Can we have a little chat about judging please

[Kimi]

Ok I have been a mumsnetter for over 5 years and I tell it like it is, I have not made many friends as I am blunt, outspoken and to the point.

I have looked at many things from a different point of view since being here and I have learnt a lot and I am thankful to all the lovely people who have shared my point of view and to all the lovely people who have made me stop and think about things from a point of view I never thought of before.

The reason I love mumsnet is because not everyone is the same and it really has made me a better person and a better parent.

But I do get fed up with the whole "your judging" thing.

OK till I have walked a mile in someone else's shoes it may be hard to understand their point but sometimes just sometimes it is ok to make an observation and it is fact not judging.

If you see someone beating a child you don't need to know why to know it is wrong, and to say it is wrong is not judging it it stating fact.
Yes we all look at thinks from our own point of view, but to say something is wrong, is ok and a lot of the time open to debate, not just called judging.

Thats it really

Kimi.

I am the legitimate child of a mentally unstable mother.

I grew up in a home that (on the surface) looked respectable.

I have ishoos coming out of my jacksy to this day.

I don't have a criminal record but spent most of my twenties in an alcoholic haze and I was lucky that I wasn't raped or imprisoned.

A hard life is not defined by comparative wealth. Best to remember that.

And I still think that battering children is wrong.

To condemn the beating of children, or indeed anything else, is a judgment. The word condemn means to judge something is evil.

The argument you make about the legality of marijuana and alcohol is an opinion, or judgment. There are people who agree and people who don't.

Dr & Mrs Goebbels murdered their 6 young children in cold blood and then committed suicide in Berlin 1945. Mrs Goebbels wrote to her other, adult, son about the "nobility" of Nazism and how life wasn't worth living without it. That was her judgment. We may believe that what she did was outrageous and evil, but she probably thought she was doing the right thing.

It is a fact that the Goebbels killed their own children. It is a matter of judgment whether that was right or wrong, morally.

Remember that in Nazi Germany it was considered acceptable to deprive Jews and other minorities of their civil rights and finally to kill them.

I met a very nice, intelligent and friendly Muslim woman c 1990 who thought, ie judged, that the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was "right" (her words).

Elasticwoman.

But doesn't he fact that something is illegal make it a fact rather than a judgement?

Or am I being stooopid?

The fatwa was judged illegal in this country, wasn't it?

IIRC Salmn Rushdie had 24 hour police protection against it?

What I'm trying to get at is...there are many, many things that the weird and wonderful residents of the UK probably think are UK. But law is set to provide a ....not sure what word I'm looking for here...legal and moral benchmark?

Bubble, nobody on this thread disagrees with you that beating children is wrong. Of course it's wrong. But it is a judgment we share. Facts are things that happen, not moral judgments.

I'm so sorry to hear about people being born to alcoholic parents in difficult circumstances. It makes me appreciate my sober, thrifty, hard-working, even handed, hands-on, supportive, happily married parents so much more. Excuse me for being judgmental about my parents. In a positive way.

If I see someone in starbucks giving their child a fruit shoot I do not think "bad parent" If I see someone in starbucks calling their child a fuckwit and hitting them then I think "pond scum"

x posts, Bubble. Facts are things that can be proved eg, I am sitting at the computer, 2 + 2 = 4. Morality is always a matter of judgment, as I understand the word judgment.

And btw Bubble - yes, it may be said that the Law provides a moral benchmark. But you said yourself that people sometimes disagree with the law (eg legality of cannabis) and can argue against it. This is different from just breaking the law eg burglary, because you think you can get away with it.

I think I get what you're saying, Elasticwoman.

But what it boils down to, for me - is that there can always be an 'excuse.'

The Goebbels murdered their children because of X,Y and Z.

A parent beats their children because of X, Y and Z.

The thing is we are all parents and doing the best we can, I can not for the life of me get why we attack each other.
The whole working mother V stay at home mother thing is stupid.
I am blessed I get to be a SAHM but some people have/want to work, neither makes you a better or worst parent

It is a fact that beating children is mostly illegal in this country - although then you get into arguments about reasonable chastisement, which is still legal (last time I checked, anyway). But the belief that beating children is wrong is a judgement. There are a range of opinions on the matter, in terms of geography and history.

If there is a law against something, it is a fact that whatever it is is illegal. But an opinion on the desirability or otherwise of the proscribed act is a judgement, not a fact. Murder is illegal but you might well judge that a mercy killing of a terminally ill woman by her devoted daughter is not the same as a gunman killing someone in a bank raid.

Bubble - you are judging that the Goebbels committed murder. And I would agree with you. That is a judgment.

It is a fact that they killed their children.

Killing is not always murder. The word murder implies a judgment on the fact of killing in a particular case.

Kimi - I like your example. Most of us are judgmental and quite right too. If you see something bad happening, you make a judgment which you may or may not act upon. You might keep your judgment to yourself, you might say or do something at the time, you might express your judgment later to your family or on MN. You make a judgment as to whether it's worth doing any of those things.

When my cousin made a disastrous marriage which ended in tears, I was 18. I said to my parents "how can I prevent this happening to me?" and my father said "Use your judgment." He meant, in choosing a husband.

I agree that murder is not a good example, edam.

Child rape, though?

Can there ever be justification for this?

"Spare the rod and spoil the child"
I've always said that Bubble was too soft on her boys!

I wouldn't say so. But again, opinions differ - if you look at history, literature and different cultures, it's not universally condemned. I think one of Mohammed's wives was six when they married and around 12 when the marriage was consummated IIRC.* Maybe girls were thought of as adult at 12 in those days?

Kimi. To use parenting as an example, and as I posted earlier - I was smug Mrs 'I know everything' when I'd had my first child.

If I'd seen me with DS4 I'd probably have called social services.

• I have no way of knowing what Mohammed's wife thought about any of this so to call it 'rape' would be over-egging the pudding. Although these days we'd consider a grown man who had sex with a 12yo to be a rapist, I think.

Edam, I see your point everyone is on their own merit.
I have a record as I hit a woman who hit my child, she was black I am white so it was deemed a race hate crime. I would have hit her if she was whatever colour, she hit a 4 year old child who was doing nothing wrong.
I grew up in Brent, I have endless non white friends but on paper I was the one in the wrong and I was racist (thankfully the raciest charge was dropped).
I try not to judge, I do not think every young black man is a drug taking,knife carrying thug, not every young white male with a hoodie is going to mug me, not every one parent mother is a drain on the tax payer..BUT some of all the above are all the things we think they are and it is not wrong to say so.
I worship to god, some worship to other gods, some follow the Dawkins school of thought and while I would never disrespect their choice I expect mine to be excepted and not mocked, I beleive each to their own, but at the same time some things are wrong but we have become afraid to say so for fear of being call judging

chipmonkey.

I probably am.

At the moment I'm dealing with the older Bubble boys teaching the younger ones to say 'feck' at every opportunity.

I'm thinking more of men who rape three year olds, edam.

I can (albeit uncomfortably) get my head around cultures where men marry girls of pubescent age. But not three year olds.

Bubble, I always had ds1 dressed in perfectly matching outfits and was very fussy about what he ate. Ds4 is on my lap in a pale blue cardigan and a pair of lime-green and yellow trousers that used to belong to ds2 and I imagine he'll be weaned on to chips!

Bubble, I was 26 when I had much wanted DS1, I read the books, I did the classes but when I was given a small and helpless life to be responsible for the rest of my life I was shitting bricks.

As a parent you learn every day, I found out at 7 that DS1 had special needs and I was lost, I am a crap parent but I love my kids and I do my best, same as everyone else.

But if I was knocking 9 bells out of my kids I would want to be judged, to be called to point, to be helped

Surely we can all say that men who rape three year olds are fair game to be judged. Whether they're mad or bad, they are to be judged negatively?

Hands up anyone who thinks Gary Glitter has been unfairly judged!!!!!

And a show of hand who would cheerfully shot him.
/Kimi goes to get gun

I wake up every morning determined not to shout.

I've been given a book on 'assertive parenting' and I manage to remember a lot of it until about... ooh?.... 10am?

My boys would think I was ill if I followed it to the letter.

I'll settle for being a 'good enough' parent.

BTW. Don't be fooled by those gleamy, perfect families you see out and about. Everyone has their crap to deal with and all is not always at it seems.