to want Amazon to withdraw a book endosing beating children from sale?

[missfliss]

Dear Mumsnetters,

This is my first post here, so please be kind. And yes, I have joined specifically because of this issue ? but I?m sure I?ll stick around too and have signed up to be a product tester etc.

A friends Facebook post today made me aware of the following title for sale on Amazon UK which advocates and endorses the beating of children ? from as young as 4 months old ? as a ?discipline tool?.

The book is called ?How to train Up a Child? and I have quoted some bits from it below.

I realise amazon aren?t breaking the law by selling it, but cannot believe they have chosen to list it for sale ? and so I have started a petition to get it withdrawn.

Thanks for reading,

Missfliss

Here?s the book:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1892112000/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1BEG0RMJC314P2KS4VYD&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=358549207&pf_rd_i=468294&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

here?s my petition
www.change.org/petitions/amazon-uk-withdraw-a-title-which-endorses-beating-children-from-4-months-of-age


here?s the quotes:
Quotes from the book:

"At four months she was too unknowing to be punished for disobedience. But for her own good, we attempted to train her not to climb the stairs by coordinating the voice command of "No" with little spats on the bare legs. The switch was a twelve-inch long, one-eighth-inch diameter sprig from a willow tree"

So hitting a 4 month old with a willow sprig is an acceptable form of punishment?

"After about ten acts of stubborn defiance, followed by ten switchings, he surrendered his will to one higher than himself. In rolling the wheel, he did what every accountable human being must do-he humbled himself before the "highest" and admitted that his interests are not paramount. After one begrudged roll, my wife turned to other chores"

She is talking about a 15 month old baby who would not play with what SHE wanted him to play with!

"On the bare legs or bottom, switch him eight or ten licks; then, while waiting for the pain to subside, speak calm words of rebuke. If the crying turns to a true, wounded, submissive whimper, you have conquered; he has submitted his will. If the crying is still defiant, protesting and other than a response to pain, spank him again"

Let's beat that child in to submission! That's exactly why we have children isn't it? Pah!

"One particularly painful experience of nursing mothers is the biting baby. My wife did not waste time finding a cure. When the baby bit, she pulled hair (an alternative has to be sought for baldheaded babies)"

Yes, pull a newborn's hair! That'll teach him!

[xylem8]

Child pornography is banned
but there are plenty of books about sexual violence towards children.Plenty of autobiographies etc.However I take your point that they are not advocating it as this book is.However I really can't see why it should be banned.A parent either finds smacking an acceptable form of discipline or they don't.i doubt a non-smacker would buy the book and then think 'oh I'll completely change my principles and start spanking my child with sticks'
On the other hand I think censoring books is a slippery slope and poses a greater threat to us than this silly little book written by American loons!

[missfliss]

To reiterate again. It is not requesting a ban. I am asking amazon to consider not stocking it.
They have done this in the past:
For example, a book written by a paedophile on he subject of grooming, a travel guide to Burma ( when the govt there has committed well known atrocities).
You don't seem to be distinguishing between a ban request and asking a retailer no to promote the book.

[GrimmaTheNome]

poses a greater threat to us than this silly little book...

its been linked to child deaths. 'Silly' isn't the word I'd use.

Yes, censorship is a difficult issue. If we banned all books which recommended beating children with sticks we'd have to ban the Bible.

[missfliss]

Oh, and this book has been implicated in the murder and abuse of children in the US.
To call it "silly" undermines the danger of the message that you should beat babies with sticks from a newborn age to discipline and control them.

[flatpackhamster]

missfliss

To reiterate again. It is not requesting a ban. I am asking amazon to consider not stocking it.

What's the difference in practice?

[missfliss]

Bangs head against wall.

A lot.

You tell me how they are the same.

[GrimmaTheNome]

What's the difference in practice?

people who really want it wouldbe able to buy it from elsewhere. As has been said already.

[morethanpotatoprints]

I don't think YABU, but where will your crusade end? These things can snowball and before long you could be taking on every book seller and then moving onto the next thing you disapprove of.
Nobody with half a brain would buy the book if this is some small consolation.

As a side issue, has anybody commented on the fact that 4 month olds don't climb stairs.

[missfliss]

Ok. Apologies for being hasty there. I just feel like this is just being answered again and again and again.

A ban would involve a government led legal prohibition of the ideas being printed or published. This would involve he heaviest form of censorship, as well as ensuring copies appeared nowhere for sale or for lending in libraries and schools. This is state monitoring of freedom of speech for either propaganda reasons, or political/ societal.

I am requesting that one retailer ( who doesn't have a monopoly) removes the buy button from this book on he grounds that I contravenes amazons own guidelines on promoting material that endorses violence.

Amazon is a huge retailer and has responsibilities. Now I get that some people may not want the book removed from sale ( though why I can't understand !) but the same old jaded argument about suppressing freedom of speech is nothing to do with it. It's asking one retailer yo act responsibly

Also it's really really missing the point.

[missfliss]

But that argument could apply to any activism!!

I.e. where does it end, so don't bother starting...

[missfliss]

650,000 people in the US and 2,000 in the UK buyin the book gives me no consolation whatsoever

[InMyShreddies]

Thank you for posting this, and welcome to MN, you seem like a good un.

The book makes me feel sick to he stomach, some people really have no clue that it is their duty to care for their children and help them cope with a big and difficult world. They see them as, I don't even know, possessions. It is exactly the same as abusing a wife, no worse because this is all the child knows. It is fucking horrible surely it's inciting crime or something?

[InMyShreddies]

Had to laugh at 'customers who bought this also bought... life size David Cameron'

[missfliss]

Ha ha. Didn't see that " bought with" button.

That says a lot!

[InMyShreddies]

Oh my dear sweet Lord, read some of these quotes from the book - I need to leave it now as am getting quite upset by it.

[cory]

xylem8 Mon 29-Jul-13 21:33:37
"However I really can't see why it should be banned.A parent either finds smacking an acceptable form of discipline or they don't.i doubt a non-smacker would buy the book and then think 'oh I'll completely change my principles and start spanking my child with sticks'"

In this particular case -with the very strong connection the authors make between smacking/hitting with implements and Evangelical Christianity- I think it could happen. I could imagine it in the case of converts or believers looking for a stricter, more fundamentalist form of their religion. Just like people might give up pre-marital sex or something else that they rather enjoyed, they might just take to something they wouldn't naturally have wanted to do, if they were told that it was pleasing to God.

[cory]

"For the larger child, a belt or larger tree branch is effective."

Difficult to see how you could implement that one without breaking British law.

[Tweasels]

Amazon can make a choice not to sell something, this does not equal censorship. I'm confused as to why people can't tell the difference.

I can't buy a dildo from Sainsbury's, it doesn't mean they are banned, it just means I have to go elsewhere to buy one. They probably don't sell them as it doesn't fit their ethos of a family friendly store.

No reason why Amazon can't have similar values and as users of the company, no reason why we can't ask it of them.

[SamHamwidge]

From Beatrix Potter's Benjamin Bunny:

"When old Mr. Bunny had driven the cat into the green-house, he locked the door.

Then he came back to the basket and took out his son Benjamin by the ears, and whipped him with the little switch.

Then he took out his nephew Peter."



Poor Benjamin

Should I be reading this to my DD!? I guess that's a whole other thread.

Anyway, will sign your petition OP. That book sounds vile.

[phantomnamechanger]

My worry about this vile book is that it makes abuse "acceptable" - so that people may try to justify their abusive behaviours, or persuade spouses it is the "right" or "normal" thing to do.

The Duggars always seem such nice kids (not that I follow them avidly, just seen a few interviews)- I had put this down to good parenting but it sounds like they have learned to behave the hard way?

[GrimmaTheNome]

they might just take to something they wouldn't naturally have wanted to do

especially as it seems tied up to the submissive wife crap. Good tool for domineering husbands ...break the wife and then break the kids.

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Signed and shared on fb. Not an overly emotional person by far, but having to not read these quotes as they are upsetting me :(

[SamHamwidge]

LMAO at buying dildo from Sainsburys

[Tweasels]

InMyShreddies I've just read your link. There aren't words to describe how sad that makes me. The thought of babies under 1 being hit to stop them wanting their mother. I cannot even imagine the long term psychological impact of that.

The fact that potentially most of the children whose parents bought this book may have been subjected to this is very worrying.

I would never condone smacking in any context but it's the contexts that are highlighted which are so worrying. Hitting a baby for just doing what babies do.

[bemybebe]

omg, horrendous