Originally Posted by
Icky
Congrats. A lot of victims are though.
Some of possible reasons why are;
You dodged a bullet, you lucked out.
Or your memories of the discipline and your rantionalisation of them make you see they werent that bad but the imprint they made was severe.
Your parents weren't abusive.
~~~
Justt cause the survivors survived, doesn't mean its a viable way to go about things.
To me this ended up the more interesting discussion in this thread. Maya handily makes herself look stupid, I no longer find it entertaining to pile-on.
I've seen the abused become abusers. It's not always how things go, but it is certainly a common route for the abused.
They normalise the abuse they received, and through that lens they rationalise the abuse they inflict.
I've had discussions with a person who had a tremendous level of cognitive dissonance on the subject, so I largely think Icky is spot-on with the rationalisation stuff. I mean, I've witnessed it. "I've seen some things, man, and some stuff... wouldn't recommend it!"
I was a difficult kid, and I'm sure many parents would have done worse to me than what I received. I'm grateful for my mum's 'compromise.' I grew up in an extremely violent environment, so I'm very aware of the effects of violence, but none of that came from my family or carers, the people a child trusts implicitly.
My mother, a stern Scottish woman who saw corporal punishment doled out on the boys in her school system, her brothers included, came up with what she felt was a compromise: on the few occasions where she really felt need to get through to me, she lightly smacked the back of my hand. It was done sparingly.
Any British kid who was forced to (somehow unironically) read A Kestrel For A Knave in school will know why the back of the hand works so well... and I guess anyone reading this who got the cane as a child.
It was light, but it was enough of a shock to really get my attention. In that regard it worked very well.
Now, the things she told me once she held my attention... well, I might not have understood the lesson, but that's different - she sure as shit had my full attention. My grandparents were pinchers, which hurt, while I certainly wouldn't call that abuse - the pain made me more temper-tantrumy. The hand smacks worked better because it didn't actually hurt.
If I ever adopt, I won't do what she did. But I think I'm able to make that decision because I wasn't really physically disciplined growing up.
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Also I should note: the hand smack was *NEVER* a "punishment", it was a way to stop me from acting like a maniac in that moment.
Defaulting to corporal punishment is just bad parenting.
Last edited by DrGonz; Feb 13, 2020 at 01:20 AM.
Reason: <24 hour edit/bump