I suppose I should know better than to post comments on some blogs. Shrug.
To prove something or other (figure it out for yourself), violetwisp posted a fragment of a comment I made on her blog. See punishing children. I suppose I could comment in some detail, but I won’t bother. Mostly, I will just post a few comments from this post: breaking news: more bible translation errors discovered also at violetwisp.
Why not say more? When I read their comments at punishing children, it quickly became obvious that the people whose opinions I care about think violetwisp is being absurd.
So here is my reply. We make choices. Then we deal with the consequences, but some people grow up thinking they are exempt from suffering the consequences of their bad choices. Those people try to shift the consequences of their bad choices onto others. The enslavement of others is an extreme example of such behavior.
Children who receive proper discipline know that it is not right to make others suffer the consequences of their bad choices. That’s the basic difference between a responsible citizen and one who isn’t. The responsible citizen accepts personal responsibility. It also seems to be a big difference between the Modern Liberal and a Conservative. Hence that is probably why Modern Liberals and Conservatives divide so predictably on this issue.
Anyway, violetwisp has given me a good excuse to post some Bible verses.
To our modern ears, the Bible can make discipline sound harsh.
Proverbs 23:12-14 New King James Version (NKJV)
12 Apply your heart to instruction,
And your ears to words of knowledge.13 Do not withhold correction from a child,
For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
14 You shall beat him with a rod,
And deliver his soul from hell.
Beating a child with a rod sounds awful, but consider the alternative. The rod was for the child who would not listen.
Proverbs 29:15 New King James Version (NKJV)
15 The rod and rebuke give wisdom,
But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.
Moreover, the point of proverb is to encourage parents to save their children, not hurt them. The point is to get a child’s attention so they will listen.
When I was little, I was a rascal. My mother was a small woman. Once she realized spanking me with her hand hurt her hand more than my butt, she began using a wooden brush. Still, I was trouble and had an uncontrolled temper. When I threw a toy gun (made with metal in those days) and hit another child, my father used his belt on my butt. After that, I finally began to understand the consequences of bad behavior.
Anyway (again), here is the first link (to my first comment in the thread) to the comments in the thread violet that violetwisp extracted a fragment of one of my comment on her post.
Here is the full text of the comment that the fragment violetwisp quoted came from.
@violet
We are works in progress. We each have to deal with our problems as we best know how.
Did I discipline my children as well as I should have? No. I have a temper, and the ability of my eldest when she was two to set it off scared me. So I would have been stupid to wait until I was furious. Did that once. Did not hurt the kid, but I was thoroughly ashamed that I was about to lose it. It is important to be meek.
Just the same, when my wife was home alone with two kids, she had to do something with the older child or she could not take care of the new-born. She finally conceded the necessity of punishment (spanking was not something she liked either). Mostly she just stuck the two-year old in the backyard (fenced) until the child agreed to behave. Even with a shaded patio deck, Houston, TX can be quite uncomfortable without air-conditioning. Watching that stubborn, wilful little girl cry hurt my lady more than it did my eldest. Still, it worked.
There are spankings, and then there are very disagreeable alternatives that are just as punishing. Frankly, I prefer what my wife did, but it takes more patience, and the weather has to cooperate.
Why was the oldest misbehaving? Part of the reason is that she had lost her status as the center of mommy’s attention. So mommy included her as much as she could in taking care of her sister. Still, two-year old children will act up, and sometimes the “reason” for their bad behavior is they just want to do something they know they are not suppose to do. Even a two-year old child can be a control freak, and that kid was smart. She is an MD now. (from => https://violetwisp.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/breaking-news-more-bible-translation-errors-discovered/#comment-30008)
Here is the first link in another thread on the same post that that also relates disciplining children.
https://violetwisp.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/breaking-news-more-bible-translation-errors-discovered/#comment-29896
I suspect these two comments are the ones that most irked violetwisp.
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@violet
Well, you just gave away the game.
It was never was anything about what insanitybytes22 actually said. It was about your perception, what you believe. It was about the fact Christianity offends you. Its mere existence offends you.
I was that way once. The notion of God dying on a cross caused me to roll up my eyes. I could not understand the idea of original sin, that we are born with an affliction that only the love of God can cure. And the idea of a God with so much power…… What was little Tommy compared to Him?
I have watch children grow. Brothers. A sister. My own. They are not entirely clueless. They waste no time learning the word “mine”. We are born with an insatiable pride. ME FIRST!
Only love can quench a child’s pride, but first we must get a child’s attention. Without a bit a of mild punishment that’s next to impossible. With one child? Maybe. We can hold a child until it is willing to accept direction, if you have the time. With two or more? No way. Not even the most devoted stay at home mom or dad has that kind of time.
If you love your kids, the choice between letting them run wild and smacking them on the bottom quickly becomes obvious. At least it does for people who raise their own kids.
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I don’t think violetwisp liked my explanation of her attack on
“she disapproves of punishing children when they do wrong”
Absolutely! It’s all about setting good examples and providing reasons for behaving in a socialised manner that takes other people’s feelings into consideration. Children aren’t ‘bad’, they’re just clueless about social norms until they’re sufficiently exposed to them, and they have some very basic needs (food, rest, comfort) that people tend to overlook before they launch into counter-productive disciplining. And this is one of the reasons I can never accept the Christian god in the Bible – the caricature of this omniscient being punishing its puny creation is disgusting.