Spare The Rod And Humiliate The Child?
I think we forget our children are neither slaves nor pawns. During slavery into Jim Crow and on to Civil Rights parenting in the African American Community demands something different of us and we must evolve. Our objective is the same: to show love through discipline. The urgency of those days is different than today and demands a different dictate.
Every generation will have to evolve to improve the lives of our children in this country. Passing down what my parents, grand parents and great grand parents did is not sufficient, if we want our children to be better than we are or were. I want my child to be bigger, faster and stronger than I ever was and I am not too shabby. We must remember we are no longer a physically enslaved people...but mentally and spiritually a lot of us are still in trouble.
Below is my "comment thread" to a Facebook debate. The debate was not on my page so the participants are not "my friends" (I cannot post their full comments). My selected touchstones from their comments were:
"Men have to discipline their sons differently then Mothers and daughters"; "It's frustrating to see he is in trouble for parenting, caring and disciplining his son"; "That's a shame that they arrested him for disciplining his child"; "He's at the age where he needs it, especially from his father"; "That's the only thing that he did different from what the military does every day":
I wrote...
As a single mother whose son's father passed away this year, he hadn't been what his son needed; but I absolutely agree that the parenting pathway for mothers and fathers is different. By nature of gender and what gender roles can accomplish in the lives of our children "it is what it is". Classically mothers nurture and instill courage and fathers impart discipline which supports focus, self esteem and confidence. The lines of accountability for these things are not always exact or 50/50, but the collaboration and combination of it all is unbeatable...that said the "cursing" and the "shaming" are not effective tools from the parenting toolbox no matter the gender.
The objective of parenting is always to show love and to rear whole and healthy children. In that pursuit our actions must reflect the discipline we are looking to impart to them and to respect their humanity as we expect them to consistently respect and obey us. I have no issue with spanking. If you completely spare the rod you may spoil the child. "Hair" combined with cursing and shaming do not appear to be effective currency for disciplining a child, that's just trauma. I don't Devry Broox arrested...but counseling or other supports are a MUST !!!!
And why was this posted on the internet and edited together like a mini documentary or something ?...The statistics he sites in the "opening credits" are critical touchstones, but we don't stem those awful numbers with "cutting hair", shaming and cursing our boy children...in the Facebook comment thread I was on someone compared this father's actions to the military(hence my comment here) -The military does indeed do the same thing to ADULTS who are not looking in the face of a Sargent for Love...a shallow comparison like that is a false analogy in this discussion.
Peace and Blessings
Danna
