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Original poster

Why are cruel parenting sites legal?

421 replies

Blu · 15/05/2006 15:21

I have heard of Gary Ezzo before, and today discovered the horrific Michael Pearl. Pearl and his wife actually advocate beating children under the age of one with 'switches' from a tree, and describe horrendous incidences where they have beaten other peopel's children. He instructs parents to beat children relentlessly.

Since incitement to other kinds of violence is banned, and the beahviour this man admits to is presumably legally child abuse, why is it permissable that he openly encourages people to beat children. To beat babies? (he proudly describes beating an 11 month old on his bare leg with a stick).

I really, really want him arrested.

OP posts:
JoolsToo · 15/05/2006 23:15

I haven't read all the thread the first few were enough thanks Shock

did you see on the amazon site there is a forum on that book!?

alexsmum · 15/05/2006 23:16

it can't be acceptable.maybe to a small bunch of crazies but not to the nation as a whole.

Original poster
Blu · 15/05/2006 23:16

I do think that any protest has to be much more widely spread to make it worthwhile MN losing it's commission on the Amazon button! The real challenge is making it completely unnacceptable for anyone to carry on like this and not be arrested for abuse.

Like I said in my first post, what we'd all really like to see is people who treat children like this to be stopped.

But making profit out of books which CELEBRATE beating kids?

OP posts:
zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 23:22

interestingly it doesn't seem to have taken much to discourage them from coming to the UK, clearly quite scared of the law here

ruty · 15/05/2006 23:45

i must have been so naive. i wouldn't have thought in a million years that Amazon would stock books like this.

FrannyandZooey · 16/05/2006 08:20

Of course you wouldn't sell this book, HC, and nor would I. But pressuring very large, powerful companies like Amazon to withdraw certain books we don't like, is, IMO, a slippery slope. I know we find this book sick, immoral, even evil. There are a large and vocal group of people who think the same thing about Harry Potter books and have worked hard to get them banned in schools and libraries. Should Amazon similarly withdraw those books? What about books like Judy Blume, that the religious right in America also successfully banned from schools and libraries?

I agree with NQC. I don't want Amazon telling me what I can and can't read, based on the sensibilities of its customers.

Even if you could stop Amazon from selling these books, it would not stop this man getting out his message. Instead I think we should be asking:
why is it legal to say / write such things and do we agree with the fact that it is? Why do the religious right have so much power in America? Why are parents so lost and misguided that they are turning to parenting gurus, even really abhorrent ones like Pearl, for advice?

Please don't think I am trying to belittle the efforts of those of you who are writing to Amazon, but I think your energies would be better directed elsewhere.

Enid · 16/05/2006 08:23
harpsichordcarrier · 16/05/2006 08:29

nah, I don't really buy the slippery slope thing.
well I do think those things, but the power of protest is about affecting the things that you can rather than the things that you can't.
there is no comparison between books like this and Harry Potter etc because - there isn't.
I have a big old argument to insert there but can't really be late for pre school again Grin

bluejelly · 16/05/2006 08:34

I have to say I think freedom of speech is completely over-rated. Rapidly starting to believe in the need for censorship in this messed up, over-globalised world.

harpsichordcarrier · 16/05/2006 08:42

there are limits to freedom of speech though - one is not free to incite racial hatred and so on.

FrannyandZooey · 16/05/2006 08:42

Well, HC, I truly believe that you have no hope of convincing Amazon not to sell these books because we don't like them.

If you really want to do something that makes a difference, this is not it.

There is a comparison between these and Harry Potter. I am sure the people who want them banned feel every bit as strongly about them as we do about Pearl. How should Amazon decide who to listen to? There are more of them than there are of us, they probably have more money too.

FrannyandZooey · 16/05/2006 08:46

oh and

harpsichordcarrier · 16/05/2006 08:49

well Franny do you think you have any chance of changing Gap's policies? or Tesco's? that doesn't stop you boycotting them does it?
and it didn't stop me writing all those bloody letters for Amnesty to salve my evil lawyer conscience.
there is a moral difference (a category difference as MT says) between objecting to Harry Potter on the grounds of satanic influence, and objecting to a book which describes and instructs on how to abuse your children.
I am probably naive too but, like ruty, I had no idea that Amazon did stock this stuff.

harpsichordcarrier · 16/05/2006 08:50
Enid · 16/05/2006 08:50

god I hate harry potter

monkeytrousers · 16/05/2006 08:56

Has anyone said that this is why there needs to be a law against hitting children - to stop monstrous individuals like the Pearl's and inform the people who may read their books.

ks · 16/05/2006 09:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

harpsichordcarrier · 16/05/2006 09:18

I think that's right ks
(PS I agree with you Enid. on both points...)

bluejelly · 16/05/2006 09:27

I agree KS. It's worth remembering that it's not that long ago that these attitudes were ubiquitous. In Victorian times (and beyond) children were beaten constantly, spare the rod, spoil the child etc

Not that I'm justifying it at all. It's just that had we been born 150 years ago we would probably all be beating our children regularly Sad

expatinscotland · 16/05/2006 09:31

How can anyone hate Harry Potter? Wink

I'm not surprised this waste of space is American - solving problems w/violence. Yeah, that's really effective. NOT.

batters · 16/05/2006 09:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PeachyClair · 16/05/2006 09:37

Ks, I think that's right but also they truly believe that they are justified by God, so if you draw that idea out then anything they do is automatically right. very dangerous.

morningpaper · 16/05/2006 09:37

MT That is EXACTLY what I said earlier on - this is WHY this area needs a law to prevent ignorant people from thinking this is acceptable behaviour.

KS As someone who used to follow this kind of thinking, perhaps I can shed some insight. We believed that the world was very much divided into two camps - the saved (christians - or at least the kind of christians that we approved of :)) and the Unsaved i.e. the rest of you heathens. The Unsaved and Society in general were clearly going to hell in a handboat - marriages breaking down, yoofs having no respect, Mumsnet Not Being What It Used To Be, etc etc. and so we ask ourselves: What is the reason for this? Well the main one is that children are not disciplined enough, so they do not learn respect, which is the foundation on which society is built. Therefore we looked to the Bible to show us how best to discipline our children. Well, Gina Ford not being around 5,000 years ago we have very little to go on, although there is a very well-known proverb "Spare the rod, spoil the child" - which we took literally. Therefore, a child which is not smacked as its form of discipline will be spoilt, and will not learn respect. So, now we have established the boundaries of parenting discipline, we need a Guru. Step forward, Pearl.

These people aren't trying to abuse their children. They are really trying to do what they think is right in a very confusing world. They love their children and they are trying to instill respect and discipline - and a love for their religion - in their children. Their intentions are good. Their methods are fucked up because, in rejecting society/psychology/scientific advancement which has enlightened us to the nature of children (and teaches us that they are not born evil and in need of 'taming'), they fail to see how they can be damaging their children, especially when they are following biblical advice.

Which comes back to the point that this is WHY we need laws to stop smacking. Not just to stop people who want to abuse their children, but also to stop people who are ignorant and misguided in their parenting.

suejonez · 16/05/2006 09:38

HC - "the power of protest is about affecting the things that you can rather than the things that you can't"

How do you know what you can/can't change until you try? Sometimes protest is about standing up to be counted despite knowing you may not prevail.

Does that sound hopelessly ideallistic?

ruty · 16/05/2006 09:39

not everyone beat their children in victorian times though. Pre Victorian times you have writers like Blake raging against society's brutal treatment of children, and of course then you have Dickens in the Victorian era, and many more. Even then there were humane people who could see treating children so brutally was morally indefensible and would always backfire.