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?

I am more sympathetic to OBM. There are better, healthier and more constructive ways to discipline your child. Smacking is alwasy a negative.

But how do you KNOW? How do you know, (especially if you can't differentiate between a beating and a smack) that smacking is as harmful as you think? It might be your opinion, but you can't scientifically prove it. You can only go by personal experience - I appreciate the way my parents raised me, so that's how I'm going to raise my son. How can you know enough to be so judgemental (i.e. an absolute, definite, moral wrong, on par with child ABUSE)?

The parents who don't smack are better educated and their children do better. Anyone with any basic knowledge about child psychology knows it's wrong to smack children and people tended to give it up in the 50s and 60sin the UK certainly those with any basic knowledge of psychology. It was then my father was campaigning against it in the 60s. And I am sure in the next 10 - 20 years it will be prohibited entirely. Perhaps we should put on here some childline numbers for children to read so they can report all these dreadful smackers on mumsnet.

In that case, how do you know IB?

Lets look at is as a question of plain decency. We don't think it a good idea to slap adults to teach them a lesson? Why? Because they'd hit us back. So the only reason we hjit kids is becasue we know they are too weak to fight back. That is hardly commendable.

Children are human beings and if we believe that all humans deserve respect, then that logoically extends to children too.

But what exactly, specifically did these studies show Xenia? And the studies that your opinions are based upon - were they done on children who received smacks on the bottom for disobedience, or beatings? And how much better educated do you want than a first from a top 10 world ranked university, with plans for an MA/PhD? Am absolutely not boasting, just trying to get away from this insistance on moral absolutism and cries for criminalisation.

I think the neccessity of discipline is an absolute, how you go about it is a choice.

PS - I know this smacking debate is as old as MN, but I'm afraid all you bored long-timers have to put up with us relative newbies to the parenting thing finding our feet and discovering where we stand on things

I'd rather we put up some Parentline numbers Xenia.

But yes, I agree, I think the tide will turn eventually if society remains stable

IB, I've said it before - the laws are not for those who can distinguish between a smack and a beating. Arguably (or not maybe) anger management is the issue and people who cannot control themselves, have a paucity of parenting skills (perhaps culturally inherited) need a guide to help them.

I am just not sufficiently into the topic to put up any stats. All I can say is most educated parents don't but that abuse and I do count it as a form of abuse, tends to be perpetuated down the generations. It is a brave soul who stops it in its tracks and I am not please last month I think it was the Government backed off new legislation.

So if you can still smack a child as long as you don't leave a mark (you lot must be very clever with the slaps by the way - let's hope your children with camera mobiles gets some good footage of you abusing them and post it on youtube to shame you) all we can do is try to get more people to stop.

MT, the point of disciplining children is so that when they are adults they will be fully functioning members of decent society who will not need a 'slap'. If adults display the same bad behaviour as children, then something has gone seriously wrong with their upbringing.

Also, your adult is your peer, but not because he is bigger or smaller than you. Parents are in a position of authority over their children - they are not little adults. Again, please don't read that authority = right to "abuse". But I do think that physical discipline is appropriate between a parent and child in the way it isn't between an adult and adult (including adult children).

Given much of the content on mumsnet, it's hard to imagine a responsible parent letting their children read it, so probably not much point posting the childline number here Xenia. However, given your low opinion of residual smackers/unenlightened throwbacks, perhaps the number could be prominently displayed outside pubs, crackhouses, gin palaces and dog-fighting clubs.

I cannot remember whether I was ever actually smacked, but I do remember being chased up the stairs after answering back and making sure the bathroom door was locked behind me, not because I was generally terrified of my parents but because it seemed a good idea not to push any further once a smack was potentially on the cards. 'Dispassionate' parents who bore their children into submission by sermonising/psychologising the the emotional ins and outs of the consequences of their actions give me the creeps. Guilt-tripping may have its place, but it's the relentless explanation about 'mummy's feelings of disappointment' that makes me squirm. It would probably not be reasonably to punish parents for boring their children though.

Well put ibblewob.

stress is a major factor in behaviour, looking for these factors, and helping the individual, does a lot more than "reporting the dreadful smackers" that i fear would create much more lasting damage xenia. i think we have met on a similar thread before.

It just amazes me how different people's views are on this topic.

A separate question.... how many of the smackers were not smacked as children (and vice versa).

"educated parents dont abuse their children" what exactly do you mean by that xenia??? i think you will find that the cleverer (?) more educated person can be a lot more calculating and abusive. middle class abuse is the hardest to spot. fact.

(Was smacked.) Argh - I have a horrible long "to-do" list that has been gathering dust since 3pm. Will say goodnight, and I totally respect your decisions not to smack your children, I'm afraid that it doesn't seem to be reciprocated (especially with comments like the need for Parentline numbers and an inability for parents to control themselves).

I think the good thing about these threads is that it lets people see that there are others who agree with them, even if lots of people don't.

Here's to all our children being fabulous, non-f'd up members of society!

"MT, the point of disciplining children is so that when they are adults they will be fully functioning members of decent society who will not need a 'slap'."

I will bet you my pension that non violent discipline works just as well - not even better, just just as well...so why do it at all?

There is actually huge evidence that people exposed to violence (and violence is violence when you are so small and your attacker is so large) predisposes to an adult being more violent; hence my caveat above about society remaining stable.

IOf you grow up in brutal environments and need agressive skills to survive, violence is actually a 'good' thing. In our society, it isn't.

I mean that go on to any council estate and you'll see parents laying into their children left right and centre. Go into any middle class road of university educated parents and the % who think it's fine to thump and smack a child plummets.

I have a Ph.D (not in smacking), have studied history and the social sciences and am not aware of any definitive manual that has yet been produced on the right way to raise children (see the excellent Christina Hardyment on child-rearing manuals through the ages). There has been a progressive move away from treating children as little adults and towards regarding them as developing moral beings, and this has meant not punishing them as adults would be punished for their misdemeanours.

The most convincing works I have read suggest that the primary psychological needs of the child are to know they are loved and protected from the relative chaos of the larger world by the care and authority of those around them, to have managed access to that very stimulating larger world and the freedom to explore that world with their peers. Within that, there is an infinite number of ways of raising children.

how very judgemental of you to say that xenia, and like i said middle class abuse is very difficult to spot, so your post and views are quite frankly dated. and very very wrong.

well said justgetonwithit,i couldnt agree more with the last couple of lines you wrote.

i will catch up with this thread at a later date, however i cannot leave without saying you should be extremely ashamed of your self xenia for posting your last thread. i am appalled at your ignorance.

Xenia, I think you might be interpreting something a bit loosely - to be polite.

I was discussing this with a psych yesterday and he is working on paternity involvment and it does seem that there is a definite class difference (but class difference is generally wholey environmental and not biiological, as I can personally attest) with paternity involvmenet; thus there would be more stresses upon a lone parent on low income (also pressured by society to 'work' away from lone child/ren rather than nurture them) in managimg low level needs, (food, shelter, etc) and higher needs (persoabnla growth, etc) would necessarily need to be put on the back burner.

It is these women that have shaped our species - these battleing, stong buy probably miserable women that are our ancestors. The higher level needs we (even me) enduilge in are in evilutioary terms void. These are privledges and such privledges are so unstable (over evilutionary time) as not to ever have a bearing on evolution at all. It's the struggle that counts.

Intellegence is more to do with environment and not genes too. There is no deserving rich - sorry to dissapoint.

Me too, i can't stand this looking down your nose at others less fortunate nonsense!! When i was at school we had lots of mothers who were against smacking, i was smacked and i worked hard, got good reports at school and was not a bully..explain then why the children of some of these none smackers and who chose xenia and onebatmothers way have all gone on to be bullies, lay abouts, drug users, teenage mothers (terrible ones at that)some with 4 kiddies before i'd had my first at 21 and all of there children with different fathers!! All because they tried your way it didn't work and because they had the mind set that smacking so wrong could not control their children!! On the other hand i have a friend who hasn't smacked her child and he is a delight!!! I also have another friend who has 2sisters and 2 brothers, a mother and a father they were brought up with a stable family background, 2 hard working parents who had never smacked all of there children complete screw ups, the eldest has 4 kids, with different men, no father, and no job..the second daughter has 2 kids, 2 different fathers and no job...the third daughter has 2 kids, and 1 due in few weeks, different fathers and no job and shes only 23yrs old...the two boys 1 has job and the other no job, no prospects and on drugs..because they lost control and their mother has now said to me she wishes she had of been stricter and perhaps smacked them when they stepped to far out of line!! It takes all sorts and i know lots of people that don't smack and have great kids, because whatever they did worked that great..but what works for 1 won't neccessarily work for another and i think we have to be prepared as parents to try different approaches if one doesn't work and sometimes as parents we do have to do things that hurt...ie you wouldn't not take your child for vacination because it was going to hurt them would you?? And i don't believe it is anyone elses right to judge other parents in these situations!!

BITCAT, the thing that you CAANOT see, but most of us can, is that being smacked as a child HAS damaged you Damaged you badly.

It has turned you into the kind of person who believes that hitting a child, is acceptable behaviour. Blinded you to the fact that your hitting your children revolts some people.

So you can spout on, as long as you like, about how it did you no harm, but we all know differently.