Do you have a feminist perspective on smacking children?

Should say though, after saying that I agree with SGB, that although I might think many adults need a good slap, chances are I wouldn't be offering it! I'm not that brave.

"but isn't the argument that you smack precisely because the child hasn't understood why s/he needs to stop whatever s/he is doing?"

exactly - but a small child is sometimes just not capable of properly understanding the details of why, but they still need to know that they must stop.

again, I don't use smacking, but I do see it as an acceptable technique, if not usually the most effective.

losing it and hitting in anger is the way that battering starts

being a feminist is not why i do not smack ds but the respect issue is a feminist issue so yes i guess it is tied in in some ways

is smacking more prevalent in cultures where women have less control in their lives maybe. i have been shocked by the level of violence used towards children by my own family (asian) and it is totally acceptable

I think I am a feminist, and I agree with SGB. I very rarely smack DS but there are times when nothing else reaches through to him - maybe I am a shit parent, I don't really think so (although you all might) - and a 1,2,3 and leg/bum tap gets through. Mostly we don't get anywhere near 3 - but if we do, I have to follow through. I haven't resorted to using 2 1/2 but I do stop after 2 and say "don't make me say 3".

I have never hit him in anger but he's only 3.8 - I'd be worried about myself if I had! I am sure that by the time he is old enough to reason with better, smacking will be a thing of the past.

i do not smack because i feel it is wrong to physical harm a child i also feel it steps over being respectful, having to harm someone to get them to do as you want or to protect them how is that a respectful way to treat another human being. though i have felt i could have smacked ds i don't if i did i would loose respect for myself as a parent as i would have lost control

its a lazy way to parent too for many, its hard and often draining explaining over and over again but i would explain in something is wrong 100 times rather than smack as all that teaches is when you do x, y or z you get a smack so if another child does x,y or z then surely it is ok for them to get a smack too

i am not in favour of using time out i only use when i feel ds needs to calm down or that i need a bit of space. i do nto even like using the word punishment and discipline these are terms we use when talking about the most dangerous criminals in our society yet we use the same terms when dealing with children it is so negative

I don't like smacking. I can remember being smacked. I can remember putting books in my pants so it would hurt my parents' hands, rather than my bottom.

I think that only reason I dicsipline my children is to protect them, not to control them. So if my ds was looking like he was going to touch the iron or the cooker I would move him, as he is getting older I can warn him more. I wouldn't let him hurt himself, and I wouldn't hurt him either.

But Chinchilla you can't compare owning slaves and women with childrearing.
Children are naturally dependent, adults naturally aren't. It's a process. I see your wider point though.

"nor do I have a problem accepting that occasionally people lose it and may hit"

see, that is not a smack, losing it and venting your frustrations on a child is disgusting behaviour

we have a duty to maintain sufficient self control to ensure that does not happen, it is very different from using smacking as a technique to maintain discipline

"the only purpose of which is to hurt and humiliate"

surely the main purpose is to deter the child from doing whatever it is they are being punished for?

a small child can't properly comprehend the risks of darting across a road, hopefully a smack will deter my dn from attempting it again.

all punishment is, by its nature humiliating. My friends use time outs as punishment, I think that is actually harsher than a smack.

Agree with HIG's post, and is the line I take.

I think the two issues can be separate- you can be opposed to smacking for a whole range of reasons- but I think if you do take a feminist perspective, and consider issues of power imbalances and beliefs of ownership, you wouldn't smack.

With adults you have both the ability to have a reasoned discussion, and then recourse to the law in extreme instances to get your point across, or make sure the 'right' thing happens. With children you have neither, certainly to begin with, and you also have a responsibility to set boundaries to help them grow up- therefore this demands a totally different approach to interaction. You also have to consider that you are all-powerful towards them.

However, that different approach should not, IMO, include violence. And, given a parent's special status towards the child, it feels like you have an extra responsibility not to use it. I believe in quite strong discipline, and would have no problem physically carrying a tantruming child to their room, for example; nor do I have a problem accepting that occasionally people lose it and may hit. But smacking crosses a line that I believe is unacceptable.

To paraphrase HereIgo, it used to be acceptable to own and physically beat slaves; then women; and it is still considered acceptable for some that they own and can hit their children. I hope that this becomes less and less so over time.

HereIGo I think your point ties in with mine about legitimate authority - husbands are no longer in charge of wives, but parents are in charge of children. They are dependent, they are less knowledgable and they do need guidance. In that scenario the parent has both the right and the responsibility to use their superiority to discipline the child. Any form of discipline is thew parent using their power over someone weaker. Hopefully most parents are good & loving and use it well. But it's not the same as sying one adult (male) has power over an other adult (female).

SGB, I completely agree with you about restraint, that's why I'm interested to hear from people who are really opposed to smacking (I'm not one, it's more of a 'it doesn't really work and it's not my thing') about how far their sense of trying not to exert physical power over their children extends...I have, for example, poked my dd in the stomach to get her to bend to get into a pushchair when she was doing the ironing board maneouve... which is quite intrusive.

Am off out to get all-day breakfast now, not being rude if I don't reply...

Sorry cross posted that was in response to SGB

Yes but we're not talking about that are we, we're talking about using smacking as part of a repertoire of sanctions.

That is the objective of parenting I think - to help them reach independence, to the point that they no longer need to be controlled.

I have no philosophical objection to smacking, I always thought I would do it myself, however the only time I did smack, when my dd had just bitten me, it was utterly ineffective. I realised I would have to properly hurt her for it to work, and I could never bring myself to do that, so I don't think I will ever again use it as a punishment.

I observed my SIL smack her ds hard recently, when he had suddenly tried to run out onto the road and under a car. He thought it was hilarious, and I think the shock of an instant smack was the right response. It is the only time I've seen a child smacked and approved.

Oh FFS or course there are times you have to use physical force on a small child (or indeed on an adult) when that person is putting either themselves or someone else in danger and will not obey a verbal command. We put children in reins or strap them into buggies when out and about among traffic for their own safety same as adults are instructed to wear seatbelts when travelling or harnesses on fairground rides.

That's what I was trying to get at SGB, the whole physical relationship between parent and child is completely different than any other, probably unless you care for your dependent parent at the other end of their lives (which many people feels strips them of their dignity precisely because it breaks all those taboos and norms of not touching, not seeing certain parts of the body).

I am also interested then, if those who have never ever smacked, are happy to move their child forcefully or do other power moves on them if they are behaving in an unsafe or out of control way or does their sense of bodily integrity extend beyond smacking towards trying not to physically restrain or move in any way and depend on verbal methods of discipline only.

I think my argument against it is more that they are learning that someone has the right to hurt them in certain circumstances.

Like you, I wouldn't characterise the odd smack as abuse. It's the arrogation of the right to deliberately inflict physical pain on someone else, that makes me uncomfortable. I just don't want my kids to have any doubt that their physical boundaries, feelings etc., absolutely matter - whoever they're dealing with. That probably goes back to my own upbringing however, which was definitely damaged by the physical violence to which I was regularly subjected and which left me with extremely low self-esteem and an inability to set physical boundaries with men, which of course left me open to abuse by predators. I'm just very conscious that I don't want that to happen to my children and that's where it links into feminism for me. However, smacking alone doesn't affect self-esteem etc., I'm with you there - it's all the other, emotional abuse that may or may not come with it.

But children do need a degree of control that adults do not. They don't, when small, have the sense or the experience to understand that it's a bad idea to run into the road without looking, pull the cat's tail repeatedly or stick their fingers into sockets. They also can't feed themselves adequately, or wash themselves properly. As they get bigger and learn more, the control an adult maintains over them lessens, or certainly should do.

I'm not sure children have bodily integrity in the same sense that I do though, as someone else said, no-one is going to pick me up and put me in another room which is what I've done numerous times when my dd1 went through a tantruming phase, on the basis that it was better to remove her and let her calm down. The relationship between children and their parents is physically close; you wipe their bums, you bathe them, you physically restrain them in a buggy or high-chair when they would much rather be running around. You also cuddle and snuggle them, throw them up in the air, tip them upside down and tickle them (if they like those things) and of course, if you like, breastfeed. You tend not to do those with your work colleagues.

I think the best argument for banning smacking is that lots of smacking may be related to other types of worse child abuse. I do not characterize the odd smack as abuse though, any more than I characterize a parent shouting loudly as emotional abuse (and saying parents just thought they could sexually abuse their children 50 years ago is just plain wrong, it was very hidden).

yes I wonder how much the idea of smacking to control children's behaviour, came about when families/ domestic units became smaller and fewer adults were responsible for nurturing/ controlling them?

Do we know much about smacking in hunter gatherer societies?