I’m interested in people further up the thread discussing violence towards children in relation to DV. I don’t believe anyone has the right to hit anyone else if they are not under immediate threat, and I soooo include children in that ‘anyone’. Thing is, I work with families who cause anti-social behaviour and I have never yet come across one of these families who’ve agreed; when I explain to parents that by hitting their children (and I don’t mean a spanking for discipline, I mean beating the child as a means of dispersing parental anger) they as parents teach their children that violence is the best and quickest answer to a disagreement they look at me bewildered and puzzled. Often I hear “My parents hit me and it didn’t do me any harm”. And then I ask how did you feel when your parents were hitting you? Did you think in that moment ‘I am being hit because I did wrong and I will no longer do this wrong’ or did you hate them for it and take that rage and frustration elsewhere with you? And I say to these parents that if you are so angry that you want to hit your child you are too angry to discipline them effectively.

I know this sounds wishy-washy bleeding-heart liberal to these parents, and they think it’s bullshit. And I ask them to think about it, and next time their child does wrong to just stop for a second and see if they can punish them another way. Sometimes the parents agree to do this, and they get a good result (child stops misbehaving, household stress levels don’t escalate etc). More often they think “Fuck you, you fucking do-gooder” and carry on hitting the children. Who may or may not one day hit their parents back, but will almost certainly go on to hit someone else…

My parents weren’t physically abusive but my dad was incredibly verbally abusive (being called ‘stupid’ still makes me cringe in fear) and would get amazingly, hugely and inappropriately angry at me, my brother and my mum, and still does (he thinks nothing of calling my mother a ‘stupid fucking bitch’ in the middle of the supermarket if she gets the wrong item); my mother is utterly cowed by him, refuses to acknowledge the violence inherent in their relationship and their parenting of us and uses passive-aggression to retaliate. In some ways it would almost have BEEN better if he’d hit us… She is 60 now and has spent the last 35 years hating her husband- how sad is that? The most tragic thing of all is that now he’s retired and can fully control her and everything she does she says they’re the happiest they’ve ever been…

For my money any partner who abuses (physically or emotionally) their ‘beloved’ wants locking up and the key throwing away so they can’t go on to do it to someone else… And my greatest fear is turning into my dad, like my brother has…

The violence is all too human. It will stay with those two forever whether the news forgets about it, whether their careers move on. Celebrity isn’t worth everything because obviously it can’t save you from this kind of situation. If I saw the news print anything I would like it to be a reminded that this problem affects both rich and poor and no one should think “this wouldn’t happen to anyone I know.” That’s what I’d like adults to know. Even the men need to hear that people just like them do things like this. If they learn about anger, how to control it, make up their mind that they never will resort to that kind of violence…force themselves to consider the topic BEFORE a situation occurs….that would be a good thing.

It’s like alcoholism or so many other things…when you’re drunk you may not be able to make the right decisions…when you’ve had too much to drink, if you are acting in a way that is hurtful to someone. The time to face your behavior, consider what it’s done to your life, if you’re drinking to avoid problems, whether you need to stop drinking – is when you’re sober. And sometimes a good education about alcohol before someone develops a problem can prevent one from even happening. It’s not fun to think about, but sometimes it has to be done.

For the kids, the message should be plain and clear, this kind of violence is wrong. Girls need character education as much as guys do, I’m not going to lie. But in this situation, where the female is a victim, no one should be talking about what she did. Because it will dilute the messasge that young people, boys and girls, need to hear, that this kindof violence is wrong. The message I want young people to hear is “what he did was wrong” not “I can understand why he did it” (which may have some truth, but it doesn’t make it right, and kids may hear it as an acceptable excuse) and “this shouldn’t ruin his career” (which isn’t true, people have to take responsibility for their actions, his have way worse consequences than just his career, and if that’s people’s main worry that’s messed up and not the priorities I want kids to hear)

Let a counselor worry about Chris Brown as a person and how he’s handling it. How he deals with it is private and his own business. But because the story has become public, how the media covers it and the messages it sends by how it talks about him affects people. And like Kate, that I am concerned about.

Clearly Brown was stronger than she was and in all cases if she attacked him first restraining her as a form of self defense would have been the best choice available to him if he were unable to walk away. No one, no matter what they do deserves to be beaten. If you’re that angry walk away if you can.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to make it official that Sugar is neither perfect nor a perfect lady, and that my hippie worldview leaves plenty of room for a good old-fashioned snarkbeasting when deemed necessary. This is my version of self-defense, model mugging be damned. Us catty wimminfolk and our sharp, sharp tongues, you know.

Linda, I directly addressed your concerns. To you, by name. Not that I needed to, since I’d already explained how badly worded my previous post had been, and apologized for such because even I can see how easy it was to misconstrue my meaning based on the way I said it, and emotions on this subject were raw enough without my mishap.

Clearly, your Internet Listening Mechanism is busted. Let me spell a few things out for you.

One: your continued insistence that I advocate abusing children has crossed the line from ignorant to insulting. Do kindly shut the fuck up.

Two: I have a close family, and considering all my parents have done for me and continue to do, I’m infinitely more insulted at the implication they were/are abusive. If you don’t want to kindly shut the fuck up, at least direct further vitriol at ME, as I am the only one here to engage you, and at least now, I somewhat deserve it.

THANKS, AND PEACE OUT!
Love,
Sugar

P.S. for future ref, this is 2009. MLA format (that’s Modern Language Additions) dictates that insults concerning one’s parentage in this day and age properly begin with “yo mama.” just fyi.

Anger management does NOT address the root cause of abuse. I’m not sure what does. It’s just a way for abusers to minimize their reactions as a healthy emotion that just needs a little management…. couldn’t be farther from the truth.

I’ve made it a habit to look for opportunities to say things that screw with the Perfect Mom rhetoric that’s so pervasive these days. It’s one part of my activism.

So when I said basically, “Well, my kids are often obnoxious, but I don’t so much fret about it” etc. it was part rejoinder to you, but it was also me doing what I try to do generally — i.e. not give the expected answer or read the lines from the cultural mom script. It wasn’t a lie: my kids are often obnoxious, as am I, and I really *don’t* worry about that too much. But it was still somewhat calculated, or at least, it’s what I try to do in general to screw with the motherhood script and hopefully show its inadequacy.

BUT: that’s just me and how I’ve chosen to resist. I don’t mean to suggest that people whose lives happen to conform in certain ways to the script are the *real* Bad Mothers — just like people whose bodies happen to conform more closely to the current ideal don’t have Bad Bodies.

Anyway, I hope that gives more context. I think reading back that it came across as 100 percent snark at you. Which… I mean, it’s true I was enjoying the banter and was in a silly mood. But the wider context is that I personally look for any opportunity to say things that, while they are true descriptions of my life, still fall under the heading of “What You Are Not Supposed To Say If You’re A Good Mother.” I feel like that’s a way I can help broaden the definition of what mothers are supposed to be.

So I certainly apologize if, for lack of that context, my remark was harsh and pointed. Hopefully that blunts it somewhat? I forget that people can’t read my mind. :)

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying that.

Urgh. Well, my comment (“I was nice to them, and surprise!, they learned to be nice”) was unhelpfully simplistic. I didn’t mean to imply that anyone who is treated kindly and compassionately is going to be perfect by whatever definition, or that there aren’t other factors that determine behavior. Just that hurting children isn’t necessary to them learning good behavior.

Regarding my use of the term original sin — I’ve heard it used by people in espousing the belief that children are inherently bad, which they associate with the notion of the “necessity” of corporal punishment, and that’s what I meant it to refer to. I apologize to any who felt that my use of the term implied that Christian parents are not kind, etc. That was not my intent.

***But in any case, I kind of think it’s a bit of a derail, Linda. (volcanista)***

In a discussion about domestic violence, which is a parallel issue (outrage at domestic violence is just not logically or morally compatible with support for controlling or punishing children by hurting them, either physically or emotionally) and in which violence against children in the name of “discipline” has already been brought up to address a part of that discussion, it seems appropriate to me to respond to that. In any case, I don’t think it’s ever inappropriate to challenge a statement about the necessity and goodness of hurting children, regardless of the relevancy to the topic at hand.

OTOH, the strength differential remains. Back when I was doing kung fu you could give me a man of any size who was less technically skilled and I could beat him easily, but give me a man with equal skill and my size or even smaller and he’d win every time. And that’s in a situation with rules, where certain things just aren’t allowed.

CassandraSays, that’s just why Impact/Model Mugging was formed. A woman who had a black belt in karate was raped, and she and all her friends decided that obviously martial arts training was not enough. Impact is all about fighting like a woman (fighting from the ground using legs, not arms) and fighting really dirty. One quote I remember from class was “he can’t restrain you and protect all his vulnerable areas at the same time”. Also, doing full-force fighting means you get lots of practice in hitting back hard.

And yeah, a lot of it is learning how to set boundaries verbally. I once unleashed my Impact voice on my husband when he tickled me longer than I wanted, and boy howdy, did he back off fast. And yes, it is a very good thing that he and some of my male friends saw the final class where I fought off attackers when I was standing, and when I started off lying down with my eyes closed.

Man, I wish my dogs had thumbs.