This whole “don’t physically discipline your kids” stuff is some NORTHERN WHITE LIBERAL NONSENSE

femmenoire:

zorascreation:

That’s why White children are disrespectful as FUCK.

That’s why White families are FOREVER asking Black & Brown women to be mammies and Black & Brown men to be mentors to their damn pickney. 

Fuck no. 

Even if you don’t physically discipline your child personally, GROW A FUCKING BACKBONE AND DISCIPLINE THEM SOME KINDA WAY.

YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT YOUR “BEST FRIENDS”. 

YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT YOUR “EQUALS”. 

YOUR CHILDREN AIN’T GONNA DIE IF YOU TELL THEM “NO”. 

YOU ARE THE ADULT. THEY ARE THE CHILD. ACT ACCORDINGLY. 

I THANK MY MOM & DAD FOR BEATIN’ MY LITTLE BLACK BUTT WHEN I SAID OR DID SOME OFF SHIT. ‘CAUSE IF I CARRIED MY BULLSHIT INTO ADULTHOOD, THEY KNEW THAT WHITE SOCIETY WAS GONNA DO WORSE TO ME. 

It’s actually way too late for me to be dealing with this bullshit but because people have been discounting the experiences of Black women who have specifically said that physical abuse is not the key to discipline I thought I’d reblog the original posts and express my problems. 

From my experiences with White and Black families the legacy of physical discipline has done nothing more than… perpetuate physical violence as the primary form of discipline. While you do advocate that people should “do something” I happen to believe that physical abuse is particularly lazy. Do something else. 

And even though people have been ignoring the personal stories that people share, I’ll share on more. I remember the last whooping my mother ever gave me. It was fucking epic. And in my better moments I can tell the story and laugh. But I’ve found that I can share that story with laughter with other Black people because they understand the context of a parent who whoops.

But the part that I’m most uncomfortable with in that story is the fact that my mother expressly told me that she wanted to whoop my brother as well (because we were both cutting school) but he wasn’t home. So she whooped me and tired herself out. He never got that whooping and, in fact, blamed me for putting our mom in a bad mood. Surprisingly he never thanked me for taking his beating.

Considering the extreme difference in our lives I’m tempted to agree with the original post that that whooping (and all the others) kept me in line and I graduated high school and was the first person in my family to get any advanced degrees. But again, that’s easy. 

What actually happened is that I turned even more into myself and didn’t tell my mother that I was skipping school possibly as an effect of being sexually harassed by a family member. Maybe if I’d told her that a lot of things might have been changed about my life, including my rape a couple years later. I don’t know. But I do know that my mother and I weren’t anywhere near close until I was a teenager and even then (hell even now) I don’t trust her because I’m afraid of the damage she’s done and can do to me emotionally. Doesn’t mean I don’t love her. But it does mean that to some extent I fear and sometimes don’t trust her, and as an adult that’s not particularly healthy.

I don’t think that discipline has much to do with physical abuse. In my mind if you want your child to be disciplined it might help to mirror that behavior, or pay better attention to their schedules, punish them (the most effective punishment I ever received involved me spending an entire summer reading and attaching myself to my mother’s hip, never shoplifted again). 

Parenting is subjective. Some things work for some kids, some things don’t. But to pretend like physical abuse masked as discipline, which is actually what this post seems to advocate (even as you equivocate with “do something”) is not the most effective route.

Because I wonder how many Black men in my life who are now in jail/hustling/creating kids they don’t take care of were whooped as kids.

wait a minute.  what?  no. i have never physically disciplined my daughter (who is almost 5).  nor was i physically disciplined by my parents. 

now i do tell theresa, no.  i never got on the bandwagon where i dont say, no, to my kid.  and my reasoning is that if i dont tell her to say, no, then how will she know how to say ‘no’ to others? 

and i dont think necessarily that all physical discipline falls under abuse, definitely not.  but i have to admit that i have taken care of other folks kids, as well as my own, and ive never needed to hit or spank or anything like that. 

first i say, no and explain why ‘no’.

then, i will physically remove her from the situation.

the harshest i do is ostracization, which is basically ‘time out’.  and usually i use it like, ‘okay billie, you can have a temper tantrum if you want, but you need to do it in this room over here, so that you dont disturb the rest of us who just want to have fun and play together.’  with theresa i rarely have to do this, because most of the time ‘no’ and an explanation of why i think ‘no’ (with her asking a series of follow-up questions) and then finding something else for her to do that is more interesting, that usually suffices.

and i think that we are equals.  yes, we are at different developmental stages, and we both should act accordingly.  like because i am an adult, i should act like one, and be able to think of contextualized and creative ways of interacting with children that allows for both of us to keep/express/share our humanity, even when these kids have gotten on my last nerves, or has said something srsly disrespectful, or just been defiant as shit. 

and they are the child, its their job to push boundaries, make a mess, say off the wall shit, and generally splatter themselves against the world. 

idk, what hitting a kid has to do with being an adult.  like kids hit kids all the time - what so adult about that?  it seems to be me that being the adult, is about being able to think and act in ways that acknowledges our equality, while respecting our (developmental) differences…

i know i sound like a fucking hippie right now.  but ask anyone, i wasnt hit at all, and i was a really really good kid (by any one’s standards).  and my kid is fucking awesome. 

(via leonineantiheroine)