 |
| This is everything... |
Why do we hit our children? Why does Christian tradition teach us that corporal punishment is important and good?
My husband and I both I grew up in homes that practiced corporal punishment. All of our parents did as well. So when we got married and started our own family, it was expected and just assumed that we would also practice corporal punishment. And we did.
We have seven children spread over 25 years, currently 13-38 years old. Our oldest five are biological; our youngest two we adopted as infants. When our oldest child was born, it was “decided” that we would use my husband’s dad’s system, known as “the swat system”. Basically a child would receive one swat for being naughty, two swats for blatant disobedience, and a maximum of three swats for “talking back to mother”.
The instrument used was a paddle that my husband had been gifted by one of his student’s dad when he taught junior high school in Mississippi in 1979. (Think about that for a minute and try not to shudder. Gifted by a dad so the teacher could whale on his kid.)
So, almost as soon as we brought home our precious little seven pound firstborn child in November of 1980, we were planning how we were going to...hit her.
I was glad to have this “swat system”. Since I had been raised to believe that physical punishment was “good” for our children, and my husband believed the same thing, I was relieved to have guidelines for meting out punishment. My dad had used his hands, sometimes a switch, and frequently his belt, and you never knew when or where or why the punishment might rain down. That was truly horrible. So a simple paddle and a “system” seemed almost kind in my opinion.
When my oldest child was 4 years old, she figured out that I was afraid of the paddle and was timid when I swung it, so she decided to fight back by wiggling and refusing to lie still for her swats. And I remember losing my cool, and for the briefest of seconds I had a vision of taking the paddle, swinging it like a bat, and nailing her across the head. Just writing these words brings back the same feeling of panic, the same nausea, the same shaking, revulsion and fear that I felt 34 years ago. It was a defining moment. I realized in those seconds how easily I could slip right over the line from disciplining my child to abusing her. I put the paddle down and flew from the room.
You might think that I would reevaluate my acceptance of corporal punishment based on that experience. And I did. I was so distraught that I called my mom to ask for her advice. She suggested that I talk to my husband and “ask him if it was OK” for me to temporarily use a switch instead of the paddle. That way even if she wouldn’t be still there was no danger of seriously injuring my child.
Ask my husband. If it was OK. To hit our child. With a skin-stinging switch. Instead of a potentially bone-breaking paddle.
What. In. The. Actual. F**k.
But I did it. Because I wanted to be a good mother and raise children who knew how to obey.
I’m so sorry about that.
Clearly it is past time that I begin to question things I was taught growing up. For example, what does "spare the rod, spoil the child" really mean?
Proverbs 13:24 (NKJV), "He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly."
This verse has haunted me for as long as I can remember. It was the basis of my father's use of the belt on me before I was even five years old.
I’ve hated this Bible verse all of my life.
Recently I've been thinking, what if we're wrong? What if we've been lied to by the legalistic patriarchal generations that came before us?
Because the Good Shepherd also uses a rod, but it is to comfort his sheep and to lead them to safety. Not hit them.
Psalm 23:4 (NKJV), "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
What if "spare the rod, spoil the child" actually means that if we don't lead and comfort our children, they will be lost? What if we actually show hatred for our children by hitting them and bullying them rather than gently guiding and leading them, as well as comforting them with the “rod”of a loving and kind shepherd? What if we've been wrong all along?!
This is staggering.
All I know is that the only thing I learned from being beaten with a leather belt as a child was how to disappear when I'd broken the rules, embarrassed my dad, or done some other wrong thing, and how to lie to cover my transgressions. I didn't learn self discipline, I learned to hide and withdraw. And to this day, more than 50 years later, I am filled with terror at the whipping sound a belt makes when it is quickly removed from a pair of pants (which has had its own negative repercussions in my marriage over the years.)
I also learned to not tell my parents when something bad happened to me because I never knew if I would be the one punished for “causing” that bad thing to happen. After all, before I was sent to kindergarten at the sweet little age of five, my dad warned me that if I was ever spanked at school, I would be spanked again when I got home. So I was verbally assaulted and beaten by my second grade teacher, and I never told on her. Because I feared my dad’s wrath more than I trusted his love. When I told him about it over 40 years later, he raged at that teacher and he cried for me. But it didn’t change his opinion about physical punishment. That makes me sad.
I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to my children for using corporal punishment so much, and supporting that practice with a perversion of a Bible verse. I did the best I could with the information I had at the time. But that doesn't make me less wrong. So I am truly and deeply sorry. As I move forward in my life, I will attempt to be more like a loving shepherd and less like an avenging god.
Maybe sometimes we do "deserve" punishment. But what we are always entitled to as children of God is mercy. And grace. And absolute love.
No comments:
Post a Comment