Hitting a child is never the answer to a problem

This is a subject I have some experience with, though I wish that wasn’t the case. As a child who was spanked, I’m here to tell you that violence is NEVER the answer. To whose who, like Adrian Peterson, justify hitting a child as a “loving gesture,” I will offer only a heartfelt “&%$# you!” No matter how hard I try, there’s no way for me to rationalize hitting a child as a way of expressing love. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” is the motto of a parent too lazy to do the heavy lifting of finding creative and effective means of teaching children right from wrong. It’s the hallmark of a parent lacking the energy and inclination to discipline children in ways that don’t involve fear and physical pain.

If your idea of discipline involves hitting child so hard that you leave marks and/or bruises, you have no business being a parent. You may think that hitting a child is “tough love (this hurts me more than it does you),” but all you’re really doing is teaching that child that violence and the fear it creates is the most effective way to get a desired result. What you don’t see is the trauma and pain that child may live with well into adulthood. Hitting a child you love is a lazy parenting method, and it does little but to conflate love with violence and fear. Violence, pain, and fear aren’t expressions of love; they’re brutal means of enforcing your authority and demanding obedience.

It’s child abuse, plain and simple.

You know who hits children? COWARDS hit children. Cowards who are too lazy to get to the root of a problem, to talk with a child, to understand what’s happening and why. Cowards unwilling to do the hard work of parenting and employing effective, non-violent means of disciplining that child. A caring, loving parent doesn’t default to striking a child out of anger and a desire to “instill discipline.” If you want a child to live in fear of you, then by all means spank them. Beat them until you leave bruises and they’re reduced to tears. If you want a child that learns not to trust a parent, who lives in fear of you, then go ahead and hit them. If you want a child who resents you and carries that resentment into adulthood and may well repeat the cycle with their children, then by all means beat and humiliate them.

If hitting a child makes you feel like a parent, you have no right to raise children. If you believe that spanking and humiliating your progeny is the best, most effective way to teach them discipline and obedience, you don’t deserve the privilege of parenthood. If you believe in “tough love,” and/or “spare the rod, spoil the child,” you’re not a parent. You’re a coward and a bully…and you have no business exercising dominion over children. If you can’t conceive of disciplining a child without violence being a component of enforcing your authority, you don’t deserve to have that child in your life.

For those of us who admired Adrian Peterson’s unsurpassed talent as a football player, it turns out that he’s just another cowardly parent who defaults to hitting children because that’s how he was raised. Peterson’s no more a role model than Ray Rice or Greg Hardy, and no more worthy of respect and adulation. It’s the old “pick on someone your own size” conundrum. Bullies abuse those unable to stand up and defend themselves…because that’s what bullies do. When bullies become parents, the results can be tragic. Violence is never the answer, whether there’s a child or a woman on the receiving end.

I apologize if my tone seems strident and perhaps overly emotional, there’s a reason for it. My childhood was defined by being harshly and violently “disciplined.” It’s taken me a lifetime to figure out a way past the anger and the sense of victimhood it created in me. I decided not to have children of my own because I was afraid I’d revert to the way I was raised, and I couldn’t bear the idea of doing that to someone I love.

If the accusations against Adrian Peterson are true, I hope discipline will be swift and harsh. I may be a Vikings fan, but I’m no fan of cowards and bullies. Peterson is no role model, and if the charges against him are proven, neither should he be a parent…because the real victim here is the child he beat.

Violence is not the answer.