Spanking leaves indelible marks

The American Association of Pediatrics recently came out with a statement on spanking, which can be succinctly summarized as:

I think my favorite comment on this article when it showed up on Le Book Du Face was from a counselor who works with perpetrators of domestic violence who say, without a trace of irony, "I was smacked around a lot when I was a kid and I turned out okay."

Oh, you did, did you? Well. That's an interesting thing to believe.

Yes, I know a case can be made that, in extremis, it's better for a toddler who is about to run out into the street to feel the pain of a swat than the pain of being hit by a car. But spanking, swatting, paddling, or otherwise striking small children gets handed out all too often as the default reaction when a parent is angry. And that can turn dangerous in the blink of an eye.

I think people know this already, deep inside. You know that when people tack on "but I turned out okay" to stories of being spanked, they're already implicitly admitting that spanking can and does cause harm. But we've got a cult of parenthood that says we can't critique our parenting because everyone around us says, "But she's your mooootheeeerrr!" and... you know the rest. So we learn to pretend that it was with our best interests in mind that we were hit, or that it didn't really hurt, or hoo boy it did really hurt and wasn't that just hilarious?

No. It's not.

I was a shy child. I was sensitive in the emotional way that adults mean when they say with annoyance, "Stop being so sensitive!" as well as, I believe, some sensory sensitivities. I didn't need to be hit. I didn't need to be yelled at. A disappointed look, a frown, a raised voice all hurt and could stop me in my tracks, unless I was super over-tired and slap-happy as preschoolers can sometimes be. I was a smart kid. Explaining things to me was effective. Praise worked wonders. But I did get hit and I did get yelled at and I did live with mockery and criticism far, far more than I ever got praised.

My mother, having been raised on such old-fashioned methods herself, often spanked with a wooden spoon or a hairbrush or other such implement that came to hand. Not just one swat but multiple strikes on the backside. She had, I believe, the notion that if children weren't firmly disciplined and controlled then they would, without fail, run wild. Children must obey was her key phrase, because children who did not obey immediately would grow to break their mothers' hearts and end up in prison or on drugs or something. I also believe that when I was a small child there were... things... going on. I remember hearing raised voices and frequent arguments. There was tension in the household. Later we would move -- a lot -- as my dad searched for jobs that paid better and better. My mother, who had neuroses of her own, was probably feeling parts of her life were out of control, and compensated by trying hard to control the household. Including her children.

But I was just a small person who didn't understand. When you're small and the adults in charge of you are large and not entirely in control of themselves, and when they lose control when they're angry, it's terrifying. On one memorable occasion when I was a preschooler, my mother was spanking me repeatedly and angrily with a hairbrush so hard that the handle cracked and broke. I remember clear as day that she looked horrified at the broken implement, then shouted:

That's the sort of spanking that leaves a permanent mark on the soul. She often said later that after that incident she never struck me again with anything but an open hand.

Did that assuage the pain that hung heavy over my heart like black tumor? No, it did not. Hitting is hitting.

Now Mom, to her credit, had an idea that she'd gleaned from some book of parenting or magazine article or something about spanking. According to some expert, when one disciplines a child, one should also hug the child to reassure the child that they're loved and that all is well.

It's a pleasant and innocent sort of notion, and I'm sure my mother pictured it going like this:

However, what sounds like it ought to work in theory turns out to be naive and overly-optimistic in practice. And this, from the pre-schooler's point of view, is what it felt like in practice, and why by the time I was six I didn't like it when my mother touched me -- at all:

Did I just hear a collective gasp from the audience? I think I did. Because you all get this, right? You all get what I as a child was being taught? Large Angry Adult hits Small Upset Child until they cry and want to run away -- and then Large Angry Adult forces a hug on the Small Upset Child, threatening punishment if they don't submit, if they don't do it "right."

Large Angry Adult, with reinforcement from some child-rearing expert that I'd like to hit very hard at this moment, is teaching the Small Upset Child that they're not allowed to say no to forced physical contact.

I... don't even want to think right now about how that played out in my so-called marriage #1. Because... yeah... when being punished for saying "no" is the norm... well, that was the soul-crushing pit that I call so-called marriage #1. The part that most people never heard about, certainly not from him.

And that is what I mean when I say that spanking leaves indelible marks. On the soul. You don't forget these lessons. They try to replay themselves, so deeply burned they are into the subconscious. It takes a lot of practice and conscious thought to live by better rules, while the old rules still live like venomous snakes in the back of the mind, hissing, "Be nice and don't say 'no' or you'll be soooorrryyy..."