To think that Amazon should not be selling this book!!! <warning - upsetting content>

[LEMisafucker]

www.amazon.co.uk/To-Train-Up-Child-children/dp/1892112000?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

I don't have the words - this is actually a thread about a thread, but i thnk this needs more attention so posting here. There have been convictions for murder in the states by folk following this book. Yet it is still published

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1915841-Has-the-world-gone-completely-mad

Link to original thread

[HerlockSholmes]

it sickens me that anyone would even think about beating, starving and breaking their own children down to "shells", let alone write a book encouraging others to do the same.

the fact that someone has published this and they are making profit from it goes beyondy comprehension.

i don't give a fuck if it's legal, people who abuse their freedom of speech to advocate that level of evil deserve to have that right taken away.

[missfliss]

I'm going to write to waterstones immediately and tell the to have a corporal punishment section, and a child abuse section, and a section for physical punishment. Because by choosing not to, they are actively censoring freedom of speech.
Oh no, hang on, that would be bollocks.

[friday16]

I'm going to write to waterstones immediately and tell the to have a corporal punishment section, and a child abuse section, and a section for physical punishment.

No need. They, er, beat you to it.

"Getting her first job as an English Teacher at Thornton Sixth Form College was a dream come true for Christina Shaw. But that dream soon became a nightmare when she realised she had no way of controlling her rowdy class. However, Christina is resourceful if nothing else, and after a particularly disturbing incident in a store room with one of her male pupils, it dawns on her how to keep her class in check and enjoy her job at the same time. Each student is rewarded in a very special way, and the boys become very obedient indeed. Everything is fine until the girls begin to demand the same favour if they too are to be good in class. Matters are getting out of hand, and even more so when one of her fellow teachers finds out her secret and threatens to expose her if she doesn't do as he asks. With her colleague's demands becoming more and more perverse Christina realises he has to be stopped, and she has a very special way of doing it..."



No? Want it a bit more obvious the sort of stuff Waterstones happily sell?

"Tomboy Caroline Letchmount enlists at Furrow Weald finishing school in Cornwall - motto 'Bare up and obey!' - with its military regime of merciless corporal punishment, and flagellent girl gangs, the Swanks and Stingers. When accustomed to pepper panties, bare-boxing, and canings from 'sixpence' to five shillings', she is ready to be auctioned as a girl-slave to rich voluptuaries."

Unfortunately, they appear to be right out of copies of "The Spanking School for Girls" and The Romance of Chastisement: Or, Revelations of the School and Bedroom. But I'm sure you will find what you want in their extensive range of school-themed spanking fiction.

[missfliss]

Hoot day, you literally have no clue do you?
Waterstones online is served by Nielsen book data and gardners.
big difference between listing all books available for sale and making a commercial decision as to what you actively sell in store.
Sooooo not the same as asking a retailer to curate what content they sell.
Still. Impressive googling.
Big well done you.

[missfliss]

Yep, because because being against soft porn is so the same as being against being anti child abuse, well done you

[missfliss]

Good copying and pasting. Really impressive

[missfliss]

Those copying and pasting skills have totally rocked that Argument. Be proud.

[BridgeMix]

I had no idea of the content of the book, but reading some of the excerpts on here has made me feel a bit ill, actually...

[missfliss]

Sorry you have been distressed bridgemix. It's not pleasant. Actually its distressing to think that sleep deprived and desperate new parents might get this popping up in a feed of recommended titles when they are searching for childcare information.
It's just horrid.

[nennypops]

This really isn't a free expression issue. That books is advocating criminal assault on children. It goes way, way beyond what the law defines as reasonable chastisement. Arguably by selling it in the UK Amazon is condoning such assault.

We have never purported to have absolute freedom of speech in this country, and quite right too. Would anyone seriously defend the right of a bookseller to make money out of selling books telling people that they should inflict sexual abuse on children?

[missfliss]

Well said nennypops. And you are right, there is no legal right to day they shouldn't sell it. But there is the right to ask them to consider what they make commercially available. Of course they are within their rights to say no - but they are choosing to profiteer from it

[missfliss]

Please look at the amazon reviews of this title
Here's just one pasted below
This book is not your run of the mill discipline/behavioural technique/parenting book it is a step by step guide on how to destroy your child through abuse and for the first time has made me question the idea of 'freedom of speech'.
Please take steps to remove this from sale, Amazon.

[missfliss]

Oh and friday16 here is the wAterstones link to this exact tile
www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/simpleSearch.do?simpleSearchString=1892112000&typeAheadFormSubmit=
NOT FOR SALE

[missfliss]

Touché

[namechangesforthehardstuff]

Ummmmm missfliss my post at 19.58 was agreeing with you - you got that right?

[lessonsintightropes]

Friend of mine posted on FB about this tonight, and tbh am flabergasted that it's legal to sell it in the UK as some of the methods it appears to espouse are illegal here. However I haven't read it, wouldn't pay to and therefore support the authors, and so am posting entirely on hearsay about the content. There's no Amendment reason for it to be cleared for sale in the UK, any posters have clarification on why it's been passed for sale here?

[friday16]

There's no Amendment reason for it to be cleared for sale in the UK

What on earth does "cleared for sale" mean?

[lessonsintightropes]

Friday I am not in a position to comment as I've not read the book and will therefore STFU.

However... if what others have said is true (hearsay) then what is advocated in the book in terms of 'child control' and punishment, then it's advocating actions which are illegal in the UK, which is why I'm unclear as to why Amazon is allowed to sell it here.

a) I could be (extremely wrong as I've not cleared original sources) be wrong on content

b) no actions are advocated which are illegal in the UK

In which case Amazon is totally within its rights to sell the book and to promote it.

I feel very uneasy saying anything more than this as I haven't read the source material, just some very emotive coverage on the death of a child supposedly as a result of following the advice in the book via a friend on FB.

Am pro-freedom of speech; am anti-spread of hatred or abusive behaviour and once again state that I've not read the source matieral, just been horrified by the results, so most posters here would say I've no room to comment and are probably correct.

[lessonsintightropes]

STFU from this point forward I mean, just wanted to put forward some principles for discussion...

[friday16]

it's advocating actions which are illegal in the UK

Firstly, that isn't of itself the basis for banning books under any UK legislation. So even if it were advocating illegal activity, that does not make the book illegal unless it breaks other legislation. Shooting people with your illegally held handgun is a good way to go to jail, but this book is clearly not illegal to sell, buy or possess. Even if you happen to have a shotgun certificate, you'd probably be wise to ignore the advice here, too.

Secondly, from what I've read of the book, it's not at all clear that the measures it proposes (as opposed to what child abusers have taken it to propose) are illegal in the UK. Section 58 of the Children Act 2004 is pretty widely drawn. It would require a UK prosecution of someone for following the book's precepts, but not going beyond them, to settle that question. I suspect that the CPS would have very little appetite for bringing such a prosecution even if it would get on to social services' radar. They have bigger fish to fry.

just some very emotive coverage on the death of a child supposedly as a result of following the advice in the book

Sure, it's a thoroughly nasty book, and it says a lot about fundamentalist "Christians" that so many of them have been drawn in by it (seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2016875109_hana28m.html). The world would be a better place if books like this, and indeed their authors, didn't exist. I think people that punish their children physically should be shunned, although I think that the unintended consequences of trying to make it illegal completely would be susbtantial. But "yuck" isn't the basis for banning books.

The argument advanced upthread that someone might accidentally buy it while sleep deprived and be so overwhelmed by the power of its persuasive prose that they set about abusing their child is laughable. It's essentially the "is this a book that you would want your wife or servants to read?" argument fifty years after the Chatterley trial: "I can see this book for the trash that it is, your honour, but there are some people without my education and discernment who might be corrupted by it". Aside from anything else, it also requires that rather than Googling for advice people carefully trawl for books and wait for the postman to arrive.

[Lazyjaney]

"We have never purported to have absolute freedom of speech in this country, and quite right too"

Probably the scariest thing said on the whole thread.

Now that is the sort of I'd like to ban

[friday16]

Lazyjaney, no country has absolute freedom of speech. The US, for example, has a range of exceptions (libel, obscenity, particularly "fighting words"), and in any event as its periodic moral panics prove, there is a substantial difference between freedom of speech on paper and freedom of speech in practice.

But what no civilised country has is prior restraint. What people appear to want is some sort of process by which books are "cleared" or "approved" for sale. Leaving aside the fact that "books" and "sale" are somewhat quaint concepts in 2013 (people asking for prior restraint on books might like to look out of the window and notice that the Internet is quite the thing these days) this would be utterly unworkable other than in a fascist country.

If people believe this book is illegal, then report it to the police. West Midlands Police made fools of themselves over a book of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs in UCE (now BCU) library but showed that they were willing to engage in the basic concept of investigating books. Otherwise, until proven otherwise, it's legal to sell.

[nennypops]

Lazyjaney, where have you been if you think we have absolute freedom of speech? Have you never noticed the laws on libel and slander, and laws like the Race Relations Act? Do you seriously contend that we should have absolute freedom to incite racial hatred and indeed to tell parents that abusing and assaulting their children is not only acceptable but what they should be doing?

[sashh]

I'm actually glad this is on Amazon.

Not because I agree with it, but because you cannot buy it without being aware of the reviews and comments.

You cannot buy it by accident, you cannot buy it and think you are just doing what all other parents do.


Some parents have always 'broken' their children, even if they didn't call it that.

This book being criticised on the website that is the biggest (I think) retailer is going to going to keep this book strictly in the 'parenting for loons' stable.

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

Isn't inciting violence and/or child abuse a criminal offence? How is this book legal under current laws?