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| Caning a child is strictly against the law in Sweden. |
Firstly, I have to say that the Malaysian couple deserved to be jailed for two reasons. The first is that they broke Swedish law. Laws do vary around the world from country to country and you cannot say, "well in my country where I come from, we do things differently and I am going to ignore the laws in your country whilst I am there because I am a foreigner." Tough shit, you're in their country, you jolly well obey their laws. Let me give you an example. Cannabis is legal in the Netherlands, but totally illegal in Singapore. Would a Dutch person caught bringing Cannabis into Singapore (effectively drug trafficking) be able to plead, "oh in my country, Cannabis is totally legal - this is just a cultural misunderstanding." No way, that would not stand up in court. Get real, that is not a valid excuse.
In Sweden, any kind of corporal punishment is illegal and has been since 1979 - that means no matter how angry or exasperated the child makes the parent, it remains illegal for the parent to smack the child, no matter how much the naughty child may deserve that smacking. Now you may or may not agree with that law but it is what it is and has been there since 1979 in Sweden. If you have such a fundamental problem with it, then the solution is simple: don't go to Sweden, don't live and work in Sweden. The law is the law: it is not a smörgåsbord where you pick and choose what you like from it: you either accept it and abide by it or simply leave Sweden. You don't have a choice in the matter.
This is why I adamantly refuse to defend parents who hit their children - I am bloody sick and tired of Singaporeans telling themselves the lie that "it's for your own good, it hurts your parents more when they have to hit you to punish you." That's such bullshit. I had to accept the truth that my mother was psychotic because she had serious mental health issues and we lived in fear of her because she had little or no control over her actions. I feel bad because as a family, we failed her - we failed to get her the help she needed but as the youngest child in the family, I did wonder if my mother's siblings or my father could've done so much more to have done more about her mental health situation. She didn't abuse me out of love, she abused me because she had serious mental health issues - there's no delicate way to put this. This is something I spent years coming to terms with and had blogged about a lot. Hence these Swedish laws are absolutely necessary to protect children from parents who are incapable of controlling their rage.
There are other forms of punishment available, good alternatives to hitting your children. The denial of privileges is the best alternative - so for example, children these days are hooked on their mobile phones. Threatening to confiscate the phone is probably a much better deterrent. Compare this, "if you don't finish your homework, I will beat you up," to "if you don't finish your homework, I will take away your mobile phone for a week." Which do you think will be more effective? I say, just the threat of taking away the mobile phone and switching off the WiFi router should be more than enough in most cases if you want your children to do something like revise for an important exam.
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| There is a right and wrong way to get children to comply. |
I must make this point loud and clear: parents who beat their children are setting a terrible example for their children - they are bad parents. What kind of message are you sending to your children when you turn to physical violence instead of using reason? The parents in this case hit their son over things like, "for such things as playing loud music instead of doing homework, fighting with his sister, or misbehaving when he was meant to be reading the Koran with his mother." Let's explore these three issue in more detail to see where they went wrong.
It is important to get one's children to do homework - but how about structuring it in a way so that the child will be motivated to do his homework? "I know you want to listen to your music, but you need to do your homework first. Once you finish your homework, you can get to listen to your music, but not too loudly, okay?" And as for siblings fighting, great - you want them to get along, so instead of reasoning with them why they should be considerate to one another, they resort to violence and hits them instead. How ironic - they don't want their children to fight so they beat up their children instead. #irony #badparents And as for reading the Koran, it is up to you as the parent o explain why your children have to read the Koran - if they don't have a deep enough appreciation for Islam to understand why they need to read the Koran, then surely the solution is to explain the Koran to them, making it relevant to their lives and helping them learn about their religion. Nope, instead of taking the trouble to do all that, the parents simply choose to beat up their children. What kind of terrible pareningt is this? Don't give me the crap that it's a cultural misunderstanding - Aku orang Asia, aku yang dari Singapura and I'm telling you that this is really very bad parenting, Asian or not.
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| Let's not assume that Asian parenting is blameless and perfect. |
I am saying it loud and clear: this Malaysian couple are in the wrong and deserve to be in jail. They have no control over their temper and their children badly need guidance, support and instruction - not violence. After all, when the children were questioned by the police, they told the truth which lead to the parents being jailed. Did any one question why these Malaysian children were so readily testifying against their own parents? After all, the children were the ones who first brought up the beatings to their teachers in school - who in turn were obliged to report the case to the authorities. The children could have kept quiet about the beatings and suffered in silence - they chose not to. I suspect that they knew exactly what they were doing - they clearly wanted the daily beatings to stop, but perhaps they didn't expect their parents to be jailed for such a long time. Even I am slightly shocked at just how swift and harsh Swedish justice is - but perhaps that is a good thing, they really should not get away with this.
There are good reasons why a civilized country like Sweden makes this kind of smacking illegal - children have no means of fighting back when parents become abusive like that. I know because I was at the receiving end of this for so many years as a child. There was absolutely nothing I could do when my mother vented her anger and frustration out on me physically - this is why I am living 8 time zones away from my parents and I have a very distant relationship with them today. I am ever so resentful of the way Asian culture tries to convince children that these beatings are acceptable culturally and that it is for their own good. Well, that's just bullshit - there's this assumption that Asian parents know what they are doing and can do no wrong. What about cases like mine, where you have a parent with serious mental health issues but nobody takes any notice because it's perfectly okay to beat the shit out of your children in Asia? No, that's just wrong man. I just don't accept that it, I will not sweep this issue under the carpet.
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| The law needs to protect defenseless young children from bad parents. |
You know what the sad part of this story is? This couple pleaded "not guilty" and still have massive public support in Malaysia (despite some voices of reason speaking out) - many Malaysians are turning this into an Mat Salleh/Angmoh vs orang Malaysia issue when really, ethnicity has nothing to do with the case. This is not about racism, this is about protecting children and the responsibility of parents. I hope that they do spend their long jail sentences in Sweden repenting and thinking about their actions, but I doubt they will actually change their ways. After they are released from jail, they will go back to Malaysia and probably continue abusing their children. I feel sorry for their children.
In part 2, I will be interviewing a Swedish-Muslim friend of mine Bahar about this issue. My regular readers will remember the interview I did with Bahar a while ago about her journey from Iran to Sweden. I am keen to get a Swedish perspective on the issue, particularly about the allegation that the children were fed non-Halal food when put into care after their parents were arrested. Part 2 is now ready, please click here and part 3 is also available now here. In the meantime, do let me know your thoughts on this issue - please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading, tack så mycket, terima kasih.
Read this article awhile back and think it's worth sharing, why you should raise your kids to learn how to argue:
ReplyDeletehttp://inpraiseofargument.squarespace.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/
It probably takes longer than 12 months to change someone's beliefs that were formed over many years. This Malaysian couple, just like the Malaysian public, have grown to find corporal punishment acceptable and it won't be easy to change their mindset. I'm afraid that couple may become more resentful after their jail term and vent it out on their children when they return to Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, I really feel sorry for their children.
DeleteWhen in Sweden, do as the Swedes do. When in Malaysia, do as the Malaysians do. It's that simple. Like you said, if a Swedish couple were to break some laws in Malaysia, they would have been jailed/executed. There is nothing to debate about. I can't believe there is even an uproar about it in Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteRemember how the American made such a big fuss when Michael Fay was convicted for graffiti and he was caned? Same thing. When in Rome etc. Why do people have so much difficulty understanding this basic concept?
DeleteAbout Michael Fay: do you think he would have been caned if he were not an obnoxious American kid? If he were local, would he just get a slap? I was already overseas when that happened, so I was rather out of the loop.
DeleteFay actually got his sentence reduced after Clinton intervened personally. If he was a local, he would've faced a far harsher sentence. A HK teenager who was arrested with Fay had a much harsher sentence handed out to him as he didn't have the president of American pleading on his behalf.
DeleteI do not blame Clinton for pleading on his behalf. After all, he did not say not to punish him. Just to show him leniency. Clinton was asked to plead, and he did. Cost him nothing, but he gained votes. Any smart politician would have done that. However, fact of the matter is, Faye got caned and jailed. Singapore did not relent. Why should Sweden not serve out some jail time to the Malaysians? I can accept if the Malaysian government plead for leniiency, but the people should not condemn the Swedish government. I googled, and some people are condemning the Swedes. Seriously? Again, it's the stupid mob mentality that lynched Anton Casey. It's irrational. My blood boils when I read about the stupidity of these people.
DeleteIs it acceptable to beat your wife , and if not, then why is it acceptable to beat a child?
ReplyDeleteSo true!!
DeleteIt is not acceptable to beat your wife, but it is acceptable to beat a child because of the simple reason that a child is not an adult and an adult is not a child.
DeleteA child may not necessarily have the knowledge and reasoning power to think of the consequences of his or her actions.
But a child [and an adult] can easily identify doing the wrong thing when harsh punishments are present. Lee Kuan Yew frequently cites that he was impressed with how the Japanese maintained law and order during the occupation, and says that [quote] I have never believed those who advocate a soft approach to crime and punishment, claiming that punishment does not reduce crime. That was not my experience in Singapore before the war, during the Japanese occupation or subsequently. [unquote] http://www.postcolonialweb.org/singapore/government/leekuanyew/lky12.html
No, I completely disagree with you - it is never acceptable to beat a child under any circumstances. It is the parents' responsibility to find a way to impart that knowledge and find a way to help the child understand the reasons behind why s/he needs to do something (go to bed early, study for an exam, etc). I am not saying that punishments should be banned - there can be all kinds of other punishments (they fall under the umbrella term "the withdrawal of privileges") without actually resorting to beating a child.
DeleteYou talk about children as if they are like dogs or cats - with no ability whatsoever to reason or think, when they do, their thought process may be different from that of adults, but it then boils down to the parents having enough knowledge of child psychology to be able to communicate with the child effectively. If a parent fails, then clearly that's the parents' fault, not the child's fault. There are plenty of parents who have children without having the right parenting skills - they then resort to beating their children when they cannot control their kids and whose fault is that?
It is time to hold bad parents to account and stop blaming the kids.
I agree with you completely limpeh. I simply cannot fathom how people who are supposed to be the child's entire world can cause him or her any kind of physical harm.
DeleteAnyway going by aweirlittlebirds line of reasoning, lacking the ability to reason would mandate the use of physical punishment. In which case, we should go around beating the crap out of irrational people.
Also I completely disagree with the notion that harsh punishment is an effective way to allow one to discern between right and wrong, especially when children are involved. It is very much possible that even after the punishment, the child remains as ignorant of his mistakes as before it. Using alittleweirdbirds own words, a child may not necessarily have the knowledge and reasoning power to think of the of the reasons behind the beating. What would the point be then?
And alittleweirdbird, you claim It's alright to use corporal punishment on a child so long as there are certain restrictions or boundaries in place. My question would be who decides what these boundaries are and how can they possibly be enforced? Further, who determines when punishment turns into abuse and what are children supposed to do when it does? The truth is allowing parents the discretion to decide whether or not to utilize corporal punishment leaves the door open to abuse and in the end It's the children that are left vulnerable. As limpeh mentioned, not all parents have the ability to control their tempers and the sense to mete out the punishment in a controlled and civilized(if one can even call beating a child that ) manner.
Also, on a slightly unrelated note, draconian measures do not necessarily result in reduced crime. If I'm not mistaken, nations such as Austria and Ireland have lower per capita murders than Singapore, a country that practices capital punishment. There is also a significant disparity between crime rates in Malaysia and Singapore, both nations who employ the barbaric and primitive form of punishment called caning. This highlights how corporal punishment may not be the sole reason behind Singapore's low crime rate and in fact, it actually raises questions about It's effectiveness. Perhaps punishment does not reduce crime after all?
Thank you for your comment Ivan. I am doing a part 3 which will touch upon the points you have raised in your third paragraph. In fact, I may have to quote you since you've elucidated it so eloquently there.
DeleteIvanovic, corporal punishment is different from physical abuse. I do not see how you can confused well-intentioned and controlled punishment from a rational adult and an adult suffering from psychological and/or mental problems physically lashing out wildly at a child without caring for the child's plight.
DeleteYou are right that there are legitimate questions to where the boundary of corporal punishment and child abuse lies, and how to enforce them. This is not a question that I can answer easily. One country's standard of punishment is another's abuse and it really varies between different cultures. It really depends on how society progresses and what the people of Singapore want - another story altogether. It isn't an "Asian" thing as what Limpeh puts it out to be. For example, the practice of corporal punishment was only outlawed in Britain in 1987 - and it was by one single vote, and a controversial one: a few pro-caning MPs were not present.
Not giving appropriate punishment to children would be real abuse. There are children who need corporal punishment to keep them obedient, and (thankfully) there are children who don't. Again, if you haven't gotten my drift yet, corporal punishment is not child abuse. Where to draw the line is another topic altogether.
To you saying that not all parents can control their tempers and control the strength of hitting their children, I agree. In return, though, I will say that not all kids have the ability to behave well without usage of the cane to demand obedience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Singapore ranks at 0.3, Austria at 0.6 and Ireland 1.2 per 100,000 population. Anyhow, in the same vein, while you are right that corporal punishment may not be the sole (the word you used) cause of Singapore's crime rate, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone arguing that the harsh treatment we dish out to criminals has absolutely nothing to do with Singapore's low crime rate. To assume that every single children (and adult) can be controlled without harsh measures (like capital punishment) is irresponsible parenting. There are extreme situations where police officers or soldiers can use their guns to neutralise security threats, and there are extreme situations where children need to be punished harshly. Corporal punishment from rational adults does work on more children than reason: Children may not be intelligent enough to understand the reason behind why they are being punished, but most of them understand pain when corporal punishment is administered.
To Limpeh, yes, we are all animals, children and adults alike. Try finding a biology book that argues on the contrary. Plenty of human behaviour is learned and trained. Children should not be expected to be able to reason like rational adults because we are all born animals - until we are trained to behave in the appropriate manner in our cultures.
Ivanovic, corporal punishment is different from physical abuse. I do not see how you can confused well-intentioned and controlled punishment from a rational adult and an adult suffering from psychological and/or mental problems physically lashing out wildly at a child without caring for the child's plight.
DeleteYou are right that there are legitimate questions to where the boundary of corporal punishment and child abuse lies, and how to enforce them. This is not a question that I can answer easily. One country's standard of punishment is another's abuse and it really varies between different cultures. It really depends on how society progresses and what the people of Singapore want - another story altogether. It isn't an "Asian" thing as what Limpeh puts it out to be. For example, the practice of corporal punishment was only outlawed in Britain in 1987 - and it was by one single vote, and a controversial one: a few pro-caning MPs were not present.
Not giving appropriate punishment to children would be real abuse. There are children who need corporal punishment to keep them obedient, and (thankfully) there are children who don't. Again, if you haven't gotten my drift yet, corporal punishment is not child abuse. Where to draw the line is another topic altogether.
To you saying that not all parents can control their tempers and control the strength of hitting their children, I agree. In return, though, I will say that not all kids have the ability to behave well without usage of the cane to demand obedience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Singapore ranks at 0.3, Austria at 0.6 and Ireland 1.2 per 100,000 population. Anyhow, in the same vein, while you are right that corporal punishment may not be the sole (the word you used) cause of Singapore's crime rate, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone arguing that the harsh treatment we dish out to criminals has absolutely nothing to do with Singapore's low crime rate. To assume that every single children (and adult) can be controlled without harsh measures (like capital punishment) is irresponsible parenting. There are extreme situations where police officers or soldiers can use their guns to neutralise security threats, and there are extreme situations where children need to be punished harshly. Corporal punishment from rational adults does work on more children than reason: Children may not be intelligent enough to understand the reason behind why they are being punished, but most of them understand pain when corporal punishment is administered.
To Limpeh, yes, we are all animals, children and adults alike. Try finding a biology book that argues on the contrary. Plenty of human behaviour is learned and trained. Children should not be expected to be able to reason like rational adults because we are all born animals. Culture is a learned behaviour.
Ivanovic, corporal punishment does not mean one beats "the crap" out of irrational people. Corporal punishment is about using controlled force to discipline someone when someone has made a mistake. In prisons in Singapore, caning is administered to adults for serious offences. I doubt there are people who support beating "the crap" [as you put it] out of criminals, even when they support corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is not abuse.
DeleteGoing back to the topic, children are not adults and adults are not children. We always assume that children are not capable of thinking like adults, in the name of protecting children. If not, concepts like "Defence of Infancy" would not work. Of course there are children who can think beyond their years (it is not unheard of for children to beat adults in chess tournaments, for example), but these are exceptions, not the rule.
Even if the child is ignorant of his mistakes, at least he can associate doing the same thing with the pain of being punished. The point would be to prevent the child from doing the same thing again.
As for restrictions and boundaries, parents have never had a blank cheque to administering corporal punishment in Singapore. Police reports have been made in Singapore, and parents have been arrested for using disproportionate force on children when administering corporal punishment.
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090113-114279.html
How much force and how many strokes of the cane is considered acceptable opens up another can of worms for discussion, but one should not say that punishment (or corporal punishment, for that matter) and abuse are one and the same thing.
To address your issue of homcide rates, since you brought it up:
Homicide rates per 100,000 in Singapore: 0.3
Homicide rates per 100,000 in Austria: 0.7
Homicide rates per 100,000 in Ireland: 0.9
While you are right that draconian measures alone do not necessarily result in reduced crime, one cannot argue that draconian measures do not help in some measure. As I have cited repeatedly, the looting problem during the Japanese Occupation was solved when the Japanese beheaded people who were caught for it. (Whether the people were really caught for looting is another question altogether)
Greetings from Singapore, Limpeh. Thanks for putting up this interesting article. Thanks for allowing comments - I am on the other side of the fence:
ReplyDeleteFirstly, yes, it is a legal issue: If you want to give your children corporal punishment, don't do it in Sweden. That Malaysian couple were extraordinarily stupid - and abusive. Food deprivation was part of their punishment repertoire.
Secondly, my thoughts go out to you. I am sorry to hear that you have suffered so much from abusive parents.
Thirdly, hitting your child is acceptable - within acceptable boundaries.
Children need to learn that if you make a mistake, you get punished. If you make a mistake as an adult, you may get caned. I don't see anything wrong with that. It would be preferable for parents to cane the child first before the police cane them for running into serious trouble with the law.
For me, I was given a taste of the cane when I failed to get good academic results. It was what I needed and yes, I felt resentment at that time, but the very day when I got like nearly ten strokes of the cane and around ten slaps across the face, my mother took to showering and bathing me and getting me to have my dinner, and that made me study harder than ever to repay her for her gratitude - I left school with pretty respectable results.
Now when I think back, I was naughty at that time and I would say that if I hadn't been caned by my parents, perhaps one of the schools which I was studying in would have done the caning - and that would have been far more embarrassing.
There is a place for corporal punishment in the house for children as well. Children are not adults, and adults are not children. Children may not be smart enough to think for themselves. However, the immediate pain dished out during corporal punishment will get them to associate what they do wrongly with a beating from their parents.
It is also noticeable that even in Sweden, there is a vocal group of people who are not satisfied with the Swedish model of child discipline.
In the case of this Malaysian couple, no doubt they deserve jail time for "discipline" which involve depriving their children of food. However, this case should not lead to a case against corporal punishment. There is a line between corporal punishment and child abuse, but this case isn't it.
Allow me to respond.
Delete1. Children should learn that there are consequences to their actions, however, there are a range of punishments to use to send a message to the child "don't do this or else" - beating a child should not be one of those punishments. I totally disagree that it is better for a parent to cane a child first - that's utter rubbish, that's bullshit. It is preferable for a parent to raise his/her child properly so the child doesn't get into trouble - but that can be done WITHOUT beating the child.
2. I don't agree that your parents were ever justified in hitting you - say you couldn't do quadratic equations, that's why you failed your maths test. How would hitting you somehow impart that knowledge ? You would need help, guidance, even tuition to get over that inability to solve those quadratic equations. Gosh, this reminds me of this primary school classmate I had. Her grades sucked, she just wasn't particularly bright - but her parents were uneducated and too poor to get her expensive tuition teachers, so they caned the shit out of her and guess what? She still failed her exams at the end of the day. Caning is not the answer.
3, I will do a more detailed follow up to explain your mindset because I went through the same thing until I woke up to the truth.
4. The law is the law in Sweden, whether you like it or not, it's up to you to decide which law you wanna follow and which ones you wanna ignore. It was incredibly stupid of them to willfully break the law and now they are facing the consequences of their actions. How utterly totally stupid. What lousy, terrible parents. What kind of examples are they setting for their poor kids?
1. Raising a child properly so that the child doesn't get into trouble can be done with beating the child. Again, there is a difference between punishment and abuse.
Delete2. In my case, I didn't do well because I didn't study. Hitting me was a punishment for not studying. The beating did made me pull up my socks because I was scared of getting hit again.
Of course, this is not to say that all kids will improve under the cane - some kids with lower IQ won't be able to understand difficult concepts no matter how hard they try. But to deny that caning doesn't work simply isn't true. Lee Kuan Yew frequently cites the Japanese Occupation to show that harsh discipline can keep law and order.
3. Looking forward to it. I may not agree with you on this count but your posts are an engaging read.
4. Fully agree! The descriptions of what they did makes my stomach churn.
I will have to disagree on point 1 - you can get a child to do as he is told by threatening physical violence, but does that tantamount to 'raising a child properly'? I don't think so. I never ever said that a child should never be punished, that a child can flourish in a consequence free environment - I do believe in punishment, but there are so many kinds of different punishments that a parent can use apart from physical violence.
Delete2. Aren't you universalizing your own personal experience, ie. "this was my experience, therefore the whole world must be like that too". I'm cautioning you against using your own experience to make a judgement call on the issue.
2a. LKY was a collaborator who worked for the Japanese when Singapore was under Japanese occupation, so I am not surprised he has come up with something like that.
3. I have written a rambling draft and it needs editing, I need to more focus in that piece.
1. Corporal punishment should always be used as a last resort. I have never said before that a parent should reach for the cane every time a child does something wrong. Caning is far more physically straining for the parent than talking to the child, by the way. Raising a child properly does not simply mean throw away the rod. Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful British soccer manager in history, credits his teacher - who didn't hesitate to use a BELT on her students, and sometimes, no less than 6 times - as his inspiration. He is even seen in a photograph with her.
Deletehttp://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/462266/Pride-of-place-for-the-teacher-s-belt-that-beat-young-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-into-line
2. As mentioned above, it isn't just my own experience. Sir Alex Ferguson had no problem with that. Lee Kuan Yew mentioned that he was caned before as a child and it "did me no harm".
3. Will look forward to reading it.
1. It's one thing to wax lyrical about 'corporal punishment should always be used as a last resort' - but let's go into the real world. I see bad parents all the time hitting their children because their children provoke them, they get angry, they lose their tempers and BAM! they lash out at their children because they are motivated by anger as they lose their self-control. They then retrospectively claim that it was the last resort and place the blame on the child (maybe not totally blameless, maybe a naughty child I grant you that) by claiming that it was a last resort when really, it wasn't - it was the parent losing his/her self-control in a heated situation.
DeleteCan you at least please acknowledge that there are bad parents out there who do have little or no self-control and that is why there needs to be laws which place the onus on the parents to exercise restraint and self-control when it comes to punishing their children? The way you put it, you are always assuming that the child is always in the wrong and the parent is never in the wrong. You should've seen the way my mother went apeshit when she was having one of her psychotic episodes and smashed everything that got in her way. She would scream like a madwoman, pick up anything on the table and threw them across the room, including smashing a cup on my head.
Would you then look at an incident like that and say, oh it was a last resort, if she didn't smash the cup over your head (nearly blinding me in the process), you would have become a juvenile delinquent?
You are simply refusing to concede that any parent can be in the wrong - which I find very disturbing. It's like you're covering up some guilt on your part.
2. I neither trust nor like LKY and wouldn't take his word for it - in any case, talk about a generation gap. Like how old is LKY today? I want to live in the real world, in 2014, according to modern values. LKY is who he is, he is offering a historical perspective from 2 generations ago.
3. Still needs a bit of editing but I found my angle. Just a bit busy with work right now.
You have said it yourself - *bad* parents hit their children because they are out of control. I think I don't need to say that by your extension, a parent can be good if corporal punishment is administered as a last resort.
DeleteI do acknowledge that there are bad parents who have little or no self-control. In the same vein, please also acknowledge that there are good parents who do resort to corporal punishment.
I think you need to realise that parents in Singapore do not have a blank cheque to using the cane on their children. There have been cases of parents being arrested for child abuse when administering extreme corporal punishment: http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Crime/Story/A1Story20090105-112463.html
I have never assumed that the child is always in the wrong and parent always in the right. (In fact, if the child is in the right, then ANY form of punishment, corporal or otherwise, would be wrong!) Rather, I approach the issue from the angle that a child has already done something seriously wrong, and whether corporal punishment can be meted out in the name of discipline or not.
You accuse me of universalising the problem - aren't you yourself, by your personal account of how your mother (probably suffering from mental issues) took her frustrations out on you, universalising the problem as "beat the child and the parent is always wrong"?
Anyway, your mother was not in the right frame of mind, so you can't really call what she did to you corporal punishment.
I have never said that any parent can be in the wrong. As I said above, if we want to even have a meaningful debate on corporal punishment, one needs to assume that a child has already done wrong before going on, because if the parent is wrong, any punishment to the child is wrongful, corporal punishment or otherwise.
2. There are things that I neither trust nor like LKY (like you). However, accounts that looting in Singapore stopped when the Japanese decapitated and displayed the heads of looters is well documented. And looting occurred when the British were in charge right before and right after the Japanese invaded.
http://books.google.com.sg/books/about/That_s_how_it_Goes.html?id=GG17FK8u29MC&redir_esc=y
3. Still needs a bit of editing but I found my angle. Just a bit busy with work right now.
Will look forward to it, cheers.
Here's the part where your logic falls apart - say you have a parent who is in total control of his/her emotions, who is not going to lash out in blind rage at his/her child - if this parent is capable of being calm and rational even under provocation (say if the child is misbehaving badly), then why would such a calm, reasonable, rational parent even opt for corporal punishment when there are other alternatives available, alternatives that do still punish the child but involve rehabilitation and explanation, rather than being focused on inflicting pain.
DeleteI never said that children should be allowed to run amok in a consequence free environment - heavens no, but I am merely asking for parents to opt for a more effective means of disciplining their children which conveys the message without setting a bad example to the child and without any serious negative long term consequences.
Limpeh, you have already mentioned that "bad parents" lack self-control. I completely agree with you. Good parents will administer corporal punishment with restraint. Hurting the child is not the aim of corporal punishment - correcting the child is.
DeleteThere are already laws in place to prevent child abuse. Parents have been thrown into prison in Singapore for taking corporal punishment too far. They do not have a blank cheque to abusing their child.
And for debates like how to punish children, there is nothing wrong in assuming that the child is in the wrong and the parent in the right. I would say that any punishment meted out to children - corporal punishment or otherwise - would be cruel if the child was not guilty of something wrong in the first place.
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I am sorry to hear that you have suffered so much from your mother. But again, corporal punishment is not child abuse. When meted out by fair and rational adults, corporal punishment works. Your mother was not rational and in control of herself due to her mental issues when doing all these horrible things to you.
You accuse me of universalising my experience of corporal punishment. Aren't you using your own experience to argue your case as well?
Again, for debates relating to discipline, we have to assume first that the child is in the wrong. Let's also keep ad hominem remarks like "you're covering up some guilt on your part" out of this.
2. I do not have any affections for LKY given that he's done some really horrible things. Even if he has, it doesn't invalidate his observations that the Japanese did keep law and order in Singapore, and lootings occurred right before and right after they left.
3. I have read your article. Will not be responding to it anytime soon, though (like you) I have strong feelings towards corporal punishment - though it's from across your side of the fence. The commenting system in blogger is horrible. Thanks for letting me have my say and please keep your articles coming.
Why do parents beat their children anyway, there's just no evidence whatsoever to prove that beating children makes them better. I think the parents who beat their children are just lazy parents, who just want to teach the children "oh you must do this and this" instead of teaching them why you must do this and this. Beating the children spares them the chore of explaining their actions to them.
ReplyDeleteWell I agree. It takes a much longer time to reason and explain things to a child - compare that to the time it takes to slap a child. The latter takes 1, maybe 2 seconds, the former takes 15-20 minutes. Besides, there's an element of bullying going on here - there are bad parents who are bullies and they can be totally oblivious to the bullying element to their behaviour. I believe that respect is earned, not demanded through physical violence. There's a huge difference between a child who listens to his parents because he respects and trusts them and one who listens to his parents because of the ever-present threat of physical violence. I'm afraid in my case - as in the case of many other Asian parents - it was the latter. I did as I was told because I was afraid of my parents - but fear and respect is not the same thing. I never respected or loved my parents because they never chose to use love with me or gain my respect - why? Maybe they just repeated the mistakes their parents made with them a generation ago, Maybe they were just lazy as it was so much faster and easier to beat the crap out of me than to reason with me - here's the irony: by the time I got to about 13, I realized that I was so much more intelligent than my parents and I was going to become so much more educated than them (and well, I did go on to become a triple scholar, super high IQ, speak 10 languages guy, can work in different industries etc) and my parents just weren't that educated - so I simply don't buy the argument that it is necessary to beat children as they don't understand reason. I remember at the age of 10, explaining scientific issues to my parents that they just didn't understand - but I couldn't just say, "look I'm like so much smarter than you, just leave me alone."
DeleteAnyway, that's why I don't have much of a relationship with my parents these days. My dad is oblivious to the fact that we're extremely distant or maybe he just doesn't wanna talk about it. My mum probably knows just how resentful I am and she is choosing to ignore me rather than talk to me about much. It is what it is - I hardly think that they're happy with the situation of their only son having so much resentment against them today - but it is what it is.
And that's another reason why parents shouldn't beat their child! They should consider that when they grow old, their children may be supporting their financial needs, so it may not be such a good idea to make their children hate them
DeleteThis was something Jennifer Pak mentioned in her article on the BBC.
DeleteI get fed up reading all these poss about people trying to justify beating their children. Good grief, you should've seen my mother in action back in the day, she never bothered to explain anything, she would just keep hitting and beating us like a madwoman until she got tired. She had serious mental health issues and instead of getting professional help, she took it out on her children. Like for crying out aloud, I knew she never intended to have that many children in the first place, but oh no, being Chinese they decided to keep going until they had a boy, so my poor mother had to keep working to earn enough money for all the children and she was overstretched, stressed at work, couldn't cope, got no help and she wasn't happy. I hate this idealized image of Chinese mothers who know what they are doing and are in control - my mother was anything but in control, she was totally out of control, she had serious mental health issues and what she did was nothing short of a disaster when it came to parenting: and yet no one talks about it. Because we're Chinese and we condone this kind of bullshit in our culture.
This is why this topic gets me so, so angry.
Your mom was perhaps bipolar and/or depressed. Plus, anger management issues. Even these days, Singaporeans do not talk about it. I have a friend who admits to being depressed, but she refuses to take medication. How stupid is that?
DeleteMy mother also suffered from extremely severe migraines - she was in constant pain and being a teacher, she used to just go to work and teach an entire day at school whether her head was pounding away or not. She was on extremely heavy doses of pain killers and I would be walking on egg shells when I knew she was in pain. My father seemed oblivious to a lot of things - you know what Asians are like, they look the other way and he ignored a lot of things that went on. Given that my mother didn't see a doctor and seek proper psychological help (she had counselling to begin with - boy that was a big step) when I turned 19, she was the one refusing to accept help - she kept declaring, "I'm fine, I don't need to go back."
DeleteYes, I forgot she had migraines. Why are Singaporeans so reluctant to seek help? You should see my medicine cabinet! Advils to insect bites, just name it! LOL! I do not prescribe excessive Rx drug-taking or alcohol or pot, but seriously, medications and paraprofessionals (therapy, counselling, chiropractors, massages, ...) are there to help us function. Otherwise, we end like your mom, my mom, or my friend.
DeleteIt's a cultural thing Di - it's seen as a sign of weakness. But it's also my mother - she once had this skin condition and went to the doctor, the doctor prescribed her a medicated cream to apply to it and when she got home, she read the label and it had the words 'STEROID CREAM' on it (a fairly common thing really) - and she refused to use the medication as she heard that athletes who take steroids at the Olympics are disqualified so steroids must be like drugs, they must be illegal and bad for you.
DeleteTwo weeks later, she went back to the doctor, skin condition got much worse and the doctor was like, "why didn't you use the medicine I prescribed?!" Aiyoh.
Cue palm to face.
Lol! My eczema creams all have steroids. Not that she was in the Olympics. Too funny.
DeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteOn your being caned by your mother, I can relate to that totally cos I went through the exact same thing too. I have come to forgive her many years ago but I can still remember one particular horrifying incident vividly. My brother and I were playing water splashing with each other in the bathroom while being together bathed by mom. I was like 5 or 6 and my brother only a year younger. My mother got bothered for some reason and started to cane us profusely. We were stark naked and defenseless with nowhere to hide. It was the most horrifying experience for us. It was so bad that after more than 40 years I can still remember it! It was later in life that I realised that my mom at that time was separated and living alone with us after being kicked out of my dad's home due to a personality clash with grandma. It was a stressful period of her life, being a single parent with kids. I forgive her now but my dad was another matter. He did not know how to bring up children other than to cane us each time we did wrong - including school record book signing time. However I did well in school and so my younger siblings got much less caning as my parents found they maybe after their experience with me they did not really need to do that much caning.
Later I became a parent with my own kids. My wife and I struggled with whether to use the cane. We were first impressed with the UK Jo Frost's Super Nanny runaway books and TV series. It was very good with no violence and it worked - initially. But when the kids grew older and more rebellious Jo's methods did not work as well. I also found that Jo's TV series were not all real. We started to reconsider the cane. A Christian friend then gave us a Taiwanese Paster Chang's parenting pep talks in Mandarin recorded in US homes. Now, we are not Christians but we find it is more useful than Super Nanny's as it put Asian parenting in context of the world in which the western influence and western ideas of parenting dominate. Here were a group of Asian immigrant parents trying hard to bring up young kids in a America under heavy American cultural influence. It basically gave an insight into why the western idea of putting the child-centric psychology and practice did not produce the desired result of the generation it was applied on. Instead it produced out-of-control kids and young adults with deficit sense of discipline and personal responsibility. That method of treating the child as the centre of family and accorded the psyche equivalent to an adult did not provide the life coaching and behavioral guidance the child really needed in the formative years. It was a parenting fad in child-centric psychology that has now as dead as the roller blades craze of the 80's. Now you do not see literature by PhD psychologists of that nature in the best sellers lists. Instead what you do get is Amy Chua's "Tiger Mother" (which I also think is mostly crap) and Jennifer Senior's "Paradox of Modern Parenthood" (the anti-Tiger Mum book). You just can't get serious advice or guidance that's trusted to be not just a fad.....
....This is where the religious inspired parenting come in, to my surprise. Pastor Chang is a seasoned child care worker with no formal psychology qualifications. Her guide on the cane is common sense and incluses:
ReplyDelete1. Only use the cane when you want to stop the child from doing something, not when you want them to do something.
The cane is not an encourage tool but a discouragement tool. Do not use it to make a child eat his greens nor to do his homework. Use it to stop the child from his mis-behaviour like fighting, bullying a sibling, or making a nuisance.
2. Always give a warning before using the cane.
Caning is only to be used as a last resort. It is an authority (from God) that the parent reserves and if threat of cane can do it then leave it at that.
3. Only cane once.
Use a small thin cane which can cause a lot of pain but no real damage other than temporary skin marks. If you cane with enough force you only need to do it once as the child will learn quickly. I see a lot of parents (including mine) like to rain canes on their child like machine gun. It is not necessary.
4. Never use the cane when you are still in an angry state.
You might overdo it if you are not in control of your own emotions. The purpose of the cane is to interrupt bad behaviour, not inflict a punishment like that done to Michael Fay (multiple strokes).
There are a lot more lessons in the tapes but the few I listed are easy to remember and I find them useful. I have canes in the car and at home. My kids know the canes are there but they do not fear me as they know as long as they do not misbehave I won't use it. I also find myself using it less and less and I am looking for the next thing in my parenting development phase. Maybe Sweden is right to make it illegal to cane kids and I know a lot of parents will not know how to use it properly and bring real harm. Maybe we need a children's how-to version of that "How to beat your Muslim wife" youtube video to go with re-introduction of the cane in Sweden but I doubt Swedish minister of home affairs will be very interested in my idea.
BTW your reader choaniki's tips looks very interesting. I'll read up on it.
Thanks folks.
Well B Tiger, thank you for your post and I welcome your other side of the argument.
DeleteI must say though, I totally disagree with you and I think it is totally wrong of you to hit your kids. You will regret it. How would you feel if it bred such resentment that your kids moved away to the other side of the world in 20, 30 years time and barely talk to you because of the emotional scars of the abuse? From a young age, I was determined to leave Singapore and all it represented - not just the fact that I had abusive parents, but more to the point, I lived in a society where they assumed that all children were by nature naughty and needed endless beatings and it was somehow good for them - so everyone looked the other way when I had a psychotic mother who beat the crap out of me and siblings because my father was too useless to get her the professional medical help she needed. He let her down, she let me down, he let me down, society let us all down and it just makes me so angry to hear people like you try to justify it all. No doubt your mother went through hell, but does it in anyway justify the way she beat you up? I'm beyond blame - I just feel sorry for my mother today: she's not a clever woman, she's not very educated, she's not street smart, she's just not particularly good at anything - including being a mother and on top of all that, she had serious health and mental issues to contend with. In hindsight, my expectations of her should have been rock bottom low given the circumstances, But good grief B Tiger, you sound like an intelligent, educated person - yet you're still going down the same road as my mother and making her same mistakes.
I'm just so... I'm at a lost for words now. I know I cannot change your mind - but I want to tell you this: you're wrong, you're making a terrible mistake and you will regret this dearly in the future. It will come back to haunt you in 20 years' time. Mark my words.
Alex,
DeleteI do feel your angst at the idea of caning. Believe me I suffered as much as you did and my parents are of the older generation and even less uneducated than yours. So it was bad for me. Now you would logically think that someone like me with a high educational background and my equally educated wife would never go with caning would you? Yet my wife and I did. We did not started that way but it was not a easy nor blind decision. We have peers who also cane their kids and others who do not. It's all a shade of grey on how much they use it. We see how their kids behave and we do our research before getting that cane.
You are still young and you have never experienced parenthood. It's a heavy responsibility. Do you cane too much, or not at all? Whatever you say now is like what my wife and I thought before we were parents. I am convinced that the Swedish way is impractical and not helpful. Its easy to come up with such a blanket law just like it is easy to produce a child psychology book. Except it's a fad for the book but the law brings more harm than good. .It's up there with the legalisation of cannibis law in the US.
I know what I am doing and I do not over do it that it will cause resentment from my kids. They love me very much and we have a relationship compared to my childhood with my parents. Now they are bigger and I do not cane them anymore, but I am looking for better ways to bring up kids. I do keep updating and upgrading myself. Don;t worry for me.
Well, we shall have to agree to disagree because you've failed to convince me. I do strongly believe that children need discipline and boundaries, of course, but I simply am vehemently against the idea of using caning or any kind of beating as part of that process.
DeleteI can't speak on behalf of your kids, what they feel about you and your parenting methods is between you and them - but this much I would say, when I was a child, I did as I was told because I feared my parents, not because I respected or loved them. There was no love, no respect, just fear and boy that messed me up big time. There is a huge difference between getting your kids to do as they're told and actually winning their respect and love - my parents succeeded in the former and totally failed in the latter. They simply defaulted to this, "well we're Asian and as Asians you must respect your parents regardless." And cut to the punch line, here I am 8 time zones away barely talking to them.
I'm not worried for you because the damage has been done already (since you said your kids are not older) - the damage has already been inflicted and it's too late for me to talk to you to tell you to change your ways. It'll be like crying over spilt milk.
For what it's worth, it's nothing personal, I don't know you - but I know what I believe in and I stand by what I believe in.
Typo: (since you said your kids are NOW older) ...
DeletePS. In case I wasn't clear before, let me say it clearly: B Tiger, I think you're a bad parent. The moment you've caned your children, that makes you a bad parent in my eyes. Nothing you can explain can possibly justify using a cane against children. You're a bad parent. A very bad parent. Don't gimme that self-righteous crap. Find a better way to communicate with your children.
DeleteAlex,
DeleteCalm down. Take a breadth. I feel your emotions. I pressed your button with this issue didn’t I? You had imperfect parents but so did I and I totally understand your reaction to caning. I suffered as much as you did but I'm as informed as much as you are on parenting. You look through all my posts and you will see that I am not the worst that you have painted. Do not let the childhood pain blind you to finding out what others think on the subject of parenting/corporal punishment, to exploring what their motivations are in what they do. I mean no harm. You are my favourite blogger, very intelligent, eloquent and energetic (and anti-PAP too which I like). I like the way you probe issues. But this caning story is too hot for you right now in this stage of your life, before you are married and have your own kids. To keep your fans listening and reading you have to be more like Larry King conducting an interview. Do not judge your fans and lash out at them by saying things like "you are a bad parent/how could you have done such an evil thing". Instead like Larry ask "what were you thinking when you did that" or "how did you feel after you did that", or "what were the results and how did others react when you did that". Then you will get a healthy opening up of your fans and a sharing of ideas and achieving an interesting blog which attracts rich and diverse opinions. Otherwise, you run the risk of being intolerant and vexed, venting your keyboard on whoever disagrees with you. After all you do want to elevate your blog to cater to a higher educated and deeper thinking audience right? You don't want to be like the low-class-no-quality-control TRS where anything goes right? Ouch, then don't abuse your fans, please.
Ok back to the topic of caning. In the case of that incarcerated Malaysian couple I am with you that they were wrong. They were wrong for the many reasons you and your fans cited like not following the law of the land etc. But my reason for finding them wrong is quite different. Mainly the parents were abusive. To cane a child and 1,000 times a year is excessive and enough of a test to show abuse. Not to mention the pinching and hitting by the wife. I don't do that. Repeated regular corporal punishment is child abuse to me. Where I do not agree with the Swedish law is that there are already older child abuse laws which already cover the crime of child abuse. And “abuse” by legal definition covers not just physical abuse but mental and verbal abuse. Verbal abuse like saying a child is useless or belittling the child, or mental as in constant threats to withdraw love and care to the child, or depravation of activities a child requires like play and rest. These are legally abuses and are covered by child abuse laws. To just add another law to single out caning or corporal punishment and not other forms of abuses does not make sense to me.
.....
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DeleteAsk yourself why choose one abuse to legislate and not the other? Was Sweden a country of traditional barbaric bible-and-cane-loving parents with an epidemic of child physical abuse so bad that they had to specifically enact such a law in 1979? I think not. I bet it is more likely the influence of the child-centric psychology fads popular of that period that gave life to such a law. Secondly ask is it practical, if the no-caning law were to be 100% enforced with zero tolerance regardless of reason then you would see A LOT of Swedish parents in jail and for months and years. Your Swedish interviewee already admits that a small but significant portion of parents still practise corporal punishment behind closed doors. Whether we like it or not, physical abuse/corporal punishment will be around as long as there are children. But does blindly throwing tens of thousands of parents/care givers in prison in your view serve the interests of the child and family, and is it justifiable? (cf. Look at the Cannabis law debate in US and their overcrowded prisons). Of course not and the law is never 100% enforced/enforceable. Then do you think the law is really about for the good of the child and that the law had nothing to do with the political class extracting political capital out of a passing parenting fad by pandering to liberal parents? Swedish law is now lumping heavy child abusers and otherwise good Swedish parents who use the cane once in a blue moon logically as one, which I think does more harm than good. At minimum it is a state’s encroachment of the right of parents baring the extreme cases which qualify under child abuse. That is the difference I am trying to show you - if only you can just let go of that mental block and pain in your heart for a moment.
Alex, there are other child abuse practices that we can be incensed about other than corporal punishment. For example the child male and female circumcision performed by Jews and Muslims. That is worse to me. It’s genital mutilation under the ugly name of religion. Male circumcision is still legally done in Singapore today do you know? How about other religious practices like making the child follow the religions of the parents? Does a child know what he is being put through or does the child have a choice to leave the religion when he grows up? Something closer to home for me. How about the religious brain washing done in mission primary schools under their weekly chapel study classes? How about the punishing primary school education and CCA system that purportedly wants to “teach less and learn more” but practically teaches so little because teachers have more time for their CCA/admin portfolio to further their careers, while assessment tests cover even more than what was taught in class so that tuition is almost always needed to ensure proper learning? When my kids are older, how about the NS liability of my boys, wasting two years here, risking injury and enduring paltry pay, where even the Taiwanese with China missiles pointed at them are doing just four months, and foreigners get a free ride in our limited university places? How do I as a parent counter and manage these challenges?
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DeleteAlex, being a parent is a life experience that is sometimes unimaginable to the single person like yourself despite you having nieces and nephews. You just do not have the same level of responsibility and day to day commitments as real parents. Jim Rogers, the swashbuckling world traveller, author and legendary billionaire Wall Street investor who made his fortune before he was forty totally confessed how wrong he was about parenting when he said earlier before he married that it was the worst investment of one’s time and money. Now he can’t wait to get home to be with his kids here in Singapore. He also confessed to making his kids pay for some stuff even though he’s super rich. That was according to him to teach his kids the value of money. I learn’t that too. But I emphasize the basic stuff like food and education are paid for. It’s only for that unapproved expensive toy or that pet they must have.
To sum up caning or corporal punishment is not the evil. It has been around for thousands of years and will be around as long as there are kids. What is the evil is inappropriate and excessive caning, or excessive punishment both physical and non-physical - which is child abuse, the wrong way. The test is how often it is done and how it is done. In this aspect the long traditions of the Christians with their “spare the rod, spoil the child” biblical teachings has much to teach us parents who are clueless on parenting when we first started. A little intellectual humility will bring one much gain in wisdom and not buying the mistakes that authors of motherhood statements like “all corporal punishment is bad” want us to believe. I do not recommend the rod to all parents who are coping without it, and even ourselves did not consider it until we hit the bump. But when we did I am glad for the likes of pastor Chang. Her principles are very clear and proven to produce well behaved children. But her advice on caning does not apply when the child is too young or once the child has grown up enough to learn some ability to understand, reason and self-control at about ten years old. This is why I have to look for and learn another way in my next phase of my parenthood.
Cheers.
I cannot agree with you and PS. stop talking to me as if I am a young kid, I am turning 38 this month and am a balding, middle aged man. Your attitude towards me is patronizing to say the least, like, "oh young man you don't understand what parenting is about." It suffices to say that I had such a horrible experience at the hands of my parents that I never want to be a parent. Period. Like never. Ever.
DeleteI can't reason with you as you won't budge from your position (and I knew I couldn't change your mind) - but I am going to ask you to read what Di Talasi, a mother and a regular contributor on my blog has to say about the issue:
Di Talasi9 April 2014 05:49
Look, we all feel frustrated as parents sometime. If we give our kids a whack with our hands once or twice in their lives, I do not think we are bad parents. For example, say a child runs across a road after a ball and nearly got hit. We react out of fear and smack the child. That shows we are human. and we were scared out of our wits. It doesn't make it right, but we were just reacting. After we calm down, we need to tell the child why we smacked him. Tell him we were sacred and reacted. In that case, I do not think we should be blamed. I am not saying that is right. Just that it would be understandable. However, to say that we can cane or hit our child as a parenting tool .... no. That is just poor parenting. That couple actually own a cane! They brought a cane to Sweden! To pretend that a cane is a parenting tool is hogwash.
PPS. B Tiger, I have very strong opinions and clearly, if you want to come here and defend caning your children, then I am going to judge you. I'm not here to play the nice journalist who addresses both sides of the argument (Jennifer Pak of the BBC has already done a really good job of that in the original report) - I am here to offer my point of view on the issue, which is, as you've noted, very much clouded by my own experience growing up in S'pore in the 1970s and 1980s.
DeleteAlex,
DeleteI am not patronizing, just concerned. 38 is a really REALLY young age compared to mine. Jim Rogers was much older than that when he finally turned around on his opinion of having kids. He publicly says in the media that nothing compares to being a late parent and how wrong he was about his friends who got married early. And this guy had a lot going for him as a bachelor including fortune, adventure and friends. He went around the world but then he changed his mind. How can you be so sure you will not change yours someday? Better not burn that bridge and turn off potential opportunities by declaring you never want to be a parent. It's like something quite different and hard to imagine for me when I was younger.
And you don't have to be nice to your fans, just don't be nasty when you disagree. Got to send kids to bed now...
Mind you, when my dad was 38, he already had 3 children. I am choosing not to have any.
DeleteAs for Jim Rogers, whatever makes him happy, that's fine - what's right for him may not be right for another person. It is a complex set of reasons why I don't want children ever - on one hand, yes it is to spite my parents because they want nothing more than grandchildren (esp being the only son) but also, it's just not what I want to do with my life, ever. I could go into more details, but I need to get back to work.
And I call a spade a spade. You happened to have defended your position on corporal punishment passionately and I will respond ever so candidly. If you think that's nasty, then feel free to surf to another website to spare yourself of my brutal honesty.
B Tiger, I understand that you are really trying hard to be a good parent, but perhaps you have to consider that teenagers rebelling is very common, therefore it may not necessitate the cane. Limpeh says that there are good parents and bad parents in this world, and I agree with him, but I also believe that all parents are united in their desire to be the best parent who can properly guide their children through this harsh world. Limpeh is 38, I am only 17, so I am going to tell you what I think about parenting not in the role of a adult, but of the child. In primary school, I had a conversation with a group of friends who were discussing the ways they were punished by their parents when they were naughty. I was pretty horrified by their descriptions, especially when one mentioned that the belt was really painful and everybody else nodded sagely as if it is natural and part of life. Then they asked me how I was punished, and I told them I have never been beaten in my entire life before and they looked at me as if the sky has fallen down. My parents have been telling me ever since I was young that they do not believe in the cane, and that they want to teach us by reasoning, at most scolding us. They kept their promise, and I still haven't been beaten. But I look at the rest of my classmates, and I don't seem so different from them. Are they more hardworking than me, or smarter than me? Some of them are, some of them aren't, but I know a large portion of them have been beaten by parents before. If you look at this in a scientific way, it seems like the caning have not done anything special to the children, and they still progressed about the same way as me who has never been beaten. So if the cane doesn't do anything special, then is it even necessary? In my opinion, reasoning is still the best way to go, because not only does it make the children understand what they did wrong, it also allows them to develop superior argumentative skills. I'm not trying to say that you are a bad parent or anything, it is good that you have stopped caning them, and I am just giving you something to consider.
DeleteWell Ronald, allow me to offer a response to what you've said.
DeleteTo all intents and purposes, my family seemed normal, like all other families in Ang Mo Kio back in the 1980s. You know, we did what all other Singaporean families did - except that my mother had this habit of beating up her children quite severely. Did it help me in any way? I don't think so - certainly, the way I see it I would have gone on to do the things I did anyway because I am naturally intelligent. You can't beat a stupid child until he turns intelligent. Good grief, it just doesn't work like that. And I grant you, some kids are playful and restless and may not be as willing to sit down and study hard - but I certainly don't believe that beating the crap out of them is the answer to make them study harder. Studying is something so complex, so cerebral - you can tie a child to a chair so he cannot run away, you can force him to study like that by forcing him to stare at the books, but you're not addressing what goes on in the child's mind: whether the child understands how to solve quadratic equations doesn't depend on how hard you beat him, it's about explaining the fundamental concepts of how quadratic equations work.
As for your friends who acted shocked when they found out that you were never beaten, I say, screw them. Idiots. There's a sense of "eh that's not fair leh, why I kena beaten so bad but Ronald escaped without having ever kena beaten once? I demand that Ronald get beaten as much as I did!" Be warned, you will encounter this attitude a LOT in NS when you serve NS my friend - because in NS, some guys will kena more suffering than others and if you're one of those who are lucky to suffer less, be prepared to encounter the anger and hatred of those who suffered more than you. They will be like, "it's not fair! why did Ronald not suffer as much as me? I want him to suffer NOW!" Oh you were warned Ronald, human nature is ugly. Very ugly.
Would I have turned out to be this horrible, nasty, criminal, evil monster had my mother not beaten me as a child? I honestly don't believe so - but let's not go down the road of 'what ifs'. So much of what I have become today is a result of rebelling against what happened to me as a child and some of it is deliberately going against my parents: they hated the idea of me studying abroad and that became my one desire (which led to me getting a scholarship to do so, hurray) - so whilst you may see it as "oh this guy studied hard for his A levels and got a scholarship to a good British university, wah his parents must be so proud". So like I said, whilst we look like a normal family from Ang Mo Kio, how I ended up getting where I am is a different story... Like my gymnastics for example, my parents hated me going gymnastics, my mother thought I would break my right arm and wouldn't be able to write in an exam and thus destroy my future, so I defied her by training so hard and as a by product, I became national champion 3 times - so an outsider may see the situation as, "this guy trained so hard and became national champion, wah his parents must be so proud" when it was nothing like that at all.
If I had nothing to rebel against, nothing to fight against, what would have motivated me? I don't know. But motivation is a strange thing, I took something negative and turned it into motivation to succeed. Such is life - I could have let my unhappy childhood destroy the rest of my life, instead I chose to rebel and I chose to not let it destroy me.
I cannot believe that the cane even exists today. Using it is like using a weapon, It should be outlawed. Anyway, the point of this case is not whether to cane or not to cane. It is about following rules. There are rules in Sweden against hitting your chilld. Abide by it. That's all. The Malaysian government would do the same to a Swede couple who made out in public because they think they are contrary to Islamic laws. I think that is hogwash and stupid (not that I want to see people having sex in public), as I am sure there are many Muslim poeple who are sexual perverts in private anyway, just as there are pervs in all ethnic groups. However, if I were in Malaysia, I would abide by that rule. I would not make out in public. So, the Malayasian couple should not have caned their kids in Sweden. Open and shut case.
ReplyDeleteDi - you and I are so on the same wavelength :)
DeleteIt just reminds me of this other case from a while ago - English couple on holiday in Dubai, get drunk and make out on the beach, they get arrested and I was thinking, duh - this is the UAE, it's the Middle East and you wanna get drunk and make out in public?! It cuts both ways, follow the rules.
Of course, Malaysians want to make it about race. Just as Anton Casey's remarks about the smelly MRT was about race. I read on one site that said, "Wait till a Swede come to Malaysia! We'll get them!" How silly. No rhyme nor reason. Do these people have brains? Apparently not.
DeleteEven if the traditional rotan cane went out of style bad parents (like mine) would always find other tools to continue the beatings. My dad ever used a belt and when that didn't work (in his mind i didn't suffer enough) he used a chair and once even used a heated lighter to burn some parts of my legs (got some bad 2nd degree burns from that). And yes I still have the scars both physical and psychological to this day more than 30 years later.
DeleteThat would be downright illegal in the UK - to burn your children like that. Your father would have been jailed for that in the UK (and Sweden, of course).
DeleteAgreed.Choaniki should sue his father. I would love to give him a piece of my mind.
DeleteThe arguments in favour of beating children apply equally to adults. I encounter adults who cannot reason properly etc, and applying the arguments I have heard, it would be reasonable to beat them until they see sense or at least do what they are told.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being the voice of reason! I am so sick and tired of these terribly bad parents who blame their children because they're unable to control their kids otherwise and justify their brutality by blaming their children. They are the idiots who need a spanking as they cannot reason properly - heck, people like that should be allowed to be parents.
DeleteNo it doesn't. Adults are not children, and children are not adults.
DeleteJust like you know some adults don't listen to reason, doesn't mean all adults don't.
Just because some children think maturely like adults, doesn't mean that all children do.
We try to prevent children from getting into sexual relationships simply because they are children.
We try to prevent children from drinking alcohol simply because they are children.
We try to prevent children from buying cigarettes simply because they are children.
We try to prevent children from attending some public performances simply because they are children.
Countries turn to war as a last resort if diplomacy fails.
Prisoners are caned in serious crimes.
And yes, beating children as a last resort is okay if [I emphasise] talking sense to them fails to get them to see the light.
I still fundamentally disagree with you aweirdlittlebird for two reasons::
Delete1. You're assuming that parents are capable of exercising enough self-control not to lash out in anger and simply vent their frustration/anger on their children by beating them up - which is often what happens; and then they invent all kinds of lies and stories to justify their actions because they don't want to look like abusive parents. You are waxing lyrical about a theoretical principle about an ideal world where parents are in control - in reality, you have bad parents who have little or no control and just vent their anger on their kids. So you need laws to protect children from bad parents like that, to clearly draw the line and say, "no you cannot smack your kids like that and if you do, you will be jailed."
Hurray for Sweden!
PS. The Caning of prisoners is not done in European countries like Sweden and the UK. It is only done in very few countries: Malaysia & Singapore, the Middle East and across Africa.
2. This is something I will address in my next post: but essentially there is a difference between looking at short term results and long term effects. Beating a child may deliver short term results (a better exam result, as a result of the beating) but could deliver long term psychological harm and resentment. Too many parents are focused on the present and the short term and fail to consider long term consequences of their actions.
Again, I stress, BAD PARENTS with POOR PARENTING SKILLS exist. Stop defending them.
No one is denying that abusive parents (like the ones you have) exist. There are parents who can't control themselves, and there are children who commit heinous crimes (since you live in England, you do remember what happened to James Bulger, don't you?).
DeleteCaning in schools was banned in the UK when the UK parliament passed it - the vote was 230-231, and many proponents of corporal punishment were absent from the vote, including Margaret Thatcher.
And you make all parents who administer corporal punishment out to be ogres when I can tell you that this is not the case.
You seem to argue about only exam results, when a child can do far more wrong things than failing an exam.
Punishments like beating a child may deliver short term results, but there are times when you do want to address immediate concerns. Surely you must agree with that. I am sure well-intentioned parents who resort to corporal punishment would rather not have to do it if they had a better way.
I have never denied that bad parents with poor parenting skills exist, and I have never defended them. For example, this case of child abuse in Sweden goes far beyond corporal punishment. Is it so hard to understand?
Look, we all feel frustrated as parents sometime. If we give our kids a whack with our hands once or twice in their lives, I do not think we are bad parents. For example, say a child runs across a road after a ball and nearly got hit. We react out of fear and smack the child. That shows we are human. and we were scared out of our wits. It doesn't make it right, but we were just reacting. After we calm down, we need to tell the child why we smacked him. Tell him we were sacred and reacted. In that case, I do not think we should be blamed. I am not saying that is right. Just that it would be understandable. However, to say that we can cane or hit our child as a parenting tool .... no. That is just poor parenting. That couple actually own a cane! They brought a cane to Sweden! To pretend that a cane is a parenting tool is hogwash.
ReplyDeleteThank you once again for being the voice of reason. Yes I can totally accept that parents can get so driven up the wall by their children's difficult behaviour at time that they lash out - it's a human reaction to want to vent one's frustration and anger when really exasperated, who hasn't felt that before? We all have. But what I am saying is that there is an acute difference between a parent who reacts when s/he loses control and lashes out in anger and a parent who chooses to go and buy a cane from the shop and deliberately wields that cane as a form of discipline. I don't condone either BTW, I don't think a parent should ever hit a child, but the parent who does so in an extreme situation (as described by Di above), okay, that's at least more forgivable as it is under intense emotional stress. I see that a lot with my autistic nephew - when he was younger, he had no sense of self-preservation and there was once he did just that, he dashed across a busy road with no heed to the passing traffic and boy, I was mortified and I wanted to tell him that he must never ever do that ever again. I didn't hit him, I just raised my voice at him and scolded him instead - but I think the effect was achieved, hitting him wasn't necessary, even in those circumstances.
DeleteBut the moment a parent walks to the shop and buys a cane with the intention to use it - that's it, you've crossed the line, you're a bad parent.
A bit late to comment this but I totally agree that parents shouldn't hit their children! When I was young (probably 5 years old), I was very naughty and rude so one fine day, my dad brought the cane and whipped me hard. From then on, I started to distance myself from him- less conversations, less hugs, less playing time with him. I felt that he was a mighty authoritarian figure which I can't lovingly relate to. It wasn't until 10+ years later when I become an adult that this relationship started getting much better.
ReplyDelete