crazyml
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Joined: 7/3/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: bounty44
quote:
ORIGINAL: crazyml
I'll get to my views on free ranging in a bit (and ya know... you might find that I agree with your position on parental discipline).
I am asking you if you seriously think that the bible is useful as a means for justifying corporal punishment.
And if you seriously do... then I'm asking you to clarify whether you're with Deuteronomy on the question of stoning rape victims.
i said, I am indeed.
and then by way of answering your question, I asked if you walked to school or carried your lunch. which is another way of saying, the two things (what is said in Deuteronomy, and what is said in proverbs) don't have anything to do with each other, other than they are both in the bible.
I don't mean this harshly, but your question seems to be posed from the position of an "outsider" who doesnt understand the whole of the bible in general, and in this case, the laws given to Israel at a particularly time and place in their history. I could be wrong on that, but in any event, feel invited to send me a private message and we can have that conversation there.
I don't mean this harshly either, but calling on the bible as a means to support a position on whether it is reasonable to use corporal punishment on a child is specious.
I don't know why you're unable to answer my question - Are you not familiar with Deuteronomy? It's one of the books of the bible.
If, as I infer from your post, you have a knowledge of the bible, I'm a little confused as to how you are unable to answer a simple question...
Do you believe that rape victims in built up areas should be stoned to death?
The bible is a piss-poor source of moral authority.
Now...
On corporal punishment....
I, as a parent, absolutely reserve the right to physically chastise my kids. When they were very young I may have given each of my boys a slap on the thighs on a tiny handful of occasions... exclusively when they had done something that was dangerous.
In the past 10 years (the boys are 16 and 13) they have both known that if I felt it necessary, I would absolutely give them corporal punishment. I never have, but I have always reserved the right. I have been lucky, neither of my boys has ever been tempted to shoplift (for example), which is something that i would certainly have punished with a belt. I would not have been happy to do it, and having to do it would have felt like a personal failure, but I would have regarded it as the duty of love that I owe my children.
And yes, if I were prosecuted, I would look the judge in the eye and say, sincerely, I was doing what I believed was best for my children.
Now... My dad was in the Army, and I grew up in an environment where the belt was one (but by no means the only) sanction. And I can honestly say, that if my dad were alive today I would thank him for the handful of beltings I received as a child. I never had a belting that I didn't deserve.
On my street though, was a kid who was no worse than me in terms of his behaviour, and he was regularly black and blue. God knows what that treatment would have done to him - but I am certain that his life would have been better if he'd been taken away from the abusive sick fuck who purported to be bringing him up.
So there's a line... and yes, I think that in many cases the line is absurd. In the UK for example, leaving a hand print is regarded as abuse which strikes me as going way too far. I felt that the existing law was a) good enough and b) (sadly) not properly enforced.
Now... walking home from the park.
Yep, I grew up in the early 70's. From the age of 6 I walked home from a park that was 1/2 a mile from my house. In my neighbourhood everyone knew everyone else, I'm guessing that nearly every household had a car, but very few had more than one. It was a pretty different world.
My boys have grown up in quiet villages, where the neighbours know eachother, and yeah once my oldest was 10 I let him roam pretty widely. My youngest is a bit trouble-prone (he's not much into thinking about consequences) and I waited till my oldest was 13 before I was happy for him to look after the youngest unsupervised.
If I lived in a busier place, I might have waited longer - if I'd lived in a really tiny community I might have let them roam earlier.
But... if the law had said that I couldn't leave my youngest with my oldest when he was 13, I might have been pissed, I might have looked into having the law changed (democracy), I might have complained about how arbitrary laws can be, but I would not have chosen to break the law, then whined like a baby when there were consequences - which is what these parents appear to be doing.
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Remember.... There's always somewhere on the planet where it's jackass o'clock.
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RE: Free Range Parenting - 
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