Parents and smacking their children

Over here, everyone hits their kids. And, most Indian kids are very respectful to their elders, but I don't think it's because of the hitting thing. One of my husband's aunts have three kids, 6, 4 and 3. She is insane and everyone hates her. She went off on the 3 year old girl for crying (a little) when her big brother stole a flower she had picked for her daddy. HER MOM TOOK A BELT AND BEAT the little girl's legs, the girl was scared to death!! There was no reason for it. She didn't punish the boy for stealing the flower, she told him "don't you know only girls like flowers? You're not a girl" I told her husband that his wife was freaking insane, he should control her. He didn't say anything to me. He doesn't live with her anyway, he is working in Saudi Arabia and only comes home once or twice a year.

And, worst of all, everyone in the room (other relatives) were shocked but still laughing at it. That lady is insane and her kids are the worst behave kids I've EVER SEEN. It breaks my heart.

When they're here, I try to play with them and give them lots of attention, but all they do is curse and hit. Have you ever been told by a 3 year old "You smell like urine, go and wash yourself before you speak to me!?" I have.
They curse at people in three languages, and their mom thinks it's funny and doesn't punish them. But she beats them for no reason. I cannot imagine how these kids will be when they're older.

 

I wanted to add that I've been some f*cked up things here in India. One little cousin of my husband, she is 8 years old. I saw she has a scar on her ankle and I asked what happened. She wouldn't tell me, but her 15 year old sister did. A year ago, her mom burned her ankle with a heated knife because the 8y/o (then 7y/o) was always lying. I was so shocked!! In America, the mom would get all her kids taken away for doing something like that, while in India, people don't think anything of it.

My husband was a strange scar on his upper-arm, like where they used to give polio vaccines. It's big and black (he has brown skin, scars are black) and like, bubbly. And a line in in the middle. He said when he was a baby they gave him a polio vac but it became infected and left that scar. It's bigger than an egg.

I believed him until I saw the SAME looking scar on his 14 year old boy cousins hand. He is a very witty boy and always in trouble. My husband was the same way when he was younger. I asked the cousin how he got that, he said he burned himself.

I told my husband that I believe it's some sort of punishment and he said no way, my family would never do like that. But I'm still suspicious.

This is not PUNISHMENT. Burning a child, beating with a belt, etc is CHILD ABUSE! If they did it to their wives, etc they would GO TO JAIL, it would be grounds for divorce. Can a kid divorce his parents for it??

I am not completely against physical punishment, i.e., smacking a kids behind. I don't plan to do it with my kids, because I'm going to spend all my time with them and teach them well. But, an occasional smack on the butt isn't the end of the world, especially if it isn't done in rage. (probably not a good thing to say on this forum..)

 

Unfortunately, you are correct. Where I live, spouse abuse is common and the law will do nothing about it.

As for thinking "long and hard' about having a child, simply because my husband's extended family abuses their children, that's bullshit. No one will be left alone with my child, and no one would dare do anything to them. They know my position on ANY kind of abuse. I've yelled at my mother-in-law for throwing rocks at a cat who entered our kitchen and stole a fish. If anyone touched my child in a hurtful way, they wouldn't see him again.


I don't know if you've lived in India, or outside of the western world. Unfortunately, some things we consider abuse, etc are accepted elsewhere. If you met my husbands aunts and cousins, you'd know how much they love each other. You hippies support family bed and all that, right? Well, it's normal in India. Families LOVE each other here. One auntie has 5 daughters and 1 granddaughter, they all sleep on a big ol' bed together. It's sweet. But when the kids misbehave, I agree the adults go overboard.

I don't know what is with all this negativity on this forum over me trying to concieve.

 

My father used to beat the shit out of me and my 2 brothers when we were kids. He would always call it "spanking" but it was definitely abuse. He used to, and still does sometimes, hit my mother. He still doesn't think he ever did anything wrong by hitting us. And it's not even like we deserved it. I mean, we fought with eachother like all kids do, but he would make us stand there and watch eachother get beat. He liked hitting us. I definitely don't think parents should hit their kids. I know I will never hit my kids. I don't want my kids hating me the way I hate my father.

 

this made me cry. actually, i'm crying right now. i can't believe those numbers... 67 and 85 percent...

i am friends with two people who had a baby together, and split up, and now the guy is with another girl, and i love all three so much. they're amazing parents and amazing people. i saw their baby for the first time today and i wanted to grab her up and keep her from ever getting hurt, make sure nothing could ever reach her that wasn't love. every little kid i get the chance to talk to, i can't not tell them how beautiful they are, and ask them to always love themselves.

i can't imagine feeling a human being growing inside of me for nine months, and watching it grow for years, and ever being able to look at it and feel anything but wonder and love, no matter what it did or said. i have so many friends who have been abused their whole lives and they're trying so hard to be happy now but it's worked into their psyche that they should always be afraid, they shouldn't be themselves, everything they do is wrong.

those numbers really shocked me. i can't believe it. i didn't get hit as a little kid but i've been in that situation where you are so scared of your parent, you don't know what they're going to do or what you can do to make them love you again or at least leave you alone. as a tiny little kid who is so trusting and so full of love, ...fuck. it really makes me want to take all of those kids away from their parents and hug them and bake cookies for them and sing songs with them until they know that life is good...

 

Huh? The man had nothing to do with Chai's post. Maybe I'm just confused as usual.

 

Christ your kids are going to be a pain in everyone's arss.

 

I am pro-spanking from 3 - 10 years old. Spanking NOT smacking.

 

because i'm going to love them and not hurt them when they do things i don't like? you can teach kids through other kinds of punishment if you have to, but there's a difference between being bad and being annoying and i don't think you should ever punish anyone just for being annoying.

my friend has a daughter who's about five or six, and i went over to their house, and i kept expecting her to punish her or tell her not to do little things that kids are always doing, and always get told not to do. but she treated her like an adult, she didn't talk down to her, she was just as polite and respectful and sincere to her daughter as she was to every other person. and that little girl is so smart, sweet, funny, and nice. she does things because she wants to make people happy, not because she's scared she'll get hit or yelled at if she doesn't. punishment based on principles, like trying to teach a kid a certain lesson or build character or whatever, just stifles their creativity and stops them from becoming good at things they have natural talents for.

kids aren't stupid. they don't know everything that we know, they haven't gained all of the information we have. but they're intuitive, they sense everything. they know what's going on. if they feel like you're putting a wall up, or trying to manipulate them, they'll do the same to you. if you train them to be insensitive, of course they'll never do what's "right". but if you let them be the emotional little people they are naturally, they'll do the right thing just because they don't want to hurt anyone.

 

Prismatism, it's great that you think that way, and while it may be harder for some people to love life all the time like you seem do, it is in no way hard to show that kind of love to a child. I know that no matter how bad my life can get, I never show my son how to handle a situation with a weak additude or without a positive outlook.

 

he's gonna grow up to change the world

 

Thanks, I like to think that as well

 

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the input and the way it was put.

 

thanks for not just telling me i'm wrong. really, i appreciate it a lot.

 

Growing up, my brother and I had the paddle with holes in it...one side had my name, the other had my brother's name. I was so scared of that thing...I can't say it was ever used to excess, but it was still a scary thing. I remember it sat in the corner of the room and every time I walked by it, I would get this really sinking, knotted up feeling in my stomach. *cringes*

Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn.

I will never spank my kids and I will never own a paddle with the kids' names on it. And when I see parents in the store spanking their kids for silly little things, it really makes me wonder about what kind of culture we live in.

 

Oh, Annie, that's horrible. What a destructive thing for a parent to do to their children, a constant reminder that "I can hit you, badly, whenever I want to, and HERE, you have to look at the reminder." It's damn near a soul destroying thing for a parent to do to a child. Makes me hope there IS a heaven and a hell when I hear things like this. People who not only abuse, but FLAUNT it distress me to no end.

On the opposite note:

prismatism, I think you are going to make a wonderful parent.

 

I am strongly against child abuse and things along those lines. I think the only way to make your child understand is to communicate with words get them to understand what they did. If you respect your child then they will respect you. I have no respect for my father what so ever... He is an angry person and I seriously hate him ... it takes alot for me to hate someone. Once I move out I will barely ever talk to him again. I know if I found out my future hubby was hurting my kids I would leave him in a second... I would never ever want to put my children in a dangerous situation. Hitting your child is showing them its ok to hit. It can also be hipocritical such as " dont hit your sister" *Smack smack* ok .. what does that teach your children? What good does it do for them? Apparently nothing good.

 

I concur! I have alway's thought the same thing about her, ever since I read her posts when she first joined

 

We also had a paddle with holes in it growing up. Our names wern't on it, though, and it was kept put away, but that thing was scary. I had the kind of mom that would fly off and hit us for everything, and the kind of dad that would rarely use it except for major offenses (like playing in the road when we knew we wern't supposed to). He was the one that used the paddle, though. My mom broke multiple wooden spoons across mine and my sister's back when we were kids cause she'd always grab the closest thing nearby to hit us with. We'd always be cooking with these half-length wooden spoons. I even got beat with flowers once.

I never get those people that fly off and whale on their kid for everything. I've seen kids get hit 5-10 or more times on the butt just for being too loud. The worst are the religious families, it has always seemed to me. I grew up going to a christian school and many of my friends parents would spank them right in front of me, and they always got it worse than I ever did. Spoil the rod and spare the child, I guess...

Just recently my mom lectured me that I didn't need to hit or spank my kid to punish them (not that it was ever my plan), and that there were alternative ways to discipline or correct a child. I guess she feels a bit bad over the things that happened in our house when my sis and I were growing up.