9. the Normal Viewpoint

9. The Normal Viewpoint

I'm going to use this chapter as a sort of a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section. But first, a rant:

Believe me, folks, these things I have heard before, these are things most people believe. Hearing them from you is not going to change my thinking. If you want to correct me, find the weak points in my posts, and debunk them, debate them. Do not attempt to toss my entire philosophy out the window with an explanation of your idea of child-rearing, which is, most likely EVERYONE'S idea of child-rearing, and EVERYONE has already told me about it.
I wasn't raised according to my theory. I had a normal upbringing, authoritative, hierarchical, punishment based. My anti-punishment stance was novel to me, too. When I first found myself in the role of parent, I was exactly like everyone else. I believed children needed discipline, punishment. I thought I knew what was what, and therefore was just the right person to make judgements and hand out punishments. I spanked my little rent-a-kid (my live-in girlfriend's son). Too bad for that kid, lucky for my own kids later that I had a re-organization of my thinking that started before my first was born. So, I've been what I call "normal." Been there, done that, didn't like it. I never wear that T-shirt.
So here's the list, things I've heard before, many times. Things MOST PEOPLE think:

Kids need to be corrected, they need to learn what's right.

Answers:
1. People need: food, water, shelter, love, and sometimes, medical care.
2. Most people are not perfectly correct themselves. We aren't all qualified to CORRECT anyone. If we were all perfectly correct - well, then the world would be a perfectly correct place, and we wouldn't have these sorts of problems to work out.
3. Is that a universality, kids need to be corrected? Do you know where that idea comes from? It comes from the Church. It is the idea of "Original Sin," one of the Church's greatest marketing ideas. All people are born evil, and they need the Church to save them from Hell. Of course, good and evil are human constructs. We are not all born evil, we do not require some intervention that will keep us all from naturally developing into evil, murderous villains.


A little spanking doesn't hurt them.

Answers:
1. Then what's the point? How is it an effective deterrent or a punishment if it doesn't hurt? This is a logical fallacy: "You hurt them a little, so they learn not to mis-behave. But it doesn't hurt them."
2. So, if a little doesn't hurt them, and the point of punishment is to hurt them a little, to deter them next time, well, maybe they need more than a little. Punishment is often doomed to escalate, sometimes right out of control.
3.

I was punished, and I'm OK.

Answers:
1. If you're really OK, you're a rarity. Most of us have problems.
2. For all I know, you really ARE OK, except for one thing. You believe hurting little kids is good for them.
3. How OK? How bad off would you have to be before the punishments you received were too much? Would you have to be suicidal? Unemployable? Institutionalized? Homicidal? A wife-beater? An alcoholic, a junkie, a whore, a thug? Is just being a normal person, with normal amounts of sadness, anger, alcoholism, fear, frustration, poverty, divorce, these sorts of problems are as good as it gets, so that we needn't question our parents or our methods of child-rearing? You know, the first group of people I mention, the ones with extreme problems, that is a pretty large group. The second group, the functional ones are a range, from the first group types, all the way to some reasonably happy, very functional people. But most of us have problems. It's weird, in many situations, people will cry and bemoan their lot, their guilt, their powerlessness to make their life what they want, but ask them about their childhood punishments - I'm OK. Don't worry about me, I'm fine.
4.

This one is a work in progress. I'll be adding to it . . .

8. Give up the Power

Parents today are caught in a terrible bind. I hear it from young parents a lot. They want to be different from their parents, they all remember parental mistreatment, they all want to be nicer to their kids, they want to avoid the mistakes they see their parents as having made. When it comes down to it, though, they can't help it, they still want their own kids to behave, and they can't find a different way to make it happen.

So when little Samantha won't get into her car-seat, or little Nathan keeps pulling off his shoes making them late for dinner at Grandma's house, they try talking, begging, distracting. When none of that works, they look into their parenting toolkit, and there's only one thing left in there, and guess what it is. Only the club left. Force.

Of course, it works, usually. That's part of the problem, but it gets worse.

The big problem here is, it's over. It can go either direction, but what I hear most is, that this is the end of the young parent's non-violent dream. This is when many parents give up the idea, and end up saying, OMG, my parents were right.

Of course there is a world of reinforcement for this "realization." And there seems to be no way out of this dilemma, except one, and it's bad news.

Of course, some parents go the other way. Some, after resorting to force, after forcing Samantha into the car-seat or whatever, will stubbornly hold onto their dream, and try to find another way, and they will move toward what I have already mentioned, non-violent punishments, or what are euphemistically called “consequences.” Of course, non-violent punishments rest, ultimately, on the other kind. (See section 3.) So that is not really the way out, either. Again, the news is not good.

We have to give up. If we want to raise our kids without force, without punishment, we have to lose. Little Nathan is not going to wear his shoes and you're going to be late for dinner at Grandma's. I know: inconceivable. Ludicrous. But that's it, a big part of it at least. If we want to stop the cycle of violence, we need to stop making the control it provides our non-negotiable priority. In terms of the psychology of abuse, we need to not get our power back. I'm afraid that's our job, if we want to make this huge change, to lose to our authoritarian parents - and LOSE AGAIN to our children. We need to sacrifice our power, we need to not win, in order to break the cycle.

I never said it was going to be easy.