I wonder how the cultivation of that detachment you speak in point #18, a detachment toward one’s children (and from one’s own intuition and critical thinking), feeds into the utilitarian approach to politics and the lack of empathy for those marginalized in our society that is observable from certain Christian communities? How does bypassing one’s own moral intuition and judgment and ignoring the emotional wellbeing of vulnerable children train Christian adults (who model for their children) for “the ends always justify the means” kind of ethic and prime them for authoritarianism?
Whew, if that doesn't name a lot right there, Pascale. 🔥
These are excellent questions. I have to imagine that repeatedly training one's self to prioritize a cognitive end or certainty over ethical considerations or - as you've said - intuition & internal resistance is a way of hardening one's own heart. I think echo chambers and self-platformed people (or pastors!) who preach this kind of certainty reinforce these choices and alleviate anxiety or doubt over this. Which is its own kind of authoritarianism, so, yes, I really do think it ends up kind of squelching discernment/critical thinking and cultivating a reliance on authoritative voices to bolster one's own decision making.
It's maybe also a kind of ideological codependence - can be very disorienting to find a way out of this and sometimes can lead from people jumping from one high control type group to another.
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.
I have not! Thank you for this information, and I will look into his work!
I really appreciate the work of Sofia Cavalletti and CGS though - always heartening to discover thoughtful Christians respecting the personhood and spiritual formation of children.
BTW your reference to those forums on Insta (that seek advice on spanking) is heart-wrenching. It saddens me deeply to imagine all of those toddlers fighting spanking and their parents refusing to recognize their children's voices. Little ones are fighting for being recognized as humans!
100% It's so heartbreaking! I reach for the language of "betrayal" often, because I think entire families are betrayed by this. Clearly the parents in those forums are looking for help and wanting to do things "right" and unable to see the damage.
Sadly, you are right, Marissa. For me it comes down to us not knowing ourselves, nor our own inner authority.
I have expanded on this a bit in my https://deliwrite.substack.com/p/unmasking-misconceptions-in-the-religion essay but so much in our Christian world is sadly about co-dependency. We expect our pastor to tell us what to do, or this or that leader to teach me the right approach to a parenting issue, or even my therapist to guide me what to do.
However, things don't work out like this. At the end of the day our struggles are meant to make us listen to OUR OWN inner wisdom in the first place. Actually this is the reason why life keeps offering us the same types of challenges again and again, so that we pause, sit and come up with our own solutions (parenting issues often included).
For example, a very intense/sensitive/difficult child may just want us to learn things about OURSELVES in the first place. Sometimes their behaviour subconsciously asks us to change ourselves - as for instance to be more present with them. Not physically present (and not even in the home-schooling sense) but present in and for ourselves, in the first place.
Not an easy task, of course! And this is why adopting ready-made parroted spanking recipes is soo much easier!
What faith-based resources do you recommend to folks who are trying break out of that mind set? I am not aware of any except the Connected Child. I would love to see a book or training video that explains helpful, not retributive punishment methods for addressing/coping/dealing with extremely strong-willed children--particularly in situations where they are about to injure themselves or someone else. I think a lot of parents have spanking as a last resort (myself included--very reluctantly) especially when there is more than one child in the 3-5 age range. We don't like spanking, but we don't have any other tools in the toolbox. We're completely exhausted and typical "gentle parenting" methods aren't working/leaving us more exhausted (read: more prone to anger outbursts). Thoughts?? Thank you so much.
I hear you. ❤️🩹 First let me offer a disclaimer. Any recommendations I make are from me as another parent simply suggesting resources I've found helpful. I'm hesitant to do too much of this lest I position myself as a parenting "expert" (I'm not!) and I think individual family needs/temperaments & parental capacities matter so much in these conversations. However, I also so understand this request. We are planning on including a metric in the book for evaluating resources with the hope that it will empower parents to find healthy resources.
Anyway, as a fellow parent, I have so appreciated the Connected Families framework and their podcast, online courses, ebooks, etc. https://connectedfamilies.org/
I think their online course "Discipline that Connects" is well worth the time (they also offer scholarships!) and they have a streaming course about Sensitive/Intense Children as well.
It is one of the few Christian parenting resources I personally recommend to friends because they have a biblical perspective & also consider brain science, child development, etc. - really love their framework! I do not think you will regret any time/cost investment - they also have individual coaching if you have specific questions - it really is transformative.
The other thing I personally recommend is learning about child development - from a Christian or secular source. Honestly I think this would go so far in empowering Christian parents to recognize that some of what we see as behavior struggles are simply children needing new skills, learning so many things at once, etc. Dan Wuori is my favorite twitter follow for this b/c he takes viral videos and explains what is going on developmentally - easy, bite-sized lessons, but the Whole Brain Child is a good resource as well.
I hope this helps! You've named such a key component of this - many parents reluctantly spank b/c they have no other tools or, as you've said, have multiple children and need quick responsiveness. Two other things I've heard from people that are helpful: therapy to examine what is going on with the parent & also learn self-regulation skills to increase fortitude and forbearance with a child's immaturity. Also, I hear from many Christian parents that foster/adoption training was one of the first places they began to hear of other tools (since spanking is not allowed). So those might be good resources to explore as well.
I think sometimes too spanking in the young years can really feel like it "works" as a last resort, but I think it leaves the root issues unaddressed - whether that's things with a parent (dysregulation, expectations out of alignment with capacity, stress, etc) or things with a child (often what appears to be defiance is anxiety, overwhelm, inability to respond quickly enough, lack of agency, etc). So spanking may get compliance, but as children age, a parent will simply be left reaching for other punitive tools that will continue to enforce compliance. So I want to applaud you for thinking through other methods - it *is* hard as a parent and can stir up other internal things. Good job doing this difficult & worthwhile work!
Thanks for taking the time to write all of this out, Marissa! While I haven't exhausted all the Connected Family resources, I have read a fair bit and found it mostly useful. Especially the lists of things to try to help kids learn to regulate and trying to catch things before they build up. Also--the foster/adoption resources is a good idea too--I think the first book that challenged me on this whole thing was an essay that a foster mom wrote. I remember thinking, wow--yes, that it true for biological children as well. I'll check into Dan Wuori. I'm not familiar with him.
Thank you for the encouragement. Sometimes it's just hard and I need to acknowledge that. lol. I think I grew up with too much 80s/90s sitcoms of idealized/resolved family life (even if my own wasn't that way). Looking forward to your book!
I've heard of one called Interior Castle that's supposed to be very focused on helping the parents learn to manage their own emotions so they can better help regulate kids. I haven't taken it, but have heard lovely reviews of it.
Excellent! I believe a major reason is parents can’t regulate their own emotions. Add to that the narcissistic nature of many (so typical of religious subcultures) and you are there.
YES! I think this is a big piece of it, particularly for parents who want to stop but can't. The generational cycles of this require people doing the very difficult work of finding a different way and often reparenting themselves while parenting.
And, yes - I think there is a functionally narcissistic component that shows up in the teaching & is taught as the Right Way where children are treated as extensions of parents. Want to address this more in a future post but have been thinking about it a lot lately b/c it's mirrored in church family systems as well as families.
Yes, all this! I think the reparenting element is what is hardest. And then, religious upbringing has certain intrinsically manipulative features that are extremely difficult to unlearn and that we need to be aware of. I have elaborated on this element at length in my recent essay here on Substack ("Psychological Manipulation in Religious Child Rearing"), drawing on my own personal experience. The notion that God supposedly expects you to be (and to parent) in a certain way can be very detrimental - apparently for generations on end.
I would like to thank you once again for your in-depth analysis.
I personally have been struggling to fathom the insistence on corporeal punishment by otherwise sane and intelligent people (needless to say, almost all of them Christians). Your essay has helped shed some light on this.
I found this newsletter part eye-opening and thought-provoking. It shed light on why some Christian parents struggle to give up spanking. It's crucial to challenge harmful beliefs and prioritize the well-being of children. Excellent work, enlightening insights! 👏🌟
What did you mean in your article about "penal substitutionary atonement?" I don't think you mean what Christ accomplished on the cross, but what did you mean, exactly?
Generally speaking, many of the popular Christian parenting resources include theological frameworks (typically unspecified but they bring stowaway doctrine into the resources - parents may be looking for practical tips and walk away with a dose of Calvinist theology or charismatic influence, for instance).
Many Christian resources attempt to offer biblical (e.g. the Rod verses) or theological reasons for spanking. With the latter, it's usually a kind of vaguely worded consideration of penal substitutionary atonement. B/c it's stowaway, serious questions are never raised: must children atone for their "sins" via corporal punishment? If so, why? If not, why spank? Often this will include an idea that it must be painful so children can learn how painful sin is or how significant it was that sin sent Jesus to the cross.
These sort of messages are woven throughout the scripts around spanking. So, too, is the labeling of all undesirable behavior as "sin" which raises additional issues.
In addition to leaving theological considerations unaddressed, it also completely overlooks the historical development of various views of the atonement. It myopically focuses on one. Whatever one thinks of PSA, it's one of many in the historical Christian tradition, but for many protestant parents it's the only thing they know. So challenging spanking indirectly becomes a challenge to a theological system (misbehavior requires punishment & a kind of atonement).
Parents tend to forget that spanking makes kids fearful. It did me. I'm pretty sure my parents (primarily my dad) were spanking because that's what their parents did. A parent shouldn't do anything that makes their child afraid. It's one thing to swat a child's hand away from the hot stove or to yank them from oncoming traffic to protect them from harm, but it's another thing entirely to spank them as a form of discipline. Legally speaking, spanking is assault, and no parent should ever hit their child.
This is such a good point. The creation of paralyzing fear, the way spankings often come from caregivers with complete control, the confusion of the moment - I have to think that kind of response creates deep seated fear. A recent study suggested that spanking provokes the fight/flight response in the brain in the same way other forms of child maltreatment do, and I think it's really worth reconsidering why we'd imagine it any differently do begin with. Very young children are completely reliant on and trusting in caregivers, so for "spanking" to come from those people is an overwhelming idea.
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.
This names so much, Crystal. And, yes! Spanking is a tool in any kind of authoritarian parenting style, which, to be honest, I really think ought to give Christian parents pause.
And I hear you - compliant children maybe were spanked less out of fear, but the threat of spanking can still leave looming anxiety & difficulty making decisions. Plus, exactly what you've named here! The inability to hear any kind of questioning or dissent carries well into adulthood and comes at such a great cost.
You’re doing really important work here. My parents were (still are) evangelical, charismatic Christians and my little sister and I were smacked from quite a young age. It wasn’t *quite* as widespread in the UK as it was in the US, even in the 1980s, that kind of smacking on a bare backside with a belt, and when I’ve told people about it they’ve been horrified at how full-on our smackings were. But when I read about the problem of corporal punishment in many fundamentalist American Christian families there are a lot of similarities. My parents hated the idea that smacking was wrong. They thought it was at best ‘wordly’ - at worst, a ‘doctrine of demons’. I wonder if, had they come across anything from a Christian point of view, they might have re-thought, but everything they saw that was anti-smacking was secular. I really hope that what you’re doing here might cause some parents to re-think. Equally I can imagine my parents having said something like ‘well, the devil can quote scripture for his own ends’ - but you never know. I hope you have an impact. X
Thank you, Ruth. I really hope so as well! It never fails to astonish me how so many Christian parents will dig in on this: no matter the biblical case against it, no matter the research, no matter the experiences of adults naming harms - everything will be warned against as a temptation against godliness (or along those lines!)...simply to suggest adults stop hitting small children.
I am so sorry this was a part of your family experience.
I’m still trying to process all of this as a 1980s child who was spanked so, so, so, so many times in a house that revered people like James Dobson who wrote books on how to discipline children. So many thoughts. I don’t even know what to say yet. I’m still pondering it all.
I'm so very sorry, Ron. ❤️🩹 It is a lot to reckon with and such a profound betrayal of trust for the many families who believed Dobson et al. & for the many children who bore the brunt of those teachings.
Two considerations about spanking (which I experienced fairly frequently up until about 14)--(1) it is often done not to correct, but to "get back" at the child for "shaming" the parent, and (2) it is all too frequently done in anger, with no attempt made to give the child any idea about what was wrong and what should have been done instead. For what it's worth, it's very frequent in the Southern US, although not exclusively.
I wonder how the cultivation of that detachment you speak in point #18, a detachment toward one’s children (and from one’s own intuition and critical thinking), feeds into the utilitarian approach to politics and the lack of empathy for those marginalized in our society that is observable from certain Christian communities? How does bypassing one’s own moral intuition and judgment and ignoring the emotional wellbeing of vulnerable children train Christian adults (who model for their children) for “the ends always justify the means” kind of ethic and prime them for authoritarianism?
Whew, if that doesn't name a lot right there, Pascale. 🔥
These are excellent questions. I have to imagine that repeatedly training one's self to prioritize a cognitive end or certainty over ethical considerations or - as you've said - intuition & internal resistance is a way of hardening one's own heart. I think echo chambers and self-platformed people (or pastors!) who preach this kind of certainty reinforce these choices and alleviate anxiety or doubt over this. Which is its own kind of authoritarianism, so, yes, I really do think it ends up kind of squelching discernment/critical thinking and cultivating a reliance on authoritative voices to bolster one's own decision making.
It's maybe also a kind of ideological codependence - can be very disorienting to find a way out of this and sometimes can lead from people jumping from one high control type group to another.
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.
I have not! Thank you for this information, and I will look into his work!
I really appreciate the work of Sofia Cavalletti and CGS though - always heartening to discover thoughtful Christians respecting the personhood and spiritual formation of children.
BTW your reference to those forums on Insta (that seek advice on spanking) is heart-wrenching. It saddens me deeply to imagine all of those toddlers fighting spanking and their parents refusing to recognize their children's voices. Little ones are fighting for being recognized as humans!
100% It's so heartbreaking! I reach for the language of "betrayal" often, because I think entire families are betrayed by this. Clearly the parents in those forums are looking for help and wanting to do things "right" and unable to see the damage.
Sadly, you are right, Marissa. For me it comes down to us not knowing ourselves, nor our own inner authority.
I have expanded on this a bit in my https://deliwrite.substack.com/p/unmasking-misconceptions-in-the-religion essay but so much in our Christian world is sadly about co-dependency. We expect our pastor to tell us what to do, or this or that leader to teach me the right approach to a parenting issue, or even my therapist to guide me what to do.
However, things don't work out like this. At the end of the day our struggles are meant to make us listen to OUR OWN inner wisdom in the first place. Actually this is the reason why life keeps offering us the same types of challenges again and again, so that we pause, sit and come up with our own solutions (parenting issues often included).
For example, a very intense/sensitive/difficult child may just want us to learn things about OURSELVES in the first place. Sometimes their behaviour subconsciously asks us to change ourselves - as for instance to be more present with them. Not physically present (and not even in the home-schooling sense) but present in and for ourselves, in the first place.
Not an easy task, of course! And this is why adopting ready-made parroted spanking recipes is soo much easier!
What faith-based resources do you recommend to folks who are trying break out of that mind set? I am not aware of any except the Connected Child. I would love to see a book or training video that explains helpful, not retributive punishment methods for addressing/coping/dealing with extremely strong-willed children--particularly in situations where they are about to injure themselves or someone else. I think a lot of parents have spanking as a last resort (myself included--very reluctantly) especially when there is more than one child in the 3-5 age range. We don't like spanking, but we don't have any other tools in the toolbox. We're completely exhausted and typical "gentle parenting" methods aren't working/leaving us more exhausted (read: more prone to anger outbursts). Thoughts?? Thank you so much.
I hear you. ❤️🩹 First let me offer a disclaimer. Any recommendations I make are from me as another parent simply suggesting resources I've found helpful. I'm hesitant to do too much of this lest I position myself as a parenting "expert" (I'm not!) and I think individual family needs/temperaments & parental capacities matter so much in these conversations. However, I also so understand this request. We are planning on including a metric in the book for evaluating resources with the hope that it will empower parents to find healthy resources.
Anyway, as a fellow parent, I have so appreciated the Connected Families framework and their podcast, online courses, ebooks, etc. https://connectedfamilies.org/
I think their online course "Discipline that Connects" is well worth the time (they also offer scholarships!) and they have a streaming course about Sensitive/Intense Children as well.
It is one of the few Christian parenting resources I personally recommend to friends because they have a biblical perspective & also consider brain science, child development, etc. - really love their framework! I do not think you will regret any time/cost investment - they also have individual coaching if you have specific questions - it really is transformative.
The other thing I personally recommend is learning about child development - from a Christian or secular source. Honestly I think this would go so far in empowering Christian parents to recognize that some of what we see as behavior struggles are simply children needing new skills, learning so many things at once, etc. Dan Wuori is my favorite twitter follow for this b/c he takes viral videos and explains what is going on developmentally - easy, bite-sized lessons, but the Whole Brain Child is a good resource as well.
I hope this helps! You've named such a key component of this - many parents reluctantly spank b/c they have no other tools or, as you've said, have multiple children and need quick responsiveness. Two other things I've heard from people that are helpful: therapy to examine what is going on with the parent & also learn self-regulation skills to increase fortitude and forbearance with a child's immaturity. Also, I hear from many Christian parents that foster/adoption training was one of the first places they began to hear of other tools (since spanking is not allowed). So those might be good resources to explore as well.
I think sometimes too spanking in the young years can really feel like it "works" as a last resort, but I think it leaves the root issues unaddressed - whether that's things with a parent (dysregulation, expectations out of alignment with capacity, stress, etc) or things with a child (often what appears to be defiance is anxiety, overwhelm, inability to respond quickly enough, lack of agency, etc). So spanking may get compliance, but as children age, a parent will simply be left reaching for other punitive tools that will continue to enforce compliance. So I want to applaud you for thinking through other methods - it *is* hard as a parent and can stir up other internal things. Good job doing this difficult & worthwhile work!
Really good question which I resonated with, and an equally helpful response - thanks, ladies.
Thanks for taking the time to write all of this out, Marissa! While I haven't exhausted all the Connected Family resources, I have read a fair bit and found it mostly useful. Especially the lists of things to try to help kids learn to regulate and trying to catch things before they build up. Also--the foster/adoption resources is a good idea too--I think the first book that challenged me on this whole thing was an essay that a foster mom wrote. I remember thinking, wow--yes, that it true for biological children as well. I'll check into Dan Wuori. I'm not familiar with him.
Thank you for the encouragement. Sometimes it's just hard and I need to acknowledge that. lol. I think I grew up with too much 80s/90s sitcoms of idealized/resolved family life (even if my own wasn't that way). Looking forward to your book!
I've heard of one called Interior Castle that's supposed to be very focused on helping the parents learn to manage their own emotions so they can better help regulate kids. I haven't taken it, but have heard lovely reviews of it.
Oooh, thank you! I will look into it!
I'll check it out! Thanks, Sara.
Excellent! I believe a major reason is parents can’t regulate their own emotions. Add to that the narcissistic nature of many (so typical of religious subcultures) and you are there.
YES! I think this is a big piece of it, particularly for parents who want to stop but can't. The generational cycles of this require people doing the very difficult work of finding a different way and often reparenting themselves while parenting.
And, yes - I think there is a functionally narcissistic component that shows up in the teaching & is taught as the Right Way where children are treated as extensions of parents. Want to address this more in a future post but have been thinking about it a lot lately b/c it's mirrored in church family systems as well as families.
Yes, all this! I think the reparenting element is what is hardest. And then, religious upbringing has certain intrinsically manipulative features that are extremely difficult to unlearn and that we need to be aware of. I have elaborated on this element at length in my recent essay here on Substack ("Psychological Manipulation in Religious Child Rearing"), drawing on my own personal experience. The notion that God supposedly expects you to be (and to parent) in a certain way can be very detrimental - apparently for generations on end.
I would like to thank you once again for your in-depth analysis.
I personally have been struggling to fathom the insistence on corporeal punishment by otherwise sane and intelligent people (needless to say, almost all of them Christians). Your essay has helped shed some light on this.
Thank you so much for reading - I look forward to reading your essay as well!
I found this newsletter part eye-opening and thought-provoking. It shed light on why some Christian parents struggle to give up spanking. It's crucial to challenge harmful beliefs and prioritize the well-being of children. Excellent work, enlightening insights! 👏🌟
Thank you for reading!
What did you mean in your article about "penal substitutionary atonement?" I don't think you mean what Christ accomplished on the cross, but what did you mean, exactly?
Generally speaking, many of the popular Christian parenting resources include theological frameworks (typically unspecified but they bring stowaway doctrine into the resources - parents may be looking for practical tips and walk away with a dose of Calvinist theology or charismatic influence, for instance).
Many Christian resources attempt to offer biblical (e.g. the Rod verses) or theological reasons for spanking. With the latter, it's usually a kind of vaguely worded consideration of penal substitutionary atonement. B/c it's stowaway, serious questions are never raised: must children atone for their "sins" via corporal punishment? If so, why? If not, why spank? Often this will include an idea that it must be painful so children can learn how painful sin is or how significant it was that sin sent Jesus to the cross.
These sort of messages are woven throughout the scripts around spanking. So, too, is the labeling of all undesirable behavior as "sin" which raises additional issues.
In addition to leaving theological considerations unaddressed, it also completely overlooks the historical development of various views of the atonement. It myopically focuses on one. Whatever one thinks of PSA, it's one of many in the historical Christian tradition, but for many protestant parents it's the only thing they know. So challenging spanking indirectly becomes a challenge to a theological system (misbehavior requires punishment & a kind of atonement).
Parents tend to forget that spanking makes kids fearful. It did me. I'm pretty sure my parents (primarily my dad) were spanking because that's what their parents did. A parent shouldn't do anything that makes their child afraid. It's one thing to swat a child's hand away from the hot stove or to yank them from oncoming traffic to protect them from harm, but it's another thing entirely to spank them as a form of discipline. Legally speaking, spanking is assault, and no parent should ever hit their child.
This is such a good point. The creation of paralyzing fear, the way spankings often come from caregivers with complete control, the confusion of the moment - I have to think that kind of response creates deep seated fear. A recent study suggested that spanking provokes the fight/flight response in the brain in the same way other forms of child maltreatment do, and I think it's really worth reconsidering why we'd imagine it any differently do begin with. Very young children are completely reliant on and trusting in caregivers, so for "spanking" to come from those people is an overwhelming idea.
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.
This names so much, Crystal. And, yes! Spanking is a tool in any kind of authoritarian parenting style, which, to be honest, I really think ought to give Christian parents pause.
And I hear you - compliant children maybe were spanked less out of fear, but the threat of spanking can still leave looming anxiety & difficulty making decisions. Plus, exactly what you've named here! The inability to hear any kind of questioning or dissent carries well into adulthood and comes at such a great cost.
You’re doing really important work here. My parents were (still are) evangelical, charismatic Christians and my little sister and I were smacked from quite a young age. It wasn’t *quite* as widespread in the UK as it was in the US, even in the 1980s, that kind of smacking on a bare backside with a belt, and when I’ve told people about it they’ve been horrified at how full-on our smackings were. But when I read about the problem of corporal punishment in many fundamentalist American Christian families there are a lot of similarities. My parents hated the idea that smacking was wrong. They thought it was at best ‘wordly’ - at worst, a ‘doctrine of demons’. I wonder if, had they come across anything from a Christian point of view, they might have re-thought, but everything they saw that was anti-smacking was secular. I really hope that what you’re doing here might cause some parents to re-think. Equally I can imagine my parents having said something like ‘well, the devil can quote scripture for his own ends’ - but you never know. I hope you have an impact. X
Thank you, Ruth. I really hope so as well! It never fails to astonish me how so many Christian parents will dig in on this: no matter the biblical case against it, no matter the research, no matter the experiences of adults naming harms - everything will be warned against as a temptation against godliness (or along those lines!)...simply to suggest adults stop hitting small children.
I am so sorry this was a part of your family experience.
I’m still trying to process all of this as a 1980s child who was spanked so, so, so, so many times in a house that revered people like James Dobson who wrote books on how to discipline children. So many thoughts. I don’t even know what to say yet. I’m still pondering it all.
I'm so very sorry, Ron. ❤️🩹 It is a lot to reckon with and such a profound betrayal of trust for the many families who believed Dobson et al. & for the many children who bore the brunt of those teachings.
Two considerations about spanking (which I experienced fairly frequently up until about 14)--(1) it is often done not to correct, but to "get back" at the child for "shaming" the parent, and (2) it is all too frequently done in anger, with no attempt made to give the child any idea about what was wrong and what should have been done instead. For what it's worth, it's very frequent in the Southern US, although not exclusively.