The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers recently appeared in the Washington Post. Primarily it's about some conservative Christians returning their children to the public schools, but here's the part that caught my attention where it recounts the thoughts of an adult thinking back to his experiences with discipline as a child:
quote:
The memory of waiting as a small child outside his parents’ bedroom for his mother to summon him in; the fear that his transgressions might be enough to incur what he called “killer bee” spankings, when the rod was used against his bare skin; his efforts to obey the order to remain immobile as he was hit — all these sensations and emotions seeped into his bones, creating a deep conviction that those who fail to obey authority pay an awful price.
There's more detail in the article, but that quote should provide enough of a flavor of conservative Christian children's experience with discipline.
It should be obvious to every human being that if your discipline strategies are so detailed that they involve choices between different implements (wooden spoon, hairbrush, belt) and between different ways of administering them (where on the body and whether on clothes, underwear or bare flesh) that you have taken a very wrong turn. Sheriffs can't do it to prisoners, and parents shouldn't be allowed to do it to children. A community that encourages such abuse to me calls into the question the very legitimacy of that community's existence. Children deserve love and attention, not beatings.
--Percy
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