Stop hitting kids you idiots!

So, don't beat your kids doesn't, on the surface, seem like it is a controversial opinion, outside of some "Spare the rod, spoil the child" religious types anyway, and who gives a damn what they think. But it totally is!

I keep seeing shit like this

Pop up on my social media feeds, liked and shared by people whose opinions I otherwise respect, these people appear to be functional, rational, nice members  of society yet they insist that this kind of crap was beneficial character building rather than what it actually was, child abuse.

No one thinks they are a bad person, or that they hold bad opinions, but if you think like this folks, you actually do, you have been hurt by being spanked as a kid, you know what damage it did to you? You think it is okay to hit children.

You think it is okay to hit children.

There are circumstances where hitting a child is the appropriate response, perhaps he is about to touch the history eraser button and a swat is the only thing that will keep his hand away and save the universe, perhaps it is the zombie apocalypse and your child has succumbed to the condition like so many others, and you must punch or kick her away from you so that you can lock her in the house and flee to a safe location with an ethnically diverse and mentally unstable group of fellow survivors. Perhaps a gang of madmen have broken into your home and are holding you and your child at gunpoint, they will kill you both unless you punch your six year old in the mouth.

Notice how none of my examples included bad behavior? Or even anything remotely approaching a realistic situation? That is because lying to you, insulting someone, or breaking something, the usual childhood misdemeanors, are not excuses to hit a kid, lecture them, restrict privileges, watch them closer, have a conversation, hug them, do anything except hit them.

There are those who don't equate spanking with hitting, those people are delusional, you are using physical force to assert your dominance over a person who trusts you more than anything else in the world and you are teaching them that that is perfectly normal and okay.

Toxic Masculinity starts pretty early, and this kind of shit feeds right into it, boys learn that physical dominance between family members is accepted and normal, and girls, well, they learn the same thing

I don't expect parents to be perfect, I understand that raising another human being is hard and frustrating, add that to other stresses in life and I get that sometimes a parent feels that corporal punishment is the only way they have to teach a lesson, they are wrong, but I get that it is easy for me to say that looking in from the outside, and hard for them to realize that being in the moment, of course, they are victims of their upbringing too, and probably got hit a time or two as well, so they are also fighting(hopefully) against the ingrained idea that this is normal and appropriate.

But when you start trying to justify it you lose me, it isn't okay, it isn't justifiable, you are perpetuating an idea that goes on to fuck up your child, and every other person your child decides to practice the lessons they learned from you on.

You aren't alright, your parents hitting you didn't teach you respect for others, they taught you that violence gets you what you want, and they taught you that it is okay to physically assault the most vulnerable person in your family.