In Reply to: thank you, Lydia posted by Acheick on October 15, 2006 at 11:56:35:
Wow, does that really happen in your state? I can't imagine sending a twelve yr old from school on a bus to get an abortion and then back to school as if nothing had ever happened.
I also understand why there are protections in place for minors who fear their parents might not understand and would force them to have a baby which their bodies and their minds are not ready for.
I don't like seeing abortion used as birth control and places that provide abortions also provide some excellent information and assistance with prevention. Best thing on the market that I can think of is the morning after pill for anyone that is not ready to have children and forgot to use a condom or other protection.
I have often thought about this:
Some people believe that even birth control is sinful. For that matter, wouldn't that make celibacy a sin? Because by being celibate a person is preventing the birth of a child. I think about when Berg wrote in a letter about how women should have children until they either die or give out and that if they die then the man can get a new model.
Now THAT kind of thinking is what scares me.
I know we both grew up in an age when spanking was normal, legal and societally approved. In fact if a person didn't spank they were treated as if they were weird. At the same time there were far too many parents who were abusive with spanking and I think coat hangers falls into that category as does lash style belt whippings, hitting with fists, kicking, pulling hair and shaking and all that. I remember being really little and seeing an episode of "Ben Casey" where the outraged doctor confronted parents of a child who had been visciously beaten with a belt. I am sure glad for "Ben" because at least it helps me, looking back, to realize that even back then beatings and abuse were not approved of.
Mr. Don talked about being spanked with a plastic ruler which broke and he and his mother both laughed about it and that was the last spanking he got. Doesn't sound like abuse to me especially in context of how society was then.
But considering how harsh discipline was in the family and how over-used it was, I can understand how sensitive people are about this subject (and I know you do too) if they grew up in the Family and had multiple and any harsh discipline or if they were violently physically abused as a child. I am sure you and others here also are concerned about that.
I think this is the main problem with the discussion. Because someone spanked or got spanked doesn't mean they were abused or abusers per se, neither does it mean they advocate for harsh discipline.
I just think the methods of working with children are far better today than ever in Western Countries where protections are in place.
Most problems with acting out seem to occur when children feel ostracised, parents don't have time to spend with their children because of financial reasons to keep the home going or because they just choose not to because they are too busy with their own lives or one parent is while the other is overwhelmed managing the family, or a single parent is overwhelmed trying to do everything.
Poverty causes huge problems. There are so many factors for what causes violence in youth.
Even though we may have very different views on corporal punishment as far as utilizing it at all, or on abortion, I know that both of us care about children and did the best we could for our own.
Every good parent spends some time looking back at how they did things and regretting some of what they did or did not do because we are all going to make mistakes or for us we got sucked into a cult run by a man who had no respect for women or children and we were too green to know how screwed up a person like Berg can be and too afraid of what was taught to defy it, feeling that would be "bad" in the "Through the Looking Glass" world of the Family.