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?

you bite your children?

That's deplorable. You maniac.

So if they happen to wee on your lap whilst you change their nappy you whip down your pants and give as good as you got?

I retract the maniac comment. Sorry. Bad day.

Actually, I didn't really hold too polarised a view on smacking until I read this thread. I know (and am close to) a number of parents who are excellent parents and lovely people but who do sometimes smack. I have never villified them. I have never thought of them as being in the same bracket as child abusers. What has startled me more if some of the underlying venom that I am reading in your posts. Perhaps it is because you are feeling under attack - in which case that is a shame. I don't know you so am in no position to pass judgement on your parenting. However, you have written some things which do come across as slightly disturbing to outside eyes - and your tone is highly aggressive. I have never smacked DS but he is still very youung so who knows whether I will feel differently if he runs into the road etc. I was hit as a child. Mum = generally out of control rage. Dad = "controlled" punishment. One terrified, the other humiliated. I want neither model for my DS.

I am neither self-righteous nor a snob (where did snobbery come into it? I must have missed that) but your posts make me feel sad. You defend your position as though it is absolutely the right way forward, yet say at the same time that you don't like doing it and feel bad.

If you are smacking them nearly every week then is it really working that well? Really?

How would their dad prevent them ever hitting you? Hit them harder?

Your children on your profile do look beautiful, but yours is a model of discipline that does make me feel instinctively uncomfortable.

No i would never smack a child for weeing on my lap!! Thats not why they get smacked and yes elffriend parents who smack do feel under attack constantly by society as a whole, i do not smack for the sake of it and barely once a week mostly less often, infact it gets less and less the older they get as i have more ways of punishing them, grounding, taking tv out of room etc...and my eldest is far easier to reason with now that he is almost 10...It just i don't want my children to go down the route that some of their friends have!! And no my partner would not hit our children harder to the person that asked the question, he would only need to shout at them once and they would listen...they do tend to take much more notice of there dad than they do me...this is true of most families i know that 1 parent seems to be more effective than the other!!!

My opinion is getting more absolute on this one by the second.

Thank you for your comment about my children, i do think they are gorgeous but then doesn't every mother!!! I love them all dearly and would gladly give my life for them!! I am only doing what every parent does and trying to do my best to bring them up to be decent, well mannered and respectful adults and so far i think we have done pretty well, i have no complaints from school and we have lots more good days than bad. I don't believe that we will still be smacking when they are 11/12 as it is getting far more rare to have the need to do so!!! you are all entitled to an opinion but please don't keep making out that parents that smack are some kind of monsters!!!

I didn't intend this to be a smacking thread - but I cannot resist pointing out that the children of pro smackers seem to spend their entire lives running out into the road and putting their fingers into electircal sockets. Why not hold the child's hands and oput covers over the sockets? Then you wouldn't "have" to smack them!

How do you push pushchair and hold 3 childrens hands...impossible i only have one pair of hands and what then if they don't or won't hold your hand and i do have socket covers, and stairgates my daughter has already mastered how to open them and can now open cupboard locks too!!! And they do not run out into the road !! or mine don't anyway!!!

it's incredibly frustrating and bloody hard work Bitcat. But it is very posible to teach this through repetition, care and experimenting in how to grab their attention - without pain.

Well BITCAT, if you can't keep your children safe without twatting them, you're out of your depth, and you should admit it and seek help for YOUR problem. Don't blame the children!

Parents who smack feel under attack from the rest of society?

Good.

Perhaps they should be smacked?

It's perfectly possible and a far more appealing way to live if you don't use violence towards your children.

As for "controlled smacking"...

Have you never heard the NSPCC advert that is a dad talking to his children?

He says something like, "This morning, we're going to the zoo. We're going to have pizza for lunch, then go and feed the ducks on the way home. When we get home, I'm going to smack you."

It's an abusive, unpleasant way to live, knowing that if you do something the adult in your life doesn't approve of, they'll smack you. How can you feel 100% love for someone who does that? There will always be a tinge of fear in your children's lives if you smack them - when's it happening next?

Seeker, they go near open fires too.

I agree with you, fwiw, that teaching your children that the world is a big scary place with lots of evil people in it is unwise and will make the world more like that, not less so.

Can't agree, Kerry, if you're talking the fear of pain.

Well there are things that I think are absolutely wrong, but I do them anyway, so maybe they are only relatively wrong, and I just feel guilty about them?

The things that I have done that I feel are absolutely wrong are:

Behave unreasonably in front of (but not necessarily to) my DCs

Let my DD download lots of music at my expense and give her too much money to compensate for my guilt at working

Smack my DCs. Only once in their lives (each) but I did it.

I have done some of the things I think are absolutely wrong. Only I don't think my having done something means it can't be wrong. Is that strange?

I'd prefer mine to have a bit more moral fibre than that, KM.

So instead of them not doing the wrong thing because they're worried about my reaction, I'd rather they didn't do it because it was wrong.

There's an important difference.

No, Greeny.

But then, I agreed with "maniac"

You would

No Greeny, not strange. I agree with you. But I dunno, on reaMding this thread, I was questioning my previously unquestioned belief that I was absolutely wrong.

aybe we do have a secure moral compass?

I think most people who smack/swear at/belittle/otherwise illtreat their children generally DO know it's wrong. Good people do bad things.

It's the euphemising and wriggling and trying to dress it up as some kind of half-assed grassroots "in them days you could leave yer door open, never done me any 'arm, gawd bless the Queen Mam, my old maaan shattered me right cheekbone every Saturday wiv a fryin pan and then cooked himself a fackin' fry-up, them were the days" patter...GRRR!

To clarify my opinion.

Something can be Morally Wrong (ie. a moral absolute, no ifs not buts) without making the Do-er an Evil Madwoman.

And just because we, or someone we know, has done it, does not make it morally okay.

I have (once) 'tapped' ds's hand. It's still morally wrong to smack/hit/punch/tap children.