To Beat Up A Child: The Doctrine of Obedience and the Damage Done

[Howl]

This is not a thread specific to Michael Pearl but "To Beat Up a Child" perfectly encapsulates fundagelicals, physical discipline and how damaging it was and is for children.  Talia Bracha Lavin collected their stories.  The responses in this twitter thread are heartbreaking. 

Unroll of twitter thread for non-Twitterati:  It is about corporal punishment in evangelical households. 150 people reached out to me to share their stories. I did my best to honor their trust and candor.

The always amazing Katie Botkin (1st cousin to the Botkinetti) was raised in Christ Church in Moscow, ID, Doug Wilson's outfit.  They are big on physical discipline.  

 

Edited October 30, 2021 by Howl

[Hane]

I’m reminded of an episode of “SuperNanny” in which a mother rhythmically swatted her child while chanting “Trust and obey” over and over. She said she was taught this at a child-training workshop at her church. Needless to say, the nanny was appalled. (At one point during the assault, the child cried, “I *don’t* trust you!”)

[hoipolloi]

The Pearls are perhaps the most notorious pushers of the "first time obedience" shite but it's integral to the writings of most other child beaters as well such as Ted Tripp & James Dobson. I also agree with Levin who says that these men's all-consuming interest in beating children, to the extent of ritualizing the practice in their writings, speaks far more to their own sexuality than anything else. Their obsessions with sex, control, and domination really strike me as projections of the worst sort. 

Also, it should be noted that beating a child into submission and breaking their will while teaching them unquestioning & instant obedience sets them up to be targets of the worst kinds of child abuse. 

If there's a hell, I hope every last one of these monsters and their followers wind up there.

[shesinsane]

Thank you for posting this! I'm a Talia Levin fan (her book Culture Warlords is a fascinating look at some truly disgusting people), follow her on twitter, and when I saw her next topic of research my thought was "she's about to read a bunch of stuff that will horrify; she should spare herself some agony and just read Freejinger." 
I meant to start a thread about this but didn't get around to it, so I'm glad someone else did. Members of freejinger should read Levin's work just for the ego boost (you'll quickly realize you're already an expert on this topic). 

[hoipolloi]

40 minutes ago, shesinsane said:

I'm a Talia Levin fan (her book Culture Warlords is a fascinating look at some truly disgusting people)

It's an excellent book but completely horrifying.

Gotta give her mad props for being willing to take on an investigation into the widespread and systematic child abuse in evangelical Christianity after immersing herself in that soul-destroying universe of white supremacists, neo-nazis, etc. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

I have to say while this practice seems in line with evangelicals and certainly thanks to the Pearls, it's common among people will follow here. However the first people I ever met who joked about being hit with wooden spoons were Catholics. I was with a group of Catholics around my age (so millennials) and they were laughing about the good days of childhood and being whacked with a wooden spoon. One person said his mother broke the spoon when she hit him. It also goes along with Catholics who enjoy stories about nuns hitting people with wooden rulers.  As a former Catholic, I've met many Catholics who weren't like this, so obviously this isn't true for all Catholics.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Bluebirdbluebell

[Cults-r-us]

2 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

I have to say while this practice seems in line with evangelicals and certainly thanks to the Pearls, it's common among people will follow here. However the first people I ever met who joked about being hit with wooden spoons were Catholics. I was with a group of Catholics around my age (so millennials) and they were laughing about the good days of childhood and being whacked with a wooden spoon. One person said his mother broke the spoon when she hit him. It also goes along with Catholics who enjoy stories about nuns hitting people with wooden rulers.  As a former Catholic, I've met many Catholics who weren't like this, so obviously this isn't true for all Catholics.

1. My mother was not adverse to wooden spoons but preferred the hairbrush.

2. The good Sisters preferred to smack with the wooden pointer. One nun would count the beat to the music by tapping desks as she walked along the desks, and if you weren't singing, she'd whop you, so sing, dammit, sing!

3. One time, for what reason I do not know, I remember a nun banging 2 kid's heads together, like cymbals.

4. The above music beat counting nun had super human strength. My brother, who was a trial (and remained so until his untimely death years later) was smoking in the bathroom with his friend in like 3rd grade when they were apprehended but this nun (who was about 100 years old). She carried them BOTH by the scruff of their necks out of the bathroom and down the hall.

5. Angelic girls with popular parents amassed an enormous bevy of holy cards from the nuns (I got about 3 in my whole career). We were in the choir loft kneeling in front of the ledge and these 2 girls were tearing up their holy cards with the little pieces sprinkling like snow on the parishioners below  Again we witness the 2-child carrying removal by neck scruff. It was unsettling because who knows where they were taken?

6. This is unrelated but nonetheless my favorite Catholic school memory. When your grade school class collected enough money, they could adopt and name a "pagan baby", I presume an orphan or some other unfortunate somewhere.

[smittykins]

12 hours ago, Cults-r-us said:

6. This is unrelated but nonetheless my favorite Catholic school memory. When your grade school class collected enough money, they could adopt and name a "pagan baby", I presume an orphan or some other unfortunate somewhere.

I remember reading about “buying pagan babies” in Growing Up Catholic and wondered what that was about.

[Four is Enough]

Oh, the pagan babies. I don't know how much of my candy money went for the pagan babies, but I'm still consuming candy at a rapid pace to make  up for the childhood lack.

Wooden spoon, hairbrush, sandal bottom... I've been smacked with all of them. Wooden ruler, too, but by a lay teacher, not a nun. But I have been beaned by the crucifix of a nun's waist rosary (the big heavy one) on more than one occasion when the book I was reading in class was noticed and disapproved of by the nun who was teaching. Flying erasers have found me, too. 

Normally, the crucifix or eraser got a laugh from not just me, but the class.. It was embarrassing but not painful. The wooden spoon at home was one or two whacks, over clothes. Again, I didn't and don't consider that abusive.

 

And holy cards? I still have my collection. I love 'em.

[GuineaPigCourtship]

Like many kids in my generation and older ones (mid 30s here) I was spanked on occasion. I remember the injustice of it when it was for something I hadn't done pretty vividly. I've got a great relationship with my parents these days, but recently told them that I didn't feel like the spanking ever did anything to improve my remorse or drive a message home. They admitted that they knew it now and it was one of their biggest parenting regrets. None of this "I turned out fine so beating kids is fine" bullshit here, thanks.

Lots of corporeal punishment in their house growing up and they simply did not examine it too closely.

[feministxtian]

Survivor of 12 years of Catholic schools here. I remember kneeling in the back of the classroom for goofing off - 2nd grade or so. Grades 3, 4 & 5 I had lay teachers. 6th grade...Sr. Noreen. You know those rulers that had the strip of metal? Yup, one of her favorite weapons. Then there was Sr. Martha Joseph...she should have gone out for the big leagues. She liked using railroad chalk, similar to the outside chalk the kids use now. She'd use it until it was about 1" long. Then she'd use it to get an offender right between the eyes. Center of the classroom to anywhere including the back row. She was also lethal with erasers. Then there was the psycho bitch English teacher who kicked my desk. Imagine her surprise when I caught her leg and told her that if she wanted to throw down, meet me by the Chevy dealership that was behind the school. Yeah, nothing came of that...if she wrote me up she'd have to explain how I was able to grab her leg. 

I'm occasionally amazed that between the Catholic school discipline and the incessant bullying from 8th to 12th grades, I'm still reasonably sane. 

[quiversR4hunting]

Wow. I went to Catholic school from 1-6 grade (the only grades in the Catholic school) and nobody was hit with a ruler or anything (in the 80s). If you were in trouble, you went to the principal office and parents were called. One kid stuck gum under desk (gum was not allowed plus gross sticking it under a desk) that kid had to clean all the desks in the classroom as part of the punishment. At one point there were 4 nuns working at the school. The only teacher I remember putting hands on kids in a discipline way wasn't a nun, she would grab kids by the back of their neck and squeeze, sadly she was my 1st grade teacher. In 2nd grade, we played kick ball with our teacher and one of the boys kicked the ball and it swiped the top of her head making her habit come off, we were all in shock but Sister just laughed and laughed as she replaced her habit. 

My mom went to catholic school in the 50s/60s and she has told me her teachers never hit kids with rulers either. I have heard stories of public schools the 50s & 60s hitting knuckles with rulers or having paddles. I think as time has gone on, physical punishment in schools and in home has been steadily dropping (THANKFULLY!) as people learn violence isn't the answer. Are their cruel educators out there? Yes but I think it is becoming an anomaly instead of the norm for a cruel educator to maintain their position in schools (for both public and mainstream private schools - excluding "reform christian schools"). 

[smittykins]

I’ve heard that even in states where corporal punishment is banned in public schools, conservative Christian schools still practice it(some even summoning the parents to administer it).

[Themanda Duggar]

2 hours ago, quiversR4hunting said:

My mom went to catholic school in the 50s/60s and she has told me her teachers never hit kids with rulers either. I have heard stories of public schools the 50s & 60s hitting knuckles with rulers or having paddles. I think as time has gone on, physical punishment in schools and in home has been steadily dropping (THANKFULLY!) as people learn violence isn't the answer. Are their cruel educators out there? Yes but I think it is becoming an anomaly instead of the norm for a cruel educator to maintain their position in schools (for both public and mainstream private schools - excluding "reform christian schools"). 

My western PA public elementary school allowed the teachers to paddle the students, though only if the parents had signed the permission slip for it at the beginning of the year.  My friends who went to catholic schools in the same area  were regularly hit with rulers, or paddled in front of the class, and I heard enough stories about sadistic nuns and priests you should never be alone with to make me wonder why anyone would be Catholic.  This was in the late 70s and 80s.

[Alisamer]

I was in public school in the 80's and paddling was definitely a thing still. Not first resort, but it did happen. I never went to Catholic school but I did take piano lessons at a Catholic college for a time. I think my teacher was a novice or something maybe and she was nice, but if she was out and one of the actual nuns with the habits taught I remember being intimidated. I don't remember ever being punished or anything though, just being scared that they might pop me! 

[danvillebelle]

I graduated in '87 and paddling was common in all the schools I attended (Tennessee).  

I helped the school secretary in the main office when I was in elementary school.  I hated having to hear students get paddled in the principal's office right there.  It was awful. 

[Bastet]

I went to a Catholic school ‘55-‘69 and only once saw a student get hit and that was by a lay teacher. I think the nuns that taught me were a relatively enlightened bunch. Never heard anything negative about patent leather shoes from them, and most were appalled that our questions in religion class were primarily about what constituted a sin and whether it was classified mortal or venial. (A mortal sin sent you to hell if it was not confessed. One nun finally told us that she did not think children were capable of mortal sin, and we should just relax. We were baffled by this.) They must have been relieved when a more developmentally appropriate approach was adopted after Vatican II. 
    Students at other Catholic schools in the city were hit. Often it was casually, with a “clicker,” a handheld wooden thing that they used to get our attention, like a whistle in the hands of the gym teacher. They’d bonk you on head with it.  It could do some damage, I hear. 
   Offenders in Catholic schools were often made to stand in the corner in a waste basket. (Was it a metaphor? You’re nothing but trash, girl?)     
   The general understanding among us was that the most prone to violence were the Sisters of Mercy.  They had none, we believed  

 

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Child care was really shitty in my hometown in the 80s. There were a lot of in home daycares that were really crappy. My parents mostly sent us to those until they realized how bad they were. There was one actual daycare facility in town and they definitely spanked. I was spanked all the time and my sister was never spanked. I hated that place so much. 

[viii]

Wooden spoons were too fancy. We got the trusty old paint stick. 

[medimus]

The first I heard of 'the wooden spoon' was in Irish youtuber Clisare's comedy videos about growing up in Ireland. I now also have an Irish partner and the wooden spoon as a threat seems to be a common thing.

My dad grew up in the seventies on the West coast of the US and he always used to say that the principal of his elementary (or middle?) school had a paddle which had the word 'whack' cut out of it so that it would leave a mark when used.

I grew up in Belgium, where there was no hitting, but there were 'physical' punishments: piece of tape over the mouth for talking, standing in the corner/against the wall with your hands behind your head. (Try it, interlock your fingers and hold your hands behind your head palms facing your head with your elbows out, no touching your head, for long minutes).

[JermajestyDuggar]

14 hours ago, viii said:

Wooden spoons were too fancy. We got the trusty old paint stick. 

My mom used the paint stirrers until she was gifted a hand made wooden paddle. She refuses to talk about the paddle to my kids. I think she’s ashamed. My kids were shocked when I told them their beloved grandma paddled me when I was a kid. 

[Alisamer]

My mom and grandma were fans of "switches" cut off of a tree. But really that was mostly a threat. Mom either used her hands or whatever she could find. I distinctly remember being chased around the house with one of those wire fly swatters with the metal screen at the end. 

Mom got the same treatment growing up, she remembers lots of spankings. 

Interestingly I have no idea what I did to "earn" any of the spankings I got. I've totally forgotten whatever it was I did that they didn't like.

I do remember the one paddling I got in school. It was a brief one in second grade, and didn't involve a trip to the office thankfully. It was because I hadn't finished a math assignment in the allowed time, and after having to stay in from recess to work on it I still hadn't finished it, so I got a quick paddling before the other kids came back in. 

I have no idea why they thought extra time and the threat of paddling would help me finish an assignment I didn't understand. It's not like I was a problem kid, I was distractible and high energy but for anything but math I was straight As at that time and would almost always be the first person finished with a test or assignment. I didn't tell my parents about the paddling and I assume no one from the school let them know either, because the paddling bothered me less than how terrified I was that mom would find out about it and I'd get it twice as bad at home.

[MamaJunebug]

BigMamaJB broke the cycle of beating she’d grown up under, and I revere her for that to this day.  Always will. 
 

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by MamaJunebug

[Inthemadhouse]

I graduated HS in 2003, public school.  Parents could still sign up for their kid to be paddled.   This was the Bible Belt, and nobody batted an eye.  AFAIK, they still allow it

[RosyDaisy]

I'm from Alabama.  Corporal punishment is still practiced in public schools here.  Parents can opt out, but I've heard of cases where a parent's wishes are not followed.