Are You A No Spanking Family?
- Therese Morris
- Aug 5, 2017
- 4 min read
I must confess I often wavered on this topic because I've grown up receiving regular spankings/beatings and our Jamaican culture supports it, plus we live what we learn so in our moments of absolute frustration we sometimes find ourselves carrying out this very same act which we hated as for ourselves, we've become the dark side of our parents which scared/scar us... And while it's not fully our fault we are wrong for not ending the cycle as we ought to, I battle with this inner conflict myself while striving for a no spanking family of my own.
In the head, face, back, shoulder, anywhere she could reach is where I'd get hit and with almost anything at hand but most often than not it would be her fist and a leather belt, although once she did hit me with a tape dispenser. My mom had a temper with a very socially savvy Christian Sunday School teacher mask to distract outsiders from her dark side as it related to me. It's hard for me to talk about, indeed this is the first time publicly acknowledging this secret pain I've been carry around all my life but I'm opening up because of late I'm found myself restraining myself from being my mom.
You may or may not have notice that I haven't written a post in about 3 months, I have exactly 15 posts drafted from March/April but life tests don't always give you a heads up so I just wasn't mentally able to pour myself into updating Homeschool Mommy while trying to continue functioning as a good homeschooling mommy, faced with a decreasing/limited capacity I pick my kids as we all should. During this time I've been stretched to almost breaking point and have found myself administering "light spankings" to my older son... I use the term "light spanking" as a euphemism to comfortable myself that I was within rights but really and truly I've been tormented by it, yes, sometimes we can "collectively" justify it as necessary but is it really? Is it ever really necessary to hit an innocent human who made a mistake or who was exploring the boundaries of their independence or deliberately testing the physics of how things break, collide, spill or any other such lead by curiosity? Little humans trying to understand the world, how the can fit in it and assert themselves as they learn along the way.
Is it too much to consider their motives before reacting? And no matter their motive is it too much to control ourselves and respond without violence? Anger is a natural emotion but violence is crossing a line now. What hurts me even more is that I know all this, I know the pains of it first-hand, generally recommend not doing it yet here I find myself looking in the mirror ashamed. Spanking isn't really about correction, it's about laziness and an inability to confront our own inner demons, that's just sad parenting to be honest and I don't want to be even a little sad in this regard anymore.
For some this message may be a bit late as many are very much set in their ways, my mom for one noted that whenever I did spank it was only using my hand on the butt cheek thus suggested, "... why don't you use a belt?" which I immediately rebuffed to her disdain. The extra effort to be calm, controlled and creative in correcting children seems daunting or offence to many as they misunderstand this strategy as "losing the upper hand"/"giving in" to the kid but it's actually the total opposite. Restraint, respect and reassurance is what you're exemplifying as kids learn how to react to similar situations, how to hold others in esteem in spite of discord and the confidence in knowing that love is not blindly subjected to performance. I have introspected on the times I've fallen short noting that the flaw was always within me not within my kid's heart, it is is possible to discipline in love, I've done it many a times and recommit to walking that healthy path.
Meanwhile I accept that hurting people will continue hurting people, like my mom who I ask God to help me forgive constantly because she's been hurt, she's repeating the very cycle she ran away from over 30 year ago, to this day she recalls her dad chasing her down a road with a machete to kill her and she punctuates it with, "he was right because I was too lippy." The first time she said it - yup, she's said it more than once - I was flabbergasted but I now see that such logic could only come from a place of deep hurt, repressed pain to the point of misdirected responsibility and delusional admission of guilt. Those unresolved issues drive her Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde parenting and grandparent style to this day as she recently mentioned her intent on spanking my 1 year old for willingly disregarding her command to pick up some blocks had I not intervened, then on another recent occasion she delivered me a solid smack to the face as I held my 1 year old in arm and my then 3 year old watched on screaming at her to go away - BTW it was justified because basically I didn't respond in her ideal tone/words/attitude. Case in point, hurting people truly hurt people and when will we all stop purposely creating hurting people?
For my kids, it starts with healing me.
PS. Please do explore various disciplinary techniques from the list below:
