Part 3 of a three part series making the case against the use of corporal punishment by Christian parents (Part 1 and Part 2).
I tried (and failed) to make a meme. If you need evidence that I will forever be a words person:
Thankfully, a friend who is skilled in the art of memes made the rest of these for me, and I will intersperse them in this post. Sometimes an image can speak more powerfully than reams of text, and sometimes it’s useful to have ridiculous replies for the ridiculous arguments used to justify hitting small children.
It’s been a heavy few weeks researching the chapter on corporal punishment for In the Way They Should Go, and I’m glad to come to the end of this topic for a time. I say “a time,” because so long as we normalize this practice in Christian communities, it will need addressing. Don’t believe me? Try writing or speaking about this topic publicly, and you will soon discover that Christian parents are some of the most ardent defenders of corporal punishment.
Why is this? Why is it so difficult for Christian parents to let go of this practice? I have some theories; twenty reasons Christian parents are reluctant to give up the corporal punishment of small children, in no particular order:
Parents may erroneously believe that the Bible (or God) requires it of them. This is the biggest hurdle to inviting parents to consider alternate methods, because there is a persistent belief that “God’s ways are higher.” So research, increasing knowledge of child development, adult children naming the harms, parental distress over having to hit small children—any objection will come secondary to a desire to obey God. And this is why I spend so much time making an exegetical and hermeneutical case against the corporal punishment of small children.
Parents may experience pressure from church communities or extended families to spank their children. I have even heard from some parents who faced church discipline or excommunication for refusing to do so.
Parents may not know any alternate approaches. Many Christian parenting resources focus on spanking or offer it as the primary method. Even when it’s presented as a “last resort,” it becomes something parents will rely on to gain desired behavioral compliance.
Parents may have been told to spank by authority figures like respected older parents, teachers or even pastors. New parents and new converts are especially vulnerable to this.
Parents may be stuck in a sunk cost fallacy. Once they have relied on spanking or pushed past their intuition and forced themselves to do it, it can be very difficult to reckon with the idea that it maybe wasn’t needed.
Parents may not want to revisit their own parents’ choices. If they came from a family where questioning parents were punished, it can be distressing to challenge their own parents’ methods. “I am glad my parents spanked me,” becomes a common refrain. It is uncomfortable to dethrone parents and reckon with the vulnerability of childhood.
Parents may believe their children deserve a spanking. Sometimes you hear adults claim: “I was spanked, and I deserved it,” or “I never did that again.” You may also hear parents joke: “He was asking for a spanking.” Or, “the day always goes better after a spanking.”
Parents may place a high-value on first-time obedience and well-behaved children. Corporal punishment thus becomes the primary means to “train” children to obey right away, all the way, and with a happy heart. Parents may wonder: if I don’t spank, how will I get my children to obey?
Parents may not believe spanking is that big of a deal. You may hear people say: “I was spanked, and I turned out fine.” Whether that’s accurate or not, parents make their own experience the norm and fail to consider that other individuals may be impacted differently.
Parents may not be able to stop. They may not want to spank, but they lose control and end up spanking. They may not be able to regulate their own emotions and as a result cannot tolerate childish misbehavior or circumstances that feel out of control.
Parents may be abusive. Some parents enjoy the feeling of power and capacity to dominate the will of another or may believe it is their God-given right to do so.
Parents may be trapped in a cycle of domestic violence. For instance, mothers may spank their children into compliance out of fear of abusive husbands or in order to keep them from experiencing greater perceived dangers.
Parents may believe that spanking prevents specific social ills. Parents may suggest that various cultural problems are due to children not being spanked enough or express fear of what might happen if children aren’t spanked. This is impossible to substantiate, but it persists across generations.
Parents may hold an unexamined attitude that children are subhuman. While “spanking” would be perceived as humiliating, abusive, or a criminal offense if done to another adult, let alone in a situation where there was a power differential (e.g. employer/employee, pastor/congregant, teacher/adult student), it is tolerated toward children. This subtle dehumanization of children enables abuse and escalating corporal punishment.
Parents may hold a false binary. They may believe either I spank or I am a permissive parent, either I spank or I do not discipline.
Parents may have cultivated detachment. The practices of “right” spanking require parents to inflict pain and then detach from their child’s cries. In fact, parents come to interpret this as a mark of how much they love their child. Practicing this, sometimes daily or multiple times a day, is more likely to desensitize a parent from the harm.
Parents may be ashamed. Parents who spank typically claim that they are doing it the “right way,” that they would never abuse their child. They also use euphemisms like swat, switch, smack, etc. to minimize the action. However, the practice happens behind closed doors with the parent alone as the judge of when something is “too far.”
Parents may be operating in functionally narcissistic ways. Parents may believe that children exist to fulfill their aspirational desires or to be shaped according to a parent’s goals. This leads to a kind of ends-justifies-the-means parenting and fails to consider the ethics of corporal punishment. Pair such ideas with adversarial descriptions of the parent/child relationship, and you end up with adults speaking about children as threats or opponents who strategize against parents.
I wonder what reasons you might add.
It’s not a theoretical enterprise to get at the root of these beliefs and challenge them. While I was working on this series, Samuel Sey, a devout father and Christian speaker tweeted to a hundred thousand people that he was heartbroken to have to again “discipline” his four month old baby because of sin.
I want people to know that this is not an anomaly. There are other Christian “experts” modeling this or directly instructing Christian parents to “spank” or “discipline” their infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Often for hours at a time.
When I provided receipts, my thread went viral, and many of the responses reminded me that many people outside of conservative American Christianity have discarded spanking long ago.
This is one reason that I believe Christians must be the loudest voices denouncing this kind of teaching whenever possible no matter how uncomfortable. We have got to stop acting as though the comfort of adults is more important than the well-being of vulnerable children. We all must consider: if we are unwilling to call out people who openly publish or teach harmful things, what will it take for us to challenge other adults in our lives?
What will we do if we witness another adult dehumanizing a child? Or visit a Christian parenting forum where overwhelmed Christian parents seek the help of strangers to escalate their corporal punishment? Or hear someone at church laughing about their use of “the rod”? What if it’s a friend?
Advocating for children means sometimes offending adults. Parents are adults who have power and can clarify their meaning if someone erroneously confronts them. Children have no power. If other adults don’t advocate for them, who will? Perhaps, in time, offended adults may come to see the benefit of communities that prioritize the well being of the vulnerable and the health of parents.
I believe that together we can stop giving harmful rhetoric a pass. We can confront attitudes that dehumanize children. We can empower and educate parents. We can stop “chewing the meat and spitting out the bones” and instead find better food. We can throw away Christian resources that enable abuse. We can unapologetically advocate for children.
Hi - Catholic Christian here. 👋🏻 Have you heard of Fr. John Bosco, an Italian who founded the Salesian order of educators? He passed onto them a philosophy which respected a child's ability to learn and was sternly against corporal punishment. He's now a Saint in the Catholic canon of saints and is often called Don Bosco.
My husband came from a non religious but very authoritarian background, his mother “spanked” him with everything from a shoe to a dried out water hose. I came from an evangelical household and was spanked by my parents, aunt and grandparents. It wasn’t very often because I was considered a “good” kid but with my siblings it was a regular thing. I also grew up in a Christian culture where we weren’t allowed to disagree or question adults, I’m thoroughly convinced it’s the reason one of my siblings left the church altogether. To this day they still employ that ideal with my nephew, they’ve even resorted to threatening him with a plastic ruler (it seems so primitive and makes me so sad). I never learned to speak up because I thought it was wrong or disrespectful and now that I am I’ve faced a lot of backlash from people I care deeply for which hurts more than anything.