Are there any absoute rights and wrongs in parenting?

[seeker]

Apart from bottom line safety issues?

I have been thinking about this because I consider myself by nature a relativist, and the mumsnet consensus is to end most discussions with something like "each to their own".

But I was on a thread recently when I felt very strongly that someone's viewpoint was just wrong. Not a different point of view, but wrong. And I said so - expecting to be flamed - but somewhat to my chagrin I was reminded of my insignificance by being ignored!

So, are there any parenting issues that people feel are absolutely right or wrong - or is everything except basic safety things like car seats and smoking over babies heads and not leaving your valium open in the cot a matter of opinion?

Illegal or not!! Cannot be enforced and it will still happen and is the government prepared to deal with the backlash and the thousands of children that will be wreaking havoc and all the children that will end up in care...even though they have perfectly good caring, loving parents whom they also love dearly...surely this would be far more harmful to the children...!! How do you think they are going to be able to enforce this!!!! If we are going to go down this route, are we to take children away from parents that, have smoked during pregnancy that to me is truly selfish that they couldn't give it up for 9mths to ensure the safety and health of their unborn child..but i wouldn't say that they deserve to be banned by government and flogged in public for it...on the other hand those mothers that will not & cannot control there children suffiently, so that they are out of control should they be allowed to have more children, shouldn't they be sterilised!! How far do you want to go with this there are lots of very bad parents out there who punch, kick, throw there children around and sexually abuse there children and there are far too many going undiscovered until it's too late and the child is found dead surely the resources would be best placed to concentrate on these parents instead...my children are perfectly safe..these poor children are living a life of hell and pain constantly and are suffering so much..it makes me sad to think that there are children out there being beaten up by there father/mother as i type this and no child should ever have to suffer like that!!!! We are not bad parents we are good parents doing what we believe best for ours...these parents are truly evil and need to be stopped!!!

Greensleeves - do you have any idea how your language comes across? "Depressing contingent of idiots... savagery" etc. My parents are included in your summary. I find it suprising that for someone so against "physical assult" as you would phrase it, you seem so at home with verbal assult.

assault

I've had this argument far, far too many times too - but never really managed to get my head around the legal side of it.

BITCAT - I agree it's very difficult to enforce, but I can't to be honest, see people prosecuting for relatively minor incidents. A binary law though might help children who were in my situation, where the offender hides behind the "greyness" of the current situation. I hope that makes some sense.

Yes, I'm competely aware, it's quite deliberate

My parents are included in my summary, too. Serves them right for hitting people smaller than themselves, the cowardly bullying bastards.

And as for my verbal aggression - well I take comfort from the fact that I, like Kerrymum's son, have at least graduated to using words when I feel the need to lash out at someone.

ibblewob, I may be wrong, but i don't think that greensleeves was referring to the parents of the past, but to those who cling, for whatever reason, to the past, despite the moral shift which has occurred/is occurring.

• couldn't help but laugh at your response, despite the fact that I disagree with you - I don't think using verbal aggression can be any form of "graduation".

I think the trouble with any discussion on this topic is that people are unable to agree about the terminology. I totally disagree with child abuse, I totally disagree with beatings, I totally disagree with hitting a child around the head or anywhere other than his hand or bottom. But I DO NOT agree that a "smack" is any of the above. And I know many many loving parents who take the same view. And if there is not even that starting point, then of couse circles are the only option for our two sides.

I meant "of course circles" (ARGH! why can't we edit our posts!)

If hurting okay on hand, why not leg? why bottom not face? it's all so utterly random and bizarre.

I feel very strongly that these caveats are the mark of a culture (of smacking) that knows it is wrong and is attempting to distract from that reality by wrapping itself in the clothes of reason.

There are absolute rights and wrongs in everything.

In my opinion

Parenting is no different. Now, as this thread ably demonstrates, trying to agree on what they are is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

suebaroo suebaroo, no relativist are yooo.

If you are depressed get it sorted - take prozac - anything, but do everything in your power not inflict your depression on your kids (or anyone else) would me my absolute.

indeed. Verily, I am no relativist. I love all my relatives.

My parents are alos included in your summary Greeny - and I agree with it completely!

Also, I think it's been said before on a similar thread somewhere, but laws exist to show us where a line has been crossed. A law agaibst smacking would do just this. Prosecutions, like all prosecutions, would be weighed up by the CPS and dealt with accordingly. There is no need for sweeping hysterical slippery slope arguments onthis matter.

Some people, many people I'd be willing to bet in fact, would benefit from a benchmark law such as a law against smacking. And it will give serial abusers real food for thought.

If you already know where that line is, you have nothing to worry about.

OBM - the trouble is, how also do you define 'hurting'? If a child does something that is wrong then his parents need to show him that it is wrong - there needs to be consequences for his actions. When I was young (I don't remember exactly, but definitely before secondary school age), and say I had been fighting with my brother, my parents would offer me the option of being sent to my room, not being allowed out to 'play', or having a smack. I would choose the smack because to me it would "hurt" much more to be grounded. I knew I had to be punished, and to me a smack actually seemed the least severe.

I think with the hand/leg/bottom/face thing it's a matter of self-control... just as perhaps "that's naughty" can turn into "you're naughty... you're an idiot..." etc etc. if you don't watch how you verbally admonish your child.

The most destructive aspect of the current climate in which we are all parenting is that extreme cases of lost control are much more visible than the everyday restraint that is much more the norm. This is very clear in the growing literature of 'misery memoirs' (A Boy Named It etc) and TV dramas about child abuse etc. In such a climate it becomes very difficult to have a reasonable debate because the fundamental premise that most parents are OK is over-ridden by horrific tales of abuse.This makes it much harder for us to imagine that most people do figure out where to draw the line, most of the time.

As for smacking being the preserve of the ill-educated! Because of course the more-evolved upper classes have always been more loving towards their children!!

Monkeytrousers, I agree that such a law might have some effect on "serial abusers", but child abuse and beatings are already illegal. What about Xenia's earlier comment (which makes my blood run cold) re: smacking that "if we encourage more children to report their parents then that will help too"? I can't imagine children being asked if they are given a smack to the bottom - they will be asked "do your parents hit you?". Not being aware of the delicate naunces of the situation (as you put it, "crossing the line"), children will answer yes. If smacking becomes illegal then these parents will be investigated and could in all probability be sent to prison. So hypothetically, the fact that my parents could have faced criminal charges for the way they raised us I find absolutely mind-blowing.

I don't - really - believe there are 'delicate nuances of the situation'. I do believe that a child who is 'smacked' on the bottom is being hit.
No-one has yet engaged with my questions about how you justify one body-part but not another. Your 'lines' appear to me to be utterly arbitrary, and a way of making yourselves feel better about the fundamental fact that you hit children.

I think it was Cuba, Soviet Europe and Nazi Germany where children were encouraged to grass on their parents to the authorities. They are already encouraged to reveal their parents' dietary sins so that they can be corrected, god forbid that they are required to 'fess up mum and dad's disciplinary or health and safety shortcomings!

'My mummy allowed us to sit in the car without a booster seat yesterday'
'Really Johnny, so tell me, did mummy not realise that this is an absolute wrong, against the law and means that she doesn't really love you very much or want you to live very long?'

I am going out. I know. It is nearly my 40th birthday and I am going out.

So apols for laying down gauntlets and fucking off, but I will return. Bon courage, mes amies.

Yes they are, but a child who is abused rarely knows they are being abused and so rarely tells anyone. This is a clear line in the sand for both parents and children. Parents will not go to prison for light smacking, even after this. They might, if it occurs regularly, be offered parenting classes. I don?t think creating or encouraging rifts between parents and child is ever a good thing, so no, kids shouldn?t be encouraged to do anything. But having an explicit message like this, telling them that if needs be, they are empowered to do something and will be heard, has to be a positive thing. This might empower children who are abused to come forward. Everyday discipline will by and large remain the same.

My parents could have and should have faced criminal charges for what they did to me and my sisters. Maybe that shows my bias. But surely it?s the people at risk that this law is for.

I think social services, the police and cps know that sometimes slaps occur, they don;t discount human nature (it would be foolish to) but I strongly suspect statutory sentences would not occur in these instances. That's just scare mongering. It does sya they are wrong and other methods should be used - which is (in our society) correct. If we lived in a bear pit, things would be different.

Nearly happy birthday OBM - but you seem to have missed my whole post directed at you (at 20:18:49 if you can be bothered to read back)! That is exactly why I'm trying to explain, why we can't discuss it because of the problem with terminology (except I can't seem to tear myself away, d'oh!) - I say smacking, you hear "beating". You say smacking, I hear "legitimate physical discipline as dealt out by a loving parent".

Also, on the issue of car seats, the law actually states that for kids over 3, a child can use an adult seat belt "if the child is travelling on a short distance for reason of unexpected necessity." So that means that the use of car seats are not an absolute either, in law (obviously in most cases, just not ALL, so therefore not an absolute).

PS - I'm not saying that's right, just that it's not a legal absolute, before I get shouted at

no, ibble, whole point, it's not terminology it's a fundamental breach. I do not admit of the possibility of legitimate physical discipline.

I didn't miss that post, but it didn't answer my question
"
I think with the hand/leg/bottom/face thing it's a matter of self-control."

I wasn't asking how you resist hitting faces, I was asking what on earth leads you to think that bottom or hand is okay but not, say, face or leg? It is illogical.

Not, actually, my birthday for another week but I am in training.