This is from a Facebook post I wrote in response to someone justifying the AP position.
If you are disciplining your child until you cause physical bodily harm such as drawing blood (many cuts even to his ball sack) even if by accident you then become a child abuser. The intent of the abuser is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if he didn’t intend to cut his child, he did and by definition under the law he is now a child abuser. You can NOT change the definition of words to suit your position. The fact that we are even discussing this hurts my head.
Here is a fact check, he hit his kid in public, it wasn’t private at all. Look at the facts man! So let me get this straight, a parent cuts their child up and it’s supposed to stay private, that’s where it belongs? Also, she may be the ex-girlfriend, but she is the Mother, are you telling me that if my child arrived to me from the care of my ex with cuts all over his body, I am supposed to keep this private. GIVE ME A F#&*ING BREAK. How dare you even suggest this. You know these are the facts right? The boy actually lives most of the time with the Mother. This is a Mother not some jealous ex-girlfriend. A Mother has a right and duty to protect her son from this monster. How can you say otherwise?
Yeah my Dad hit me too, until in grade 7 when I had progressed enough in Karate to tell him if he touches me again and I am going to KICK HIS ASS. Whenever I am out in public and I see anyone hit their child I immediately say something. I will always protect the human rights of children wherever and whenever. What gives anyone the right to treat their child opposed to how under the law they wouldn’t be treated? Assault is a crime. How can anyone use the excuse “well I was hit as a kid”. Show me anywhere else you would accept such unbelievably flawed logic. If something is wrong it is wrong, it is totally irrelevant whether it “happened to you as a kid”. You can’t pick and choose when you are going to use logic to suit your purposes. Using “it was done to me as a kid” to justify your position in logic is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous positions to take that I have seen in a while. Anyone taking this position must be a victim. This is the ONLY rationale. In psychology this is the classic victim scenario. Abandon all reason to support the circle of shame. I would highly recommend anyone taking this position look hard and fast within themselves to determine how badly they themselves were beat as a child. If you were severely beat as I child, I suggest you come to terms with this even if it requires outside help before you pass on the circle of shame to another generation. End the cycle man, end the cycle.
Although I agree we do live in somewhat of a soft society, hitting your kids is not the answer. Yes without hitting kids parents don’t know how to discipline their kids but that is because they haven’t learned new techniques. Our society is evolving; at least in the more civilized parts of the world people are realizing it’s wrong to hit your kids. Some of us however, have learned how to discipline without hitting. Now we use our intelligence to achieve compliance. You actually have to use your brain to think up ways to get across your wishes to your child.
Also, think of the oxymoron here. You tell your kid to treat others how you want to be treated but then you hit your kid, so essentially you are telling your kid it is OK to hit others. You quickly contradict yourself with your child then as soon as your child is old enough he or she realizes how ridiculous this is and loses the last if any respect they had left for you. Think about the logic man. AP’s kid physically harmed his brother, so his Dad, to teach him not to harm his brother, his Dad harms him. My head just exploded. The cycle just continues and continues, the cycle of abuse.
To go back to the law in Texas he will be found guilty because the law in Texas states that a parent shall be allowed to use force that is consistent with community standards. In this case he went over the line and cut his child. Yes you can whop your kid in the south but I highly doubt a jury of peers will accept the level of harm he caused on this child. You saw the pictures right? That is not going to go down. Here is some conjecture which soon will be fact: what AP did was illegal, it will be determined to be child abuse and indeed he will be convicted as such.
What about the deeper psychology of this. Supporting AP means you support, at least in some way, the deep underlying effects of slavery. The only reason he has learned to beat his kids is because his ancestors in Ameerika, were beat severely. It is a social institution in the south, “it’s the way things are done”. If anyone mentions “it’s the way it’s done in the south” and you support that, you need to give your head a shake. Anything about the way it was done in the south needs to be looked at hard and fast. Beating your kids is not a social institution that should be continued, just like slavery, it has to die. And if you think slavery is dead also give your head a shake. Do you know how many Africans are still slaving in prison under trumped up charges or other absolutely ridiculous drug charges, etc. Yes, anyone is entitled to their opinion, but in this case I wouldn’t want to be on the side of something that needs to go away.
You do not need to hit your child in order to install discipline. It is possible to establish clear and consistent guidelines for behavior without hitting your child. I can tell you from experience as I have a 15 yr. old and a 3 yr. old. Try holding your kid in a hug like position and talking to them quietly. Doing this, they actually listen to you and learn something. Do you think kids learn what you really want them to learn when they get hit, especially at 4 yrs. old. Give me a break. If you think kids do learn something from getting hit then explain to me why parents beat their kids so hard and so many times over and over for years upon years. If it takes this many years to learn anyway, the same amount of time it takes with hitting, then why not choose the path of least resistance. The path of positivity, happiness and enjoyment rather than the path of pain and suffering. It doesn’t sound like someone learning anything if it happens over and over and over. In the end the child will become invested in the exchange and strangely will do anything to keep up the cycle of abuse; in some cases thinking this may be his only chance to spend any time with his Dad.
If AP’s kid thinks its ok to push his brother off a bike, then AP has already failed as a parent. Actually one of the big reasons parents lose their temper and want to hit their children is because they are angry at themselves because they know they have failed as a parent. If your child has repetitive negative behavior then sorry you are failing as a parent. If a child does something wrong one time then shouldn’t a child be allowed to make one mistake without getting hit. Bottom line, there is never an excuse to hit your child, this is such a cowardly and lazy way of dealing with a problem. It also shows a complete lack of intelligence in dealing with the situation.
I really hope anyone who is supporting the AP camp will reconsider their position and join the camp of humanity and decency.