’ll never get the proof they need. Even years after they’re no longer legally allowed to be hit, some say that it didn’t scar them even if it really did. And I’m not saying that’s traumatically scarred every child, but it’s bound to have scarred some. Just because as with physical child abuse – or what the law deems physical child abuse – there aren’t black eyes and broken limbs doesn’t mean that the child has not be horribly hit.
- Trauma can be emotional. A child too young to know what’s happening might believe their parent means real harm. It could increase emotional distance between parent and child. Children may feel like they can’t trust their parent, like they’re failures, or fear for their lives every time they bring home a bad grade or do anything that goes against their parent’s personal code of morals and ethics.
- That’s another thing. In some sectors of society, in some cultures, things like bringing home a bad grade or not doing your chores or kissing a boy without your parent’s permission are considered “wrong”. “Disrespect” doesn’t stop at disrespect. It’s anything your parents don’t agree with. You could be hit because you didn’t follow the same religious beliefs. You could be hit because you didn’t wear your uniform to school. You could be hit because you didn’t finish your dinner.
- Some children, irrespective of turning eighteen still get hit. And because they’re so used from their childhood are too afraid to – in their own right – do something about it. Whether that be as far as calling the cops and filing assault and battery, domestic abuse, or whichever local crime the hitting of one legal adult by another comes under, or at least trying to convince their parent to stop hitting them the nice way with words.
- Some people who were hit as children, since they could never take it out on their parents – because that would be illegal – take it out on their children. Even if their parents hit them with the tag of “corporal punishment”, it’s possible that these people would take things a step too far and outright physically and emotionally abuse their own kids as a form of misguided revenge. And even if it didn’t go that far, it still shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
- In America – and I’m sure many other parts of the world – we’re taught to use our words and not our hands. We’re taught to disagree verbally, still in a respectful manner. We’re taught to talk out our feelings, even the negative ones, and come to an understanding with one another. Even if a child is being bullied, physically, they’re not allowed to fight back with fists, otherwise they get in trouble with the principal too. So, what are we teaching them when we say that their parents are allowed to hit them because they break a rule or talk back now and then?
Hypocrisy! It’s the one thing I hate about adults. And I’m saying this as an adult myself. I hear it in a lot of different places, everywhere from reality TV to real life, that parents know what’s best for their child. That adults know better than children.
But if we still live in a world that condones adults hitting children, I have to say that we know nothing. We don’t know compassion. We don’t know respect. And we definitely don’t know love.
I’m currently watching Fuller House (which if you haven’t, is an excellent watch and so is its prequel Full House). In S2Ep2: “Mom Interference”, DJ’s eldest son Jackson wants to play football. For her own reasons, DJ says no which leads to Jackson acting out. While working out this conflict, DJ tells her son: “You’re allowed to be mad at me. But you’re not allowed to be disrespectful.”
Why doesn’t this doctrine cover parents?
Everyone gets upset. Sometimes angry. Which is fine. Parents, adults are human beings too. They’re entitled to their emotions.
But are should they be entitled to physically act out against their children?
I don’t care if you’re angry, disappointed, feel you’ve been disrespected, or worry your child may turn into a thug if you don’t keep a close enough eye on them…
The very act of hitting a child, not believing that they’re capable of learning right from wrong (or whatever your completely subjective version of right or wrong may be – because yes, morality is subjective, and more on that another time) is disrespectful.
My first semester of college, in my Intro to Criminology class, I learned about some of the consequences to child abuse, such as:
– abusing another themselves
– PTSD
– early sexual deviance
– desensitization to other forms of violence
– involvement in other violent or otherwise negative activities as teens and adults.
And it is a very real possibility that children who go through “corporal punishment” can exhibit the same results.
Because if a child is young enough, they don’t know the difference.
I’m not saying every parent that hits their child – especially in places where it’s deemed legal – is the devil incarnate. Perhaps some of these people in their own messed up way genuinely love – or believe they love their children and are trying to turn them into model citizens. But isn’t it possible, that what begins as corporal punishment in their minds can turn into something much worse that wasn’t initially intended.
And again, as I mentioned before, there are those who hide behind the tag of “corporal punishment” and inflict abuse.
And maybe every child that goes through corporal punishment doesn’t experience such tremendous negative affects – just as not every abused child does in the long term. Not all become violent or get PTSD. But some do. And aren’t those some enough to want to change the mindset of those who think it’s okay to hit a child for whatever reason may come to mind?
I don’t know where this is coming from. Maybe… a lot of places…
But I have to say it: Corporal Punishment is Abuse. And it should be legally considered so.
According to Criminology – The Core by Larry J. Siegal, “Child Abuse” is a legal term that “describes any physical or emotional trauma inflicted on a child for which there is no reasonable explanation, such as an accident or ordinary disciplinary practice, can be found”. And I wholeheartedly believe that the words “ordinary disciplinary practice” should be thrown into a dustbin, then set on fire, to burn to ashes forever. Because the idea of a child being hit for any reason breaks my heart. It is not a “reasonable explanation”. And I think it’s a disgusting habit. And even if the few who don’t practice it themselves sit around and let it happen to their children by the hands of their co-parents, or their nieces and nephews, their neighbors or students, any child a part of their life, it doesn’t make them much better. It makes human beings nothing more than monsters.
I doubt my one emotionally hyped up rant is going to do anything to change the laws of entire countries across the globe. And, hell, maybe it will offend a few people. Maybe it is condemning some who deserve to be condemned. Who knows?
But Ella Wheeler Wilcox said: “To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.” (And of course, “men” at the time – in a gender-binary patriarchy – was synonymous with all “humans”.)
And I sure as hell will not be a coward.
Someone has to say it: It is not okay to hit a child.
👍
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