In Reply to: sadism or blindness? posted by lydia on October 15, 2006 at 08:37:02:
Your point is well taken and underlines some limitations of this discussion. On one hand, there is the medium and mode: written communications and only brief comments. On the other hand, this topic may not be being looked at properly.
“Wow you guys seem so fanatical. So there are parents who don't know how to raise children and abuse happens. So we should make laws against such happenings. Never mind that the MAJORITY of children are being raised in quite a normal household with parents who do their best and care for the children. They know the difference between abuse and admistering appropiate disciple for the health and safety of the child.”
Although I can only speak for myself, I dare say that you are verbalizing something that is in most people’s minds during these discussions. If I am wrong, I think there is an even worse problem than having different opinions. I never thought that we are discussing actions of reasonable and sensitive people but those of people who are not reasonable and sensitive. I know at least one case where a father “taught” his son not to play with a hot iron by burning his arm with it – on purpose! I also know of very many instances where verbal violence left people with horrible emotional scars for the rest of their lives. Obviously there are no one-size-fits-all solutions either for discipline or for teaching. And we haven’t even make a differentiation between these two. Most people confuse actions directed to disciplining and those directed to teaching. Many people don’t see any differences between these two, much less of when to do what.
“I find it totally inappropiate to label people who are balanced to either being blind or getting a thrill out of it. (sadism). By sensationalising the discussion you take away any chance of real discussion.”
Again, my perspective of the discussion is that it takes for granted that the vast majority of people have genuine love and concern for their children (this is the way I understand when you say “normal household”). My problem with this, and the reason why I stated the “blindness” portion of my initial comments, is that loving and caring parents may and will form dysfunctional households. In other words, people may love their children but when the children are secondary, there is a certain amount of “blindness”, consciously or not. It is then when some abuse, willing or unwilling, may happen. Likewise, in these very same situations of perfectly normal homes (in your definition of parents who do their best) negligence may take place as a result of aloofness. Under these circumstances, a parent may seek and find support from a belief structure that provides consolation and approval to whichever behavior, extremely hard/harsh or extremely lenient/aloof.
Notice than at no point I am saying that these parents are not loving or do not care about their children. From your first paragraph I copy above, I agree with “Never mind that the MAJORITY of children are being raised in quite a normal household with parents who do their best and care for the children.” I am not sure about the first part of the sentence about “normal household” because I don’t have numbers on that but I believe the vast majority of parents do their best and do care for their children, even in a cult like The Family. It is their understanding of “best” that is in question as well as the actual action that results regardless of their “best” intentions. We often don’t do the best, even if we know what it is.
Neither am I sure about your last sentence: “They know the difference between abuse and admistering appropiate disciple for the health and safety of the child”. In fact, I don’t think it is accurate. Most of us replicate what we have experienced and have assimilated. We do what we know and what we have learned. We may try our best because our objective is not failure but how do we know that our way is the best way to handle every situation?
To answer this question, and to maintain our sanity when facing some dilemmas, we use a simple test: the personal experience test. If we had tried something, or something had happened to us, and after we had evaluated the results we decided it was beneficial, we tend to accept it is good – otherwise, it is bad. It is a very subjective response and we do it so automatically that we hardly think about it. We know what worked with us or for us, and that is what we try again with our children.
(Since I think this discussion is turning into a more formal discussion, I will continue this post in the Academics Board.)