Thursday 10 April 2014

Why spanking is wrong: no ifs, no buts, no Asian bullshit excuses

Hello again everyone. I have had so many strong feelings over the issue of parents beating their children which have come up over my last two blog posts relating to the Malaysian couple who were jailed in Sweden for beating their children. I just want to share with you something quite personal, it is the mindset that I went through in the early years of my life as a child who was constantly beaten by my mother and how it affected me.

Let me introduce you to the young boy I was in Singapore back in the early 1980s. Actually, I was quite a different creature  back then. I remember being a painfully shy child with very low self-confidence and I rarely spoke up in class, I didn't have many friends, I wasn't particularly popular. I kept to myself, read a lot - it was a social crutch I suppose. If you didn't have many friends to talk to, it seemed socially acceptable to bury your face in a book - that removed the need to interact with others around you. One of my greatest fears was to talk to strangers, even ordering food at the hawker centre or canteen used to be a daunting task as it involved speaking to a stranger. That was how little self-confidence I had - under such circumstances, I wasn't a happy boy, I didn't have a happy childhood.
As mentioned in previous posts, my mother used to hit me a lot - she had mental health issues that went ignored for years and she would have these violent outbursts where she would scream like a madwoman, smash anything that got in her way and would hit her me until she was literally exhausted. There was no element of discipline to those beatings, it was merely a way for her to vent her frustration with so many other things going wrong in her life. I got hit when she had a bad day, not when I misbehaved. I lived in fear of her in my primary school days and I did exactly as I was told - I studied very hard, I got the grades she demanded of me and rarely misbehaved. Still, the beatings came regardless of how good my behaviour or grades were - there was little correlation between the two.

From the point of view of discipline (which my reader aweirdlittlebird is so fond of going on about), yes she succeeded in getting me to comply with her commands and I did exactly as I was told. Some of you may view that as good parenting, but let me point out that I obeyed her out of fear - not love, not respect, but sheer fear of the pain of another brutal beating. What kind of parent child relationship can you build with fear, instead of love and respect?
Do you want your child to experience love or fear?

There's something very honest about the way a child's mind works. An adult is bound by cultural norms, the concept of responsibility and our behaviour is shaped by the expectations of others - so it is easy for an adult to say, "I love and respect my parents" because that is the 'right' thing to say. A child however, is a lot more honest - be good to the child and the child will recognize, aha this person is nice to me. Be nasty to the child and the child will fear you, run away from you and hate you. An adult can defy his instincts and still act out of duty when it comes to their parents - children, however, will be a lot more honest about how they feel. If you hit a child, don't expect them to feel love.

Now try to put yourself in the shoes of a very young child who didn't understand what mental health issues were - as a very young child, I didn't understand what was wrong with my mother, why she kept beating me up like that day after day, sometimes with little or not provocation. To make things easier for myself to understand, I convinced myself that I was stupid, I was naughty, I was a bad person who deserved to be brutally beaten like that, that I wasn't deserving of love or dignity - not even from my own parents. I had such incredibly low self-esteem as a result.
This was what I told myself each time my mother abused me.

The alternative was to then accept the truth that I wasn't such a bad person after all, that I was deserving of love and dignity and that it wasn't my fault that I had an abusive mother who had serious mental health issues that were untreated and ignored for years. But what could a young child in Singapore do back then? Nothing - back then, the culture was such that the parents always got the benefit of the doubt. It was always the default position that the child deserved the beating, that it was for his own good and that the parents knew what they were doing. As a child, I bought into that lie and convinced myself that it was true. Even if I were to call the police, nothing would have been done by the police and I would probably get yet another brutal beating from my mother if I dared to say anything to anyone.

In choosing to blame myself, I created hope for myself - I told myself that I could stop the beatings if I behaved a bit better, if I studied a bit harder, if my grades improved a bit more, if I could somehow win my mother's approval - then she would like me a bit more and maybe stop hitting me. Of course, in hindsight, after three scholarships and delivering the kind of academic record that would have been any Singaporean parent's wet dream, I realized it was never about my grades. My mother hit me simply because I was a defenseless young child she could beat the crap out of and abuse, I was her punching bag - it was never about me or my behaviour or grades, it was all about her problems, her mental health issues and her stress levels. I look back in hindsight and can see how it happened.
As a result, I had such incredibly low self-esteem for much of my younger years and it was only when I rebelled in my teenage years that I began to slowly learn to credit myself with the self-esteem and self-confidence that I needed to go through life with. I wonder how many Singaporeans had their self-esteems crushed by bad parents and never ever fully regained it? This is why we need to talk about this: there are clearly bad parents out there, in Singapore, in Malaysia, in Sweden - everywhere. They don't demand that you attend parenting lessons before they let you have a child, the same way the government demands that you pass a driving test before they let you drive a car legally - so why are you all acting so bloody surprised when I point out to you that there are indeed some very bad parents out there?

Why am I sharing this story? It is because I am so sick and tired of all these bad parents who use the justification that children don't have the intellect or maturity to understand reason - that is why it is necessary use physical violence to get them to do something. Children may not be able to reason like adults, but plenty does go on in their heads in order to make sense of the world around them. When they are not offered the right kind of explanations which makes sense to them, they will then create their own stories to make sense o the world around them - the same way I convinced myself that I was stupid, worthless, disgusting, not worthy of love, not worthy of dignity and that was why I kept getting beaten by my mother no matter what I did. Allow me to quote my reader Ivanovich on this issue:
Do you understand enough about how a child reacts to violence?

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. 
Yes bad parents exist. No joke.

You see, you simply cannot trust children to figure all this out for themselves because they could end up blaming themselves the way I did and this could scar them psychologically for the rest of their lives. That is placing an unfairly huge psychological burden and responsibility on the child to figure out when really, in most cases, parents who beat their children are simply lashing out because they have lost their tempers and have 'snapped'.

This is why I get so very angry when I see parents justifying their actions with all these excuses: let's break it down like this. There is the present, the short term and the very long term. The present involves what happens over the next few hours. The short term involves what happens over the next few weeks or months and the long term can be a period that stretches as long as 20, 30 years. Say we're in a family where the son is not studying for his exam and the mother decides to beat the crap out of her son in order to force him to study. Her justification? "If I don't beat him right now, he will not study tonight (ie. the present) and he will do badly in the exam at the end of the month (short term result). Pass me the cane." The mother is so focused on controlling what happens in the present and short term goals that she completely ignores the possibility any negative long term consequences of her actions. I'm going to be 38 this year and as you can tell from my writing, I am still angry, resentful and scarred by what happened when I was very young.
Many parents neglect to consider the long term effects of their actions.

If the long term consequences are far more detrimental than any short term gains, what actions would you take in the present? Let me give you an analogy. Say if you open a factory in a town - the short term benefit is that you will generate thousands of new jobs for the local community, the long term effect however, is that the toxic wastes from the factory contains mercury and will kill all trees in the local area and poison the drinking water supply. So what do you do? Do you focus on the short term results or do you think about the consequences of your actions in the much longer term? Would you still open the factory knowing the devastating impact it will have on the environment?

Are humans rational creatures? Of course not, they make stupid mistakes all the time because they are too preoccupied with short term gains and they neglect the long term consequences. Just look at the huge environmental problems facing China at the moment, Beijing has a permanent air pollution problem that is causing serious health problems - why? Because the Chinese government has focused on the short term benefits of industrial growth rather than looking at the long term environmental consequences. Need I state the obvious? Humans can make stupid mistakes, even with the best of intentions - so why should parenting be any different? Why should we then assume that all parents will love their children and not make any mistakes? Parents make mistakes all the time - they're human.
Yes even parents with good intentions can make bad mistakes.

Some abused children actually defend their parents: I had one reader who wrote a comment admitting that he was lazy as a child and if his mother had not caned him, then he would have gone on to become a failure in life. Well, I see this is a case of desperately justifying the situation - this reader has two choices: either he can accept that his mother was wrong to cane him (and there are other ways to motivate a child to study hard, it takes more inventive parenting skills when it comes to that) or he can lie to himself and pretend that this was the best and only course of action and that his mother is his hero in saving him from potential disaster with her cane. This reminds me of a story I have heard.

Many years ago, there was this village in a remote mountainous region of China, the soil was poor and the local farmers could only persuade one kind of vegetable to grow on their farms there. They called the vegetable "苦菜" as it had an unpleasant bitter after taste. There was also a pun as well as when they ate 苦菜 - they were literally "吃苦" (suffering hardship). A traveler went to the village and was served 苦菜 at the local inn - when the traveler protested that it was unpleasant tasting, the local inn manager claimed that this vegetable was a delicacy and it had a unique flavour that all the locals adored. "When I traveled to Beijing, they had all kinds of vegetables available in the market, I tried eating all kinds of vegetables in Beijing but I missed the taste of 苦菜 because that is my favourite vegetable. I love it. I feel so lucky that we have 苦菜 in abundance here as I couldn't even find any 苦菜 in Beijing!"
People change their perspectives to deal with negative feelings.

You see, if all you have is 苦菜, 苦菜 and more 苦菜 - what do you do then? Do you get angry and upset that you are stuck with 苦菜 and nothing better available? Or do you then pretend that you actually love 苦菜 and convince yourself that the flavour is delicious? You see, when you cannot change the past (or sometimes the present), people sometimes change their perspective of the situation to convince themselves, "oh actually it's not that bad, it's actually quite good..." It makes them feel a lot better about the problems in their lives by pretending that these problems are not that serious or are not problems at all. It's bad enough if an adult does this - but should children be forced to go through that same process just to make their physical abuse more bearable? Talk about child abuse.

You see, that is why I do not accept these arguments that defend the use of corporal punishment on children - they either totally neglect the long term consequences or imagine that there are simply no long term consequences. Mind you, if my mother knew the terrible consequences of her actions, she might have acted quite differently - but then again, she was always thinking of the present, she was not the kind of person who could look too far into the future and consider anything long term. It is so tempting to get caught up in the moment as a parent, to only think about the present situation at hand and/or very short term goals - rather than focus on anything long term.
Are you obsessed with short term results? Do you think of long term consequences?

In any case, I feel that a lot of parents often beat their children to assert their authority over their children, rather than try to use corporal punishment to impart any kind of lesson. There is an element of bullying as well, when you choose to show the child who's boss through physical violence (rather than using words and reason). Like I said, when a child is misbehaving, hitting a child is probably the quickest and most effective way to deal with the situation (ie. the present) and it may even act as a deterrent in the short term - but it is not the best way to address such behavioural problems because of the long term consequences of hitting the child especially when there are other alternatives to beatings to discipline a naughty child without such negative long term consequences. The abused child can be afflicted by low self-esteem for years the way I did and may grow up feeling that he isn't worthy of love or dignity - some even bear far deeper psychological scars as a result of being abused by the very people they are meant to love and trust. These are serious consequences that Asian parents willfully and recklessly ignore as they beat their children.

I have been accused of being nasty to my readers like B Tiger who try to defend corporal punishment - I refuse to apologize for taking a stance on the issue and I stand by what I say: any parent who uses a cane on his/her child is a bad parent and if the shoe fits, wear it. This is not some trivial discussion about whether or not you like Alicia Keys' latest album, where we can simply agree to disagree on the issue - given the kind of personal experience I've had with physically abusive parents, I simply must take a stance on the issue and say unequivocally that parents who cane their children are definitely bad parents - very bad parents indeed. No ifs, no buts, no Asian excuses.

As usual, please let me know what you think, feel free to leave a comment below but be warned that I am going to call a spade a spade if you are going to try to defend the caning of defenseless young children. Thanks for reading.

31 comments:

  1. Alex,

    It’s not enough to just criticize parents if you want to help. It's neither about me nor you. It’s about the subject of physical punishment. Corporal punishments has been a parenting feature since biblical times and probably longer. Your zero-tolerance views while as appealing as a child psychology books, are not going to make a dent on it as not even when a country's politics makes it illegal can it change the cultural behaviour of a nation. It just goes on behind closed doors. It's like being gay or like boys getting sodomised in the Catholic church – illegal, unbelievable to some but as true and so prevalent that even the Pope cannot help.

    A large percentage of parents, your parents , my parents, our married siblings, our married friends, our Christian friends and people of religions based on the "holy book" are believers of "spare the rod, spoil the child" - because it's written in their book. That’s a hell lot of people for you to lambast and exclude. This is a fact of the state of our societies today. Now I only have some questions for you. Is it better to cry your heart out that such a practice continues to exist? Or is it better to put your personal feelings aside to learn something, to look deeper and find out why a significant section of parents are still doing it - the real reasons and not just your own assumptions?

    What are parents thinking and what guides them in corporal punishment? Do we know if they are indeed all unthinking and unguided, a reaction based on uncontrolled raw adult anger as you suggest? I am referring only to those who are practicing it, like referring to gays in a gay debate as I know you are dead set against it just like some people are against gays with no exception. But are you like a gay-hate style blog but applied on an equally significant section of parents in society? I hope not as I want to know the story of the gays, why are they different, how are they different and how do they cope with discrimination if indeed they are coping. Same for this section of parents. Not many parents will come out in the open in your blog to discuss it if you seem to be intolerant. So what is the point of your blog?

    You know you are not going to change anything by your exhortations because far more establish and influential child psychologists/experts have written countless best seller books on the non-corporal punishment way and yet these have not caught on completely after the last three decades. Why is that so? Are these modern child psychologists missing something in their literature so it did not produce the results parents seek? Why are these "experts" often diametrically opposed to each other like they are fads of the time? Which expert was wrong and ran out of flavour and who was right in their theories with a proven track record of good advice? Who do we trust? You?

    If you are going to be a hate blog, then end of discussion for me. You will not want to hear me and you will not learn anything about the other side that you chastise. They are all lumped together as one as far as you are concerned. You will have missed a chance to make things better for the children you are purporting to defend. These children are not those whose parents are struggling to cope based on advice from “expert” child psychology books - but those children under parents who do use the cane. You will be similar to the gay hate sites. No gays helped. No children under abusive parents helped here too.

    But if you do want to make it better, to help guide the gay haters, give insight to the parents who might be using excessive corporal punishment, to tell (or let others tell them) them why it’s neither effective nor useful to overdo it, then you have to be far more tolerant of the subject and not simplistically treat it as just black or white.

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    1. B Tiger, I don't think I have any desire to try to reason with you for one simple reason: the age of your children are such that they are too old to cane and you admitted having caned them when they were younger. There, it was in the past, you've done that, you don't intend to do it anymore, it's in the past. Kinda like what my parents did (they caned me when I was young, they can't cane me anymore) - we're talking about something that happened years ago. I don't think you're going to look back and say, "yeah I was wrong" - clearly you feel totally justified in having done what you did and you want to defend yourself and the concept of using corporal punishment. I can only urge you to read the two posts by Di Talasi and Patty here in the comments section - they are parents as well, they are looking at the same issue when it comes to their choices but at least they are talking about it reasonably, Patty is clearly grappling with the issue and is careful about it - whereas with you, it's a slam-dunk, the door is shut, you are only here to defend your stance at all costs, not try to talk reasonably about the issue.

      In any case, you offended me when you wrote the line " It's like being gay or like boys getting sodomised in the Catholic church – illegal, unbelievable to some but as true and so prevalent that even the Pope cannot help."

      How can you write about being gay and the abuse of Catholic boys in the church as if they are the same thing? I am gay (and an atheist, for the record), yet I most strongly condemn what is going on in terms of sexual abuse in the Catholic church, it is highly offensive that you can try to lump the two together like that.

      The fact that you want to claim that I am hateful is beyond belief - I am taking a stance against parents who beat their children, the fact that I have even allowed your comments (all comments are moedated) and engaged you thus far is a sign that I am a reasonable person - but even reasonable people do take a stance on issues. I am NOT (and I need to stress this) a journalist trying to address both sides of the argument (that's Jennifer Pak from the BBC, she's done a great job of that). I am a blogger offering a PERSONAL, one-sided view of the issue, showing my readers what I think about it. I never ever claimed otherwise and you seem to want me to change my style - well you're mistaken.

      For you to try to play the victim's card and call my blog a hate blog is ... ludicrous to say the least. I say, if anyone's the victim here, it's your children. Not you. Your the one wielding the cane against a helpless child and inflicting physical pain. I wish you could see yourself in the mirror. I am defending your children, I am speaking up for your children - and that makes me hateful? Talk about blind spots.

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    2. Alex, OK before I create more fire I am sorry to have offended you. My bad. I am an atheist too and I have no negative opinions on people just because they are gay. On the contrary I find gay people more creative and very articulate in their blogs for example Alex Au’s, and now yours. I honestly did not know you are one. But no excuse, I apologize again.

      I was referring to narrow-minded fundamentalist people who think that being gay is bad with “no ifs and no buts” and who consider section 377a as outlawing it in Singapore. That’s why I put it together with the constant sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic church. I do not however apologize for the church comment part as that is a known fact. And I do have opinions of what causes that but that is another story.

      What I am trying to do is to find some common ground with you on the subject so that I can write something without being abused by you. Yes calling me a bad parent is very offensive to me especially when I know how much my kids mean to me and how I hard I have work on my parenting skills. If your starting position is “it’s wrong and no if and no buts” and proclaim your readers “you are a very bad parent” even if you used the cane sparingly without considering context then it does not seem that you are reasonably open to differing ideas. Your saying “parents who beat their children are simply lashing out because they have lost their tempers and have 'snapped'” is neither a reasonable nor accurate statement.

      Di Talasi have some interesting comments not about caning about parenthood which I might have some opinion. But I’ll do that later maybe.
      Unlike Patty whose kid is only five months old, my kids are older than seven. I have a swell relationship with them despite still having the cane in the house as a reminder. I don’t use it much though as they are very well behaved nowadays. Why don’t you believe me they are fine and why do you insist that the harm has already been done and that I will regret it? You do not know my kids nor my parenting achievements. Every parent at some phase when kids are between ages five and seven will have frustrations with them as they are naturally exploring the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. This is the basic psychology of toddlers 101, a fact and it has nothing to do with how well you communicate with the child. It will still test you to the limit sometimes. My wife before the cane used to get so worked up by the boundary testing that she loses it sometimes and whacks back with her hand. After that she would feel so remorseful and sad and blamed herself for days for losing control. The other occasions when she or I did managed to control ourselves it either turned to a screaming contest with the kids or a perennial nagging session. It was not healthy at all for us or the kids. Ironically at that time we were still on non-physical punishment philosophy that we were so sold was our way. After learning about our problems a Christian old friend being an older parent and wiser gave us some tapes to study, about 30 hours of it. We learnt from Pastor Chang’s recorded audios of home group parenting lectures with Q&A from Taiwanese parents living the US. Even when corporal punishment is mentioned amongst other tips (and it is only a very small part of the whole parenting teaching) it is put in a totally way, a reverentially different perspective. It’s as far different from how my and your parents of old treated me and you as between heaven and earth. Totally different from what you have now painted with broad strokes of parents who use the cane. Your ideas are unjust and lack depth to the subject. It’s got nothing do with short term gains nor long term psychological damages, nor parents losing control. This is the hidden story which you will not hear. Got to sign off hastily now.... kids are crazy when it comes to bed time.

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    3. Apology accepted - what you wrote did come across as homophobic.

      But as for my allegation that you're a bad parent - I am giving you the opportunity to have your say after I have had my say and it is up to my other readers (Di, Patty, Kaishun, Choaniki etc) to read both sides and they can decide. Maybe some of them will not think that you're a bad parent, maybe some will agree with me - perhaps the term 'bad parent' is too emotionally loaded, maybe I could've used a phrase like "a parent with good intentions who has made a bad error of judgement/mistake". I still stand by what I said, I am not sold on the concept of "using cane with moderation" - like the whole idea is just wrong. It's like saying, "oh I don't have a cocaine habit, I just do a little bit now and then when I want to, that's is not a habit, I am not addicted nor am I reliant on it you know..." The fact that you choose to use it (instead of employing a different kind of punishment method, such as the withdrawal of privileges) is disturbing to begin with. Like I said so many times before, I never said one should let kids run amok in a consequence free environment - of course children need boundaries, they need to learn and when they test the boundaries and limits, you need to respond but NOT with the cane (or any other kind of kind of physical violence). It does set a really bad example for the child - what if you child learns from your example and hits another child at school, "if daddy can hit me, then it's okay to hit people."

      I really don't give a damn what this Pastor Chang or whatever says - I am simply not convinced that just because so-and-so said it's okay to beat your children means it gives you carte-blanche rights to do it.

      So no, I will not go give you the right to have a clear conscience. I am glad I have made you at least try to justify your actions and what bad choices you have made when it comes to using the cane - well, that's between you and your children. I have said this before to another reader earlier today, love is a very basic, emotional response we have towards another person. It's either there or it's not. You can do something out of duty even if you dislike that task (or the people you have to deal with in that task), but you can't fake love. I wonder how many Singaporean kids who were beaten by their parents actually feel any love for their parents (have a read of some of the comments left here - there were kids who were burnt by their parents, one was beaten up and thrown out of the house naked and had to hide in a drain for hours) - yet parents somehow just assume "oh i brought up my kids hence they will and must love me." I don't think so and certainly, we're talking long term. We're talking about when your children are adults and they look back at what their childhood was like - what will they think? What will their impressions be? Will they remember love or fear?

      I can nag at you till the cows come home, but the people who will hold your responsible for your actions will ultimately be your own children. But that won't happen today. Or in the next 6 months. We're talking about 20, 30 years from now. So you don't need to be defensive with me, I am just telling you that you will reap what you sow.

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    4. Spare the rod and spoil the child ... go forth and multiply ..., the man is head of the household ... biblical antiquated ideas spewed by the Moses generation 2000 years ago. To say that even though it's illegal, but people do it anyway, so it's ok, is hogwash.
      I do not own a cane. Never even thought of owning one. Never used a ruler or belt on my son either. I have yelled at him. I have told him he annoyed me, and we have fought and later cried, but I have never caned him. I am not a perfect mother. I do try to create learning experiences for him. I also tell him the straight facts for most things. I have told him that he needed to study hard and study smart and get a great job because there will be no money coming to him when we die. I said we can barely afford a comfortable retirement, much less leave him much money. Inheritance from his grandparents? Forget it! Even though he is only 11, he understands why I push him hard. I told him that my mother never helped me with school work, but she expected miracles. He is lucky because he gets help from Mama and Daddy all the time. Therefore, he has no excuse to not do well. I told him that his education, and his childhood memories are my gifts to him. I never got around to making a scrapbook of his first years. I can barely bake cookies edible enough for his bake sales, and I do not do crafty projects with him. I refuse to feel guilty when I am in the throes of Downtown Abbey drama, and sometimes, I yell at my husband and son because I do not have enough 'me' time. However, my son knows he can tell me anything. He tells me his crushes and the bullies at school. We fantasize about how we would play tricks on those bullies (dog poop in muffins!), and we both talk about how stupid some service people can be. Basically, I provide a safe place for my son to vent and share. I also expect him not to steal, hit his nemeses, or talk back to his teachers. To illustrate how imperfect I am, I am often impatient and frustrated with stupid drivers on the road. My son would tell me not to swear, and I would say he was right. Then we would laugh. He knows I am not perfect. He forgives me. I forgive him his transgressions too. We may fight during the day, but we never go to bed mad. I have impressed upon him that earning a living is hard. I have to smile and get along with people all day even though I may not like them. Using that example, I have told him that he has to get along with people he doesn't like at school because that's just the way the world is. At best, he should stay away from vexations, but he knows that annoying people are all around. Thus, he has never been in trouble at school over fighting or for behavioral problems. His greatest flaw is that he talks too much. Have I raised a perfect child? Golly, NO! However, I am blessed for the child that he is. He gets straight As literally, loves sports and chess, watches kids' shows as well as the ones I make him watch, pontificates with me about The Young and Restless (haha!), loves to talk with a fake British accent to amuse me, and knows the words to the Bee Gees songs on Mama Mia. I am trying to say that I did not raise this lovely child by being perfect and certainly not by corporal punishment, My son is comfortable sharing with me all his fears and secrets because I have been quite honest with him. I have been honest especially about how he needs to fend for his own future, getting along with people in the world, and how the world will slap you in the face when you are least expecting it, which is why we need to have safeguards in place. Had I caned him, we would not have been quite so close. It would have been me dictating, and him obeying out of pain avoidance.

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    5. Continue from previous post:
      My son does not have everything he wants (no ipad, no i-anything, no xbox or PS4).. He has many books which admittedly does not get read enough, but he just finished an abridged version of Moby Dick upon my suggestion. He has decent clothes which I buy on sale, and we often go our for lunches and dinners. You see, raising a child is a lot of work. I am not just a provider of things, I am a creator of experiences and opportunities. It's so easy to buy children things, but creating a loving childhood experience is so much harder. I wouldn't want caning to be his childhood experience. Then he would end up like myself, Choaniki, and Alex.
      And who the heck is Pastor Chang? I bet he makes $$$ from his audios. I do not care if he is the Pope. I am Catholic, and even if the Pope tells me it's ok to cane my child, I wouldn't listen to him. How could one justify caning simply because it's common in your culture? At least acknowledge that whilst it may be common, it's not good parenting. Drugs are prevalent in high schools in North America. Does that make it a good habit? That argument is irrational.

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    6. Thank you so much Di. This is such an insightful reply.

      Let me play the devil's advocate and ask you a question then. Many of the parents who defend corporal punishment will claim that they do not subject their children to endless beatings, they do not vent their anger on their children through these beatings but instead the cane is reserved for very special occasions such as when the child does something seriously wrong (eg. imagine if the child is caught fighting in school and hurts another classmate, or if the child is caught vandalizing public property) - such a severe misdeed would justify the need for corporal punishment. Hence they want to reserve the right to use corporal punishment for such cases as a deterrent, should the child even contemplate doing something like that, the child should know the consequences of such a misdeed.

      That's their argument. I don't agree with it but that's their argument.

      So my question to you Di is this: I know you've got a great son, but hypothetically, should your son do something seriously bad like that, how would you react as a mother? And also, what do you have in place to deter your son from ever contemplating doing something seriously bad (ie. in place of the threat of a violent beating, what's the threat from your end)?

      I just want to explore what alternatives you are using, instead of beating your child - let's talk about these alternatives because such people talk as if there is no option at all available apart from beating. There are alternatives - I would love to hear from you about what they are. Thanks Di :)

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    7. Well, my son knows my wrath. I have told him that if he slacks off during this last term before June, he's looking at a very miserable summer. Just before spring break, he was busy catching up on work that he should have done weeks before. During that last week, I had to stay up late helping him with a school project. I was working on my own reports myself. I was furious. I banned him from playing outside during the first days of spring break before we left for Mexico. His neighbour friends came to knock on the door, and he begged me to let him go out. I refused even though I felt bad as it was sunny, and I needed some peace in the house. He had no electronics at his disposal. He had to do house chores, read, do math exercises, and it was driving him up the wall. I reminded him that he brought it upon himself. He should not have caused me stress by doing his work last minute. I explained to him how his actions affected me. How selfish he was. By understanding that his actions impacted me, he understood why I had to ground him. If he were fighting in school, we would have done the same thing. I would make his life miserable without caning. First of all, that option has never occurred to us until your blog. Now, thinking about it, the caning would cause pain for brief moments. Perhaps he will be in pain for a day. However, if I take away all his pleasures, he will be affected for a long time. I once refused to let him watch TV for months. He was miserable. Then next time, when he did something silly, I threatened him with no electronics again, and he immediately stopped because he knew that was a miserable experience.
      Luckily, we have never had to deal with physical fights. If anything, other kids are more inclined to hit him. We have told him that unless that person is beating him up (kicking/punching repeatedly), he should never retaliate. We told him that when someone hits you, look around for witnesses right away. Then seek help immediately. Report it right away even if he himself may have done something to aggravate the other person. This way, he stays in the right because it is NEVER right to hit someone. The hitter will then be punished. We told him that will be his revenge on the hitter. We told him that if he hits back, he is also in the wrong, and he implicates himself. Of course if the person has a weapon or attacks him repeatedly, that is different. He will have to defend himself in that case. Usually, when kids get in fights, it's just a shove or a push. He goes to a good school, so extremely violent situations has not happened (yet).

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    8. continued:
      You see, whilst parenting comes with twists and turns, we still have to create an environment to eliminate nasty events. Everything in our lives has been about eliminating nastiness. Hence, this includes keeping good friends in our lives. I once has to cut someone my fb account and ultimately from my life because she was bringing bad energy to my life. I talked to my son about it, and he understood why Mrs. DS is no longer a friend. I was modeling to him that we can pick our friends. We can't pick colleagues, classmates, or teachers, but we have some level of control over certain parts of our lives. It's all about making choices.
      And caning was not an option. As long as you leave it an option, you will use it because you tell yourself that the situation your child is in warrants it. Surely a fight warrants the cane? No. You use a cane because your child hits someone? Hello? He's just doing what YOU do. He's thinking, this idiot took my lunch, so surely this warrants a punch! When will it end?
      To the parents out there, I repeat: I am not a perfect mom, and I do not have a perfect child. What I have done is to pre-empt trouble. I know trouble will still come our way, but if I can stop even 1/3 of it from even happening, that's 1/3 less stress. When my son was 3 years old, I started to point out to him people who smoked. I started to show him pictures of ugly yellow teeth and black lungs. By the time he was in kindergarten, he was avoiding smokers on the sidewalks like a plague. Now, when he sees a smoker walking towards us, he would say, "This way, Mama. He's smoking." Then he would step onto the road (which scares me because of cars!). Point is, it takes years to for ideas to sink in, and it takes a lot of work. I only have one child because I can only handle one child. My husband and I were married 13 years before we had our son. We wanted to be ready. You can never be ready, but some people have kids just because. Then they cane just because. Stop. Think. Plan.PS: Say my child were to shoplift, I would make him give it back with consequences. If he were caught shoplifting, I would tell the security guard to keep him in the office for a few hours to scare the shit out of him. What is scarier? Caning or being kept at the mall office for hours wondering what they will do to you?

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    9. Oh, I have impressed upon my son that we need to keep our community pretty. Now, if he were to vandalize something, I would let the cops talk to him. He would have to repay the damages through some work. I hope that never happens, but I can assure you, I will let the cops scare the shit out of him as well.

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    10. What was I thinking? It's "Downton Abbey" and "Abba" songs. I need another vacation!

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    11. Thanks Di. I think you have all given us some food for thought. Allow me to offer just one more thought.

      As a child, even though I hated the beatings I got, there came a point where I was like, "here we go again". My pain threshold got higher, I got used to being beaten and at the end of the day, it's just me and pain - I can put up with it. The pain will pass no matter how brutal the beating is, I wait for the pain to pass and then my mother thinks she's done her job and I walk away thinking she's a monster.

      Whereas in your case, you actually prolong the agony with your kind of punishments, you're hardly the kind of mother who lets your child gets away with murder. Your punishments well and truly makes your son suffer and face the consequences of his actions. And I do believe they do focus far more on rehabilitation.

      Pain is nasty and acute - but it then becomes all about the pain and there's nothing about any element of rehabilitation.

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    12. That was my intent. Pain is momentary or for a day or two at best (in which case, the beating is tantamount to abuse). My punishment lasts for days/weeks/months, depending on the 'sin'. He is reminded over and over again the error of his ways. Sometimes, at the first signs of re-offence, all I need is to remind him of his past consequences. It works like a charm.

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  2. If the parent truly wants to motivate the child to study, why not help him in the learning process? For example, I want my son to understand the holocaust, so we watched 'The Book Thief' and 'The Boy in Striped PJs' and movies like that. I am creating learning experiences rather than rote cold textbook facts memorizing. Caning my son into learning would be stupid. Like Alex said, that would be short term gain at best. Other ways of motivation would create a life long learner. Same thing for caning because of bad behaviour. How about treating the child with respect in order to earn respect. That is not to say we have to condone bad behaviour. I am saying to model good behaviour so that the child learns by example. How is he to learn when the parents dishes out violence on him?

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    1. Di, you know that you and I always agree with each other on so many issues and once again, I agree with you and I think you're a brilliant mother. And had we ever lived in the same city at the same time, we'll become best friends :)

      I invite you to respond, as a mother, to the comment above by B Tiger. He seems adamant that I am hateful and is playing the victim's card here. Can you offer your perspective please, as a parent and respond to him please? Thank you.

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    2. PS. I am glad you have mentioned the film The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas - there's also another Italian film I watched a while ago called I Am Not Scared (Io non ho paura) - both films tell the story from a young child's perspective, both children are being thrown into bewildering circumstances and the adults just treat them like, "oh you won't understand, you're just a kid." And the kids are left to figure out what the hell is going on - just because a kid isn't going to understand the complexities of the situation doesn't mean that the kid's mind is going to be completely blank and you can just send the kid off to watch cartoons. When something happens, such as when a kid takes a beating from his parents, then the kid's mind searches for answers, like "why am I beaten by the parents who are supposed to love and protect me?" If a satisfactory answer is not found, then the child may turn in on himself and blame himself. Do parents want to leave that to chance and let that happen? It's such irresponsible behaviour on the part of such parents. So okay, a kid cannot fully understand why you cannot play with electrical appliances, a young kid cannot understand how electricity works and why it can be dangerous - so you beat the kid up to instill the message that they cannot play with electrical devices, but in solving one problem you create a second, ie. that of the kid questioning why he is being beaten up by the parents like that? But no, too many parents merely deal with the situation at present, to achieve short term goals and ignore the long term consequences.

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    3. I'll reply tonight. I barely made it to work this morning, and I have boot camp after work. What was I thinking? Lol!

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    4. Thanks. I am always looking for movies to watch with my son, and no, NOT the Home Alone genre! Other great movies for parents and children, "The Chorus" (French), "Colours of Paradise" (Iranian), and "Children of Heaven" (Iranian).

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  3. Between my wife and I, we had compared notes (and wounds) of how our parents had treated us. We had both received lashes for the smallest of things and agreed that the variance of punishment depended on the mood of our parents at the moment when punishment was met out.

    Of course, we both remembered those beatings and we remember the uselessness and callousness they were delivered - she was severely beaten just for trying to wear different shoes on each foot while I was lashed till I vomited for throwing away a piece of pear which I hated. These events happened when we were mere toddlers but the memories stayed well into adulthood and likely forever. They were particularly painful memories to hold on to during puberty and if there is one thing my parents can blame for the hurtful things I said during those confusing years, it should be due to the hurt they caused in the earlier years.

    Do I love my parents today? It's difficult to say. Maybe it's conditioning or duty, maybe it's recognizing that after all they had also done what they can through their own difficulties or maybe, I really do love them despite all those pain. The sad honest thing is, however, I really don't know. And I have enough problems of my own today to not want to revisit those feelings other than over pillow talk with my wife or in small doses like this.

    However, there is a slight variation between our experiences - as early as when my wife was 3 and while in better mood settings, her mum tried reasoning instead and in turn my wife attempted to do the same to adults. A successful "parlay" could earn my wife what she wanted or perhaps just get out of trouble. It was a skill that she managed to develop and make great use of in life. I didn't have such luxury until I was almost Primary 6 when my mum thought I had reached a "sensible age". I was (still am) afraid of making mistakes and while I own up to them now, that nagging fear is a major hindrance in attempting new things or ideas that I have not totally overcome after 2 decades of working life. And you know, I still hate pears.

    We have a 5 month old now and we had already made some plans. We will incorporate negotiations and arguing skills in our parenting as we do not believe that a child do not know reason. Still, we did not rule out corporal punishment yet although we had both agreed that it will be for something so severe and reviling that an impression must be made. After all, in society, there are crimes that befit the withdrawal of freedom or even life and a child must learn those eventually. But definitely not for something as trivial as throwing away unwanted food or wearing different shoes on each foot. And It will of course need to be "signed off" by both parents.

    Anyway, just last week, a friend sent this over email and it's pretty inspiring for new parents.

    http://inpraiseofargument.squarespace.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/

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    1. Hi Patty, thanks for your comment. This reminds me of an episode of Family Guy that I watched. There was this episode where Peter struggled with an unloving and mean father who never showed him any love - so Peter decides to get the Pope to try to talk some sense into his father, only for the mean old father to drive the Pope up the wall that the Pope totally loses his temper with the father. So the Pope then turns to Peter and says something like, "The Bible says honour your father and mother, it never said anything about actually liking them."

      Love is not something you can force yourself to do. I can force you to eat a slice of pear, but you will not like the taste of it. There are things that I do out of duty: let me give you an example. I have a bin in the kitchen, I put a plastic bag in there and the trash goes into the plastic bag, when it's full I put it down the chute. The other day, it was so disgusting in there, that I simply had to wash the inside of the bin with soap and hot water. I felt compelled to do it out of duty, I didn't enjoy doing it, but it's the right thing to do.

      Don't feel bad about not feeling love for your parents - you can't force an emotion like that, it doesn't stop you from doing the right thing when it comes to your parents. You feel what you feel, you have to be honest with yourself about it. You can't pretend or force yourself to feel something that's just not there - love is an emotional response to another person and it is a two way street.

      As for how to raise your young baby, I suggest you have a word with Di Talasi (one of my regular readers and a fantastic person) who is also a parent and a great mother - she would be able to exchange some tips with you.

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    2. @Patty, I think great minds think alike. That was the exact link I posted in LIFT's blog a few days back: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2014/04/malaysian-couple-jailed-in-sweden-for.html?showComment=1396878927194#c4570432012889750274

      I think Aristotle and even Winston Churhill make better teachers than some fictional book written by possibly ghost writers (I'm talking about the bible). Please don't come near me with quotes like, "spare the rod spoil the child" or "children obey your parents in everything", etc. Your credibility in my eyes will drop to 0.

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  4. Hey LPFT. Im a sinkie and a fan of your blog. I have read what you have on the topic carefully. What you say is true about adults bullying children. This i fully agree. And i agree with you that reasoning is superior to caning - but the problem is that not all children or adults are superior.

    What i mean is this - LPFT you are a high IQ person with a strong sense of self-awareness and strong opinions and observations. In short, you are a smart guy. If your mother HAD (and i stressed the "had") wanted to hit you to impress on you important life values and discipline, it would be unnecessary as you are smart enough to be teachable by reason.

    The problem is that not every child is smart enough to understand anything more than physical pain. I was a primary tutor in my uni days and i have seen many children. Most are smart and can be moulded through reason and kindness. There were one or two who were stuck in the mud in their ways - how they insist on being rude and lazy is beyond reasoning.

    Because some children simply want to be bad and hence need to be trained by a cane. It is a fact, LPFT, that some children just want to be bad and to deny this would be naive. To assume that everyone can be persuaded by reason is naive.

    Ok, to end off allow me to thank you for this great blog you are hosting. I like your blog so much i have decided to pay your city london a visit this may. Im looking forward to it!

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    1. Wow LIFT you have a new hardcore reader.

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    2. Hi J&E, Yeah there's another problem with my mother you see, in terms of impressing upon me important life values and discipline, she isn't very highly educated and not exactly the world's most eloquent person. In fact, she says some pretty stupid things at times and I have to bite my lip and simply not respond because I have to tell myself, let it go, it's not her fault that she is not highly educated, she didn't have a great education back in those days. So people who cannot express themselves tend to resort to hitting as she wasn't able to reason with me. But regardless, I don't think much of the beatings had anything to do with teaching me anything - it was mostly her venting her anger.

      As for the problematic kids who were stuck in their ways, there must be some deep rooted problem waiting to be solved. Why are they not interested in their studies? Why are they rebelling? What are they so resentful about? What are their motivations? You see, I see the cane as a very blunt tool - yes you can whip them and force them to study or do whatever you want them to do with the threat of physical violence, but it doesn't solve the underlying problems. In my piece, I talk about dealing with the present, achieving short term results and handling long term consequences. - the cane can at best help you deal with a difficult child in the present, it will not solve any serious issues the child is facing.

      To do that, you need a lot more time, effort, understanding and love.

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  5. I've had bad parents period. They abused me growing up and like LIFT I'm socially awkward till today. But I understand my limitations and I know that due to lack of charisma I will never be a natural born leader or great CEO of a company and actually I'm ok with that.

    Life is too short thought to look back with regrets and think what if. In fact recently I've been motivated by this picture someone posted on linkedIn updates: http://imgur.com/tyHhI9i

    So even though I turned out relatively alright not because but in spite of how my parents treated me during my childhood days, I'm living life my own way without regrets and looking forward only.

    And probably like LIFT I think there will never be a chance for reconciliation with my parents too since they still insist they were not bad parents and "did the basic needed" (my father's exact words) to raise me and my elder brother. I think unlike in Hollywood movies not every story can have a happy ending. I've been apart from my parents probably almost as long as I've stayed with them (left home immediate on graduation and before NS) but it's for the best for both parties.

    So parents go ahead and beat your kids if you want to raise them to hate you and have distance uncomfortable relationships in the future.

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  6. Strange.

    I've been through similar myself. Been beaten, stripped naked and thrown out of the house till bedtime. Hid in a drain till night fell and waited for my father to come back and sneak me in. I was 12.

    So I know where you're coming from. And I think we can both count ourselves lucky that there were no permanent physical wounds. Mental; something else.

    I agree with you that corporal punishment can be bad. But I don't agree with your zero tolerance approach - and I don't agree with your "jail them" instinct.

    Not every parent goes to excess.

    Is there a slippery slope? I.e. Can parents start beating more because it works? Yes. Do they always? No.

    There is more to parenting than physicality. Distant parents can be far worse for a child. When I say distant, I mean distant - go on vacation for weeks, leaving the child at home with the domestic help. No physical violence; tell me that's better.

    It's the parents' responsibility to live with their poor parenting skills. If they beat their children to excess, they had better expect to not be a big part of their adult children's lives. They will have reaped what they sowed.

    You may rightly ask whether the state should intervene at all then. And I think it should. If a child is beaten badly enough or systematically, the state should intervene - though it does not mean going straight to jail.

    So. I know where you're coming from. I think you're too extreme. Let the parents deal with the consequences.

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    1. Man, I feel for you bro Kaishun. That's a horrendous story. My mother did the same thing to me when I was like 8 years old. I tried to run away from her and she beat me up, then pushed me out of the house and locked the door. She told me never to return and if she did, she would beat me up again. I screamed for help and luckily, my neighbour took pity on me and took me into her house for a few hours. Whilst my neighbour was obviously kind and felt sorry for me, I remember her words. She was like, "you see lah, you don't listen to your mother, you make your mother so angry, why you want to be so naughty? You must 听话 and not make your mother angry, okay?" And that was the Singaporean response (well that neighbour is technically speaking Malaysian, but same kind of culture) - always blame the child. Never mind what the psychotic mother has just done, the mother is never in the wrong, oh no, it's always the child in the wrong.

      In hindsight when I read your story and I think back to what happened, I'm like - there's something seriously screwed up here man, seriously screwed up. How on earth did we not end up more screwed up psychologically after being brought up like that?

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    2. It's called growing up.

      You and I got off lucky. Really. Trust me. Trust me. Others have suffered much worse. Their parents deserve jail.

      When I see you write about corporal punishment deserving jail, I think it cheapens the suffering of those others - that there's a whole lot of difference between being beaten, versus being crippled; being expelled versus being raped.

      What happened to you and me does not compare.

      So. I hope you see my point of view - that I believe your zero tolerance is out of balance; and that it does not recognise that life is a lot more complex than whatever your own experiences are.

      So. Is beating always wrong? To me it often is; but not always.

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    3. I don't think what I write cheapens the sufferings of others - I think condoning beating/corporal punishment is what cheapens it. How can what I say possibly disrespect or cheapen the sufferings of others? Good grief Kaishun it's not a competition to see who suffered more, that's not a competition I have any desire to win or even begin. Of course there are others who suffered more than me and of course I feel that what I have been through enables me to offer empathy - but should the fact that some others have suffered more than me means that I should never ever speak up?

      By that token, nobody should ever speak up - cos there's always someone out there who suffered more that you. How can we go down this road? Let's at least talk about it in a safe environment and offer mutual support and empathy.

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    4. Been there done that. Lost the house key 1x too many for my parents liking and from that day forth till time i left they never gave me a set of keys. When they decide to go out and no one was at home I had to wait outside the corridor of the flat for up to several hours and once almost overnight (they went to bed and bolted the door and gate).

      Did that experience teach me anything? Not really no. But in my boredom spend waiting outside i taught myself how to pick locks and managed to open the main door with just a plastic card. So that's my only takeaway till today I guess.

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    5. I must say I was taken aback when I saw you bring up the competition metaphor; that never occurred to me. Really, I thought "When I see you write about corporal punishment deserving jail" was clear enough. Not "When I see you write about corporal punishment". The two are very different.

      For avoidance of doubt, I encourage you to speak up; but I disagree with the conclusions you have drawn so far. Hope that's clear enough.

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