Conversation

@mina @photovotary @RickiTarr To those people who value having been hit as a child, I would ask, “Did it work?”

I was an impulsive, adventurous kid. I got into fights, I stole stuff, I broke stuff, I set stuff on fire… I got spanked a *lot*!

I remember many, many times that I did things that were punished with a spanking.

I *don’t* remember thinking, even *once*, “I’d better not do this, I’m going to get spanked!”

I *do* remember conversations:
- The one where my mom talked to me about my experiment with smoking when I was nine. No spanking, just a good argument against it, in terms that made sense to me at the time.
- The one where she sat me down with some pamphlets from the fire department (I was playing with matches and so forth) and talked about her fears for the consequences of my fascination with flame.
- The ones that reminded me of the value of treating other people with respect, love, and empathy.

Spanking, even by caring, compassionate parents that were clearly trying to guide their children to do the right thing, didn’t work. I never felt any kind of resentment against my parents. After the fact, I fully agreed that whatever I had done warranted the punishment. I suppose it helped that my father would always come and talk to me, after I had had a chance to think about it. He would make it clear that it was only about my actions, and not indicative of any lack of love for me. The punishment was compartmentalized nicely.

Oddly, I’m thankful for that lesson, because it guided my own parenting. I realized that *my* urge to spank my kids was all about me, acting rash in the moment, as opposed to any kind of effective strategy to mold young minds. I could only imagine I would feel regret in the aftermath, and not achieved anything other than the possible resentment of me by my kids. To be clear, *I* never felt that resentment for my parents. But I did notice it wasn’t an effective deterrent.

Maybe it works for kids that are less impulsive than I was. But I think those kids would be even more receptive to a conversation than I was. Maybe try that instead.

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