Preaching Virtue of Spanking, Even as Deaths Fuel Debate

[silver_sandals]

PLEASANTVILLE, Tenn. - After services at the Church at Cane Creek on a recent Sunday, a few dozen families held a potluck picnic and giggling children played pin the tail on the donkey.

The white-bearded preacher, Michael Pearl, who delivered his sermon in stained work pants, and his wife, Debi, mixed warmly with the families drawn to their

Comments

OP

[lickety_split]

Can you fix the formatting of your text, please?

Re: OP

[silver_sandals]

I'll try tomorrow, but it might take a while, because I'll have to go through every line of text. I posted it because I couldn't see any easy way to fix it. Idk if maybe there are shortcuts for this stuff.

Re: OP

[sephirajo]

Allow me to present you with a website that will save you a ton of time tomorrow: http://www.desklampllc.com/op.onza.net/mailwash/mailwash.html

Re: OP

[silver_sandals]

Oh my goodness, you are brilliant, thank you so much.

[erunamiryene]

provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months
to discourage misbehavior

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHIT RIGHT HERE. A FUCKING SIX MONTH OLD DOES NOT MISBEHAVE ON FUCKING PURPOSE AND WHAT FUCKING KIND OF INHUMAN MONSTER USES A SWITCH ON A FUCKING INFANT.

Holy fucking shit, this article has me so fucking pissed that my stomach hurts.

Fuck you, you unholy sadists. Just ... fuck you.

[ahzuri]

My exact feelings.

[romp]

It's a natural extension of the idea that children do what they do simply to torment adults. I was just watching Alice in Wonderland about the baby sneezing intentionally to "tease" and we wondered in that was Carroll's dig at that idea.

It used to be a standard belief--and it's not hard to find now--that child are "manipulating" adults when they cry. Not that they're hungry or tired or frustrated or frightened but that they're trying to get away with something and must be broken.

[sasha_davidovna]

It used to be a standard belief--and it's not hard to find now--that child are "manipulating" adults when they cry.

Well, in fairness, older children frequently do. It's pretty easy to tell the difference, though, even if it starts out real and then switches to fake when they decide to milk the sympathy for all its worth. ;) Babies are not capable of that level of calculation, though.

[schexyschteve]

That's not spanking. That's abuse.

[mastadge]

they explicitly counsel against acting in anger or causing a bruise.

Yes. Let's develop implements that allow us to maximize pain without leaving any external marks. And be sure when you beat your children it's not a crime of passion but a calm and calculated affair.

[mastadge]

More seriously, I find that most of the moral and practical arguments for punishing children range from the specious to the spurious. Once the punishment becomes corporal it shoots straight to intolerable.

[ladyvoldything]

In some fairness, most child care experts DO say that acting in anger is the absolute worst way to discipline a child. So there's some glimmer of what used to be a good idea in this shit pile...

[mastadge]

Yes, if you're going to hit a child I suppose it's better not to do it in anger. But that proceeds from the assumption that it's OK to hit a child in the first place.

And yes, even if you're not hitting a child it's probably better to let/make yourself cool down before doling out any sort of punishment.

But (and I can speak only as an educator and not as a parent) I've never found much use for punishment in the first place. Specific penalties, sure, in cases when my students have been old enough to understand them. But I've always been way over on the diplomatic/democratic side of the leadership spectrum rather than the authoritarian, and have always received much better results doing things my way than when I've been forced per a specific institution's policy to be a strict authoritarian hardass.

[beoweasel]

The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior.

As a child, my grandmother would sometimes send me out into the yard to get a switch when I caused trouble. I can't decide which was more embarrassing, being whipped with the switch, or having to find it first. Mind you, it was a rare thing for her to do that, and after I got older, her punishments came in the form of chewing me out and guilt trips.

But most importantly, my parents and grandparents were affectionate and doting, always quick to reward me for good deeds, and only punished me when I acted exceptionally bad, like stealing or getting into fights. Here, these people seems to suggest that a parent has to punish their child at the slightest provocation, and that can't be healthy.

[ceilidh]

only punished me when I acted exceptionally bad, like stealing or getting into fights.

Yeah, same. And it was always a couple of swats, not BEATING, always clothed, and never with PLUMBING LINE. And it was when I was old enough to know right from wrong, not a six month old baby.

[roseofjuly]

All of this. And my mother always did it bare-hand, no implements.

[the_gabih]

This. Between the ages of three (ish) and thirteen, I got a single open-handed smack and that was the end of it.