what's so chilling, to me, in all the evangelical parenting manuals i read and the testimony i received from survivors, is the idea in evangelical circles that striking your child in a cool and ritualistic manner is somehow better than doing so in anger. it isn't. it really isn't
Hello CPS? This one right here
Its so much fucking worse. You can't even pretend that they lashed out accidentally.
these horrible little ceremonies where you explain the child's sin to them calmly, hurt them, and then have a tender little forgiveness moment -- it's fucked. maybe even more fucked than honest anger?
I finished your book like a week ago and this was like a jumpscare now.
I'm an abuse survivor and could totally tell the difference as to why I was hit and it makes a massive difference in how it affected me. I got smacked a couple of times for doing dangerous stuff and, tbh, it seemed fair. Obviously not ideal, but we're all human. It wasn't 'cruel'. I got that
In my dobson household anger was still very much a part of it. Dad could be teeth grinding red in the face furious but as long as no swearing was involved it was mostly fine. Plus the true anger could come out when we were home alone. If I told mom he attacked me, "he wouldn't do that." Freaks.
I remember this idea of not hitting kids when you're angry coming up once with my grandmother, who absolutely spanked my dad and his siblings. She responded, "Of course you hit them you're angry! What kind of monster hits a kid when they're NOT angry?!"
So great that Goodwill got this and thought, sure, $2.49.
"Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child" is often misused and misunderstood.
A shepherd's rod is a way to gently nudge a sheep back onto the correct path.
If you beat a sheep, all you get is a panicked sheep that flees when you come near.
Granted, I have issues with the shepherd/flock analogies too...
I wouldn't have censored the signature on it, they deserve to be called out
My dad would make all three of us line up and watch each other geet their belt, hand, or switch. We had a big wooden pizza peel and he would "joke" about drilling holes in it so we'd hear it whistling before it hit.
And he wonders why I don't really talk to him anymore.
I completely understand a heat of the moment swat especially if a kid is doing something imminently dangerous like fucking with a power strip or hucking rocks at the cat or something
way more than this fuckass shit
I firmly believe spanking children is sexual abuse. If an adult does anything else to a child's backside, they're labeled a creep... but if you hit it hard enough, it's magically ok?
That's the whole Michael and Debi Pearl abusive parenting technique, "blanket training".
Well, they want to raise authority worshiping fascists, and it's good for that.
The phrase "1 little bottom" makes me want to puke.
My paddle hung on a nail next to my bedroom door for convenient access. I would be threatened with it frequently.
The only reason I could ever see for hitting a child is if not doing so would imminently result in their severe injury or death, and that’s a contrived scenario.
this is just a religeon thing in general
In many circles, they're also taught to start spanking children at 6 months old.
The evangelicals say 'never use your hand, the hands are for expressing love' while the traumatized children say 'I could forgive it more easily from the hand because it feels less premeditated'
The more ritualistic it is, the more it is likely to be transmuted into a cycle-sustaining fetish down the line.
as a parent to FOUR KIDS, this horrifies me in new and astounding ways
That is so frighteningly psychopathic 😳😱
"Scripture, to taste" is a dead giveaway because it's so directly opposed to what they say they believe.
I'm gonna do a little dance the day James Dobson finally bites it
and it's like they force you to pre-absolve them of the action. Convince them that you understand why they're doing it, why it's justified, why you're really hurting them. Hated that shit
“Hands are for loving, spoons are for hitting” is what I grew up with.
My parents didn’t hit me thankfully but yeah this kind of thing was really really common and I thought it was creepy even before I left the church and realized how awful and twisted that world was.
Talia, just wanted to let you know I put my copy of your book on the book exchange cart after I finished it and it was taken in less than 2 days so we’re going to take that as a win for the longevity and durability of print.
I was trying to find the editorial/story about the Evangelical professor who faced discipline from her employer (Bob Jones University, I think) because she wouldn’t spank.
Please don’t hit your kids, ever.
It's really creepy how much of a culture has grown up among evangelicals about ritualistic spanking. It's a whole thing.
Kids who get hit by parents tend to have increased stress levels, and increased stress levels are bad for learning and otherwise bad for health.
I wouldn’t be surprised if kids who get hit by parents are more likely to engage in intimate partner violence as adults or be victims of such violence.
Yuck! Great way to get your kids into abusive relationships as adults!
...was anyone else in this situation?
I barely remember being hit, but throughout my childhood my mom would simply so much as point at or gesture at a large hairbrush hung on the wall and I would behave. Like the association somehow was enough to do the job, so it rarely if ever happened
they literally sell it at their church bake sales they think it's so funny cute and I am like....whaaaa!?!? nooooooo!!!!!
No need to apologise if you hit your kids when you’re calm. Because everyone knows righteous parents should never have to apologise🙄
Wonder if there's been a survey of:
Jesus
There’s a documentary I saw about Amish people and one of the women had a wooden spoon with a happy face carved on it that she called The Smiley to beat her kids with and she claimed that the kids would smile after their punishments. During the interview, one of her toddlers sees her with it and
As someone who used to have to wait for my spankings until my mom calmed down, [snipped to erase public trauma dumping], so hoo boy with this one
It sickens me honestly. Intentionally injuring someone, isn’t that more the remit of the guy downstairs with the horns and flames and pitchfork and stuff?
In my own childhood, the ritualism was most pronounced when it was the administrators of the evangelical school (in our evangelical church) doing the abuse. By contrast, the stepfather always struck in anger. I can confirm: the calm, detached violence was not better.
