I was brought up to be polite, to not hurt other’s feelings, and to not be rude.  I wish, though, that I had also learned how to honor my own feelings, and put a stop to anyone violating my right, my body, etc.

Habits, paradigms, and a sense of self-validation are so important for each of us.  Those things are established most strongly into our own personal foundations as children.

If a child is brought up to value himself, or herself, to value his or her thoughts and senses and to learn solid self-preservation and have clear boundries for their bodies and spirit, that child as an adult would be less likely to put up with someone doing something wrong to them, at least for any length of time.

Children must learn to say no when things are not right for them.  They must learn that when someone touches them inappropriately, when their stomach goes into a knot, no matter how the person who is doing it explains it away or who that person is, that they must trust their own feelings, never go near that person, and to let those who care about them know.

I say all this because as a knowing adult I allowed someone to sexually harrass me for a some months until it became too obvious for me to ignore.  I am not dumb … but I had such a misplaced need not to hurt feelings, that when he began to act hurt at my keeping away, I ended up feeling guilty for hurting his feelings.  It took this weekend, talking with a few women friends, and remembering everying, to make me realize how things really were, and I felt an incredible anger.

I was not taught to say no as a child.  I was strongly coded to be polite, smile, and not cause trouble.

I say there is time to be rude, to yell NO, to cause trouble if one has to.  There is a time to stop the violation of your right to safety, to staying whole, to not allowing anyone to touch you in ways that you do not want to be touched!

Last night at a comedy club, a somewhat misguided, but very funny, stand up comedian passionately spewed the need for parents to beat their children.  He explained that children need a good beating.  A “good” beating appears to me to be an oxymoron, but he insisted that it was needed for the children to turn out RIGHT.

The content of that first part of his comedy did not find me laughing.  I know I can lack a sense of humor surrounding the topic of hitting children since I am adamantly against it, but the next part of what this comedian said did get me laughing, and whether I was laughing at him for his exact intended meaning, I am uncertain, but I was laughing nevertheless.

After many iterations of “children need a good beating,” he then paused for a second and said, “some parents need a good beating sometimes too”   I thought this morning about why I laughed at that when I am not an advocate of violence.  Here are my thoughts on it.

I don’t understand why adults cannot honestly think through an issue so simple as this one.  It is as if they want to believe in something solely because it justifies their current behavior.  Let’s face it, and look at what spanking really comes down to if you really and honestly look at it.  It is a big person getting angry or frustrated at not knowing how to control a little tiny person with their intellect, and thus resorting to a physical act.  It is really just that!  If you disagree, it is because you don’t want to face the truth!

I’ll return to why I laughed so hard when the comic mentioned that some parents need good-beatings.

There is something so deeply immoral and uncivilized about adults who beat or even just spank and use physical force to teach a lesson.   I am entertained by the notion of physical force being used against those who would use physical force on children.

What if those parents who choose to use physical punishments to answer the misdeeds that their own children commit got the same response to their misbehaviors.  If we can be honest about it, we should clearly realize that we adults make mistakes and do things wrong every day.  What if we got physically punished for every one of our own mistakes… what would that feel like?  Don’t we want to be corrected kindly, with intelligent and thought through guidance?  And we’re adults!  Why can’t we return the same favor to our own children?  Why can’t we treat their mistakes the way we would want to be treated.

I am not trying to claim that this is an easy thing of which to be mindful.  We don’t give this kind of grace to other adults all the time; it’s a challenge for me to do it.

The ability to stop think and reflect should be of the utmost importance to us in dealing with our own children.

The reason for my laughter when the comic said that some parents need good beatings was that I was picturing the parents who beat their children getting their good beatings from someone proportionately larger by the same ratio as they are to their own children.

Using verbal communication to guide our children has many wonderful effects on our children’s lives and the lives of us as parents.  The positive side effects of the act of talking and connecting is that you grow even closer with your children, and instead of fostering fear, you foster trust.  The children who grow up this way have very little need to lie to their parents, which then provides for them a secure and safe place to be themselves and feel comfortable.  A comfortable child has less chances of taking dangerous actions that place them at risk… Those children have more self-confidence to jump into life and realize their dreams with more ease.  And we all want that for our children, don’t we?