is a totally invalid argument. You could use exactly the same line of reasoning to show that breast feeding was emotionally harmful!
I don't think you understood my point. I was not making an argument, I was refuting the argument made by others in this thread. Their argument was, "I was spanked and there's nothing wrong with me". I simply pointed out that unless there really is nothing wrong with you, then your argument fails.
I also find the idea that I myself was abused quite ludicrous. My brother and I joke to this day about the time we got our bottoms walloped with a slipper for a late night fight in our bedroom. Such an experience could not have been farther removed from the real cases of abuse one sees in the media, the physical suffering was relatively minor, the emotional suffering was absolutely negligible.
The problem here is that the word "abuse" has connotations in ordinary language that are unfounded. When most people hear the word, they imagine being beaten to a pulp or sexually molested or some other such severe attack. That is not what the word means. Abuse is simply any consistent mistreatment of another. Abuse can be extremely severe, as in the case of child molestation, it can be moderate as in cases similar to Judy's, and it can be mild as in the case of spanking. The key feature is that someone is being mistreated for a period of time. People are often abusive without being consciously aware of it and people are often abused without being consciously aware of it. This lack of awareness doesn't mean that the negative effects aren't occurring. It is quite common for abuse victims to believe that they deserved it or that it is simply the way of things. This is even true of people who were consistently sexually assaulted throughout their youth. You yourself describe your experience as "suffering" yet seem to believe that this suffering was deserved.
I am also dubious about some of the research quoted in the articles. If most violent criminals were spanked as children, does that prove that spanking makes people violent, or is it simply the case that such people showed violent, criminal tendencies at a young age and were punished more than their peers?
The reason that we can conclude that having violence enacted upon children results in more violent behavior, is for multiple reasons. First, the more violent the abuse, the more violent the victim becomes, not the other way around. This is a very clear indicator that violent abuse increases violent behavior. Second, children that show aggressive tendencies but are dealt with in more effective non violent ways have their aggressiveness reduced while those that are dealt with in violent ways have their aggressiveness increased. Third, it is an obvious fact that children learn their behaviors by having them modeled by their parents. The children of violent people are thus much more violent than the children of non violent people. When a child acts up or engages in a behavior that the parent doesn't approve of and the parent reacts, a conflict is created. When the parent "solves" this conflict through violent means, the behavior of
problem-solving through violence is being
modeled by the parent. The child thus learns on a very deep level that violence is the primary method of conflict resolution. Feelings of anger become much more prevalent and the child goes on to have a much greater tendency to react violently to conflict throughout their life. That last point should be obvious to anyone. Simply look around the world. The more violent the culture the more violent the people that come out of it and the more violence it produces overall.
And as for spanking causing sado-masochistic tendencies, I feel it is far more likely that such tendencies are (like homosexuality) an innate part of a person's sexuality, and not "caused" by anything.
I'm curious why you think your feelings have anything to do with what is true about this. You actually think that your personal feelings are more relevant than decades of research conducted by professionals in a vast array of fields? There are entire areas of study dedicated to sexual issues, human development, abnormal psychology, cognitive neuroscience, et al. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of papers have been published regarding these issues. Do you have any knowledge of these areas whatsoever? Do you have any reason at all to claim that sexual tendencies are entirely biologically based?
I do agree with you that the sort of experiences described by Judy are entirely unacceptable, and to hit a child about the head or face is horrendous and criminal.
Why is this "horrendous and criminal" while spanking is absolutely acceptable? Isn't the former merely a more aggressive form of the latter? I really can't understand people's incapacity for rational thinking regarding this. If I am severely violent against someone, I cause them severe harm. If I am moderately violent against someone, I cause them moderate harm. If I am mildly violent against someone, I cause them mild harm. This is true in general. Why would you believe that it is not true regarding children?
On the other hand, I do not feel that responsible, loving parents should be criminalised for an occasonal moderate, safe smack when deserved.
Parents can be loving and responsible most of the time and still be hurtful and irresponsible some of the time. Such is the case with most parents who spank their children I would imagine. I don't really advocate the criminalization of responsible, loving parents who occasionally spank their kids. The trauma of being taken from your parents and thrust into foster care(where abuse is routinely more severe and rampant) is far, far greater than the MILD(don't miss this word, please) trauma of being spanked. But the results are very, very clear:
spanking is the least effective and most harmful form of behavior modification. If this is true -- and anyone who actually has knowledge of the fields I mentioned agree that it is true -- then
should it be done?
Children crave attention, so even being punished can seem like a sort of reward. Enlightened parents make sure children get far more attention when they are well-behaved than when they are not!
This is only the tiniest little fraction of everything that is relevant to how a child develops. I am assuming that you are not a professional in any field related to human development, but the responsible thing for the everyday parent to do is to
listen to the people who
do understand these things. The people who have dedicated their entire lives to understanding these things. At the very least, it should be obvious to any intelligent person that flat out denial of issues regarding the welfare of their children based solely on their selfish immature feelings is irresponsibility of the highest caliber...