Black moms and hitting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my daughters school I see a lot of very sweet white women get shoved, hit, and yelled at and yanked by their (I assume) kids. It's rough rough behavior where ladies are getting hurt. By like four and five year olds, and up from there. They are often very upset over what seems to be stuff moms do--like telling them to tie a shoe or get a backpack. I often am so horrified I want to say something, but I have been biting my tongue. Is this a white thing? I live in a middle income neighborhood. I am not trying to get racist here but I don't feel comfortable asking anyone I know who might have insight about these situations.

I couldn't resist.
See how easy that is?

You should have resisted. Parody is not your strong suit.

NP. You my dear, are wrong. I think she hit the mark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that Jeff does a great job with this site but he and all of us participants really need to try to get control of this. This race bashing is really getting out of hand. There are a lot of AA moms on these boards (I know a few of them) and it is starting to be an uncomfortable place to be.

starting? i'd say we're well into uncomfortable on many of these thread where race pops up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that Jeff does a great job with this site but he and all of us participants really need to try to get control of this. This race bashing is really getting out of hand. There are a lot of AA moms on these boards (I know a few of them) and it is starting to be an uncomfortable place to be.

starting? i'd say we're well into uncomfortable on many of these thread where race pops up.

I've been reading these boards for about ten years now and it's exactly the same. It'll pass. And then cycle back. There's just been a lot at once recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:White lady here. I grew up lower MC in a heavily Latino neighborhood. Everyone spanked and hit their kids. Fast forward to now- I am well off and guess what? Most my friends who are also well-off spank or hit their kids! They just don't admit to it as freely and won't do it in public. I believe the higher the SES, the more things are done in private. That's my hypotheses and I am sticking to it.

Clearly higher SES individuals spank less than lower status families. I know very few people that spank their kids, and the data bear this out:

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090924_spanking.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759998/

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP36.pdf

Of course. They're too busy abusing their household staff. No data to ever scientifically prove it. But some of us witness plenty of it. Sad.

That's just silly. Most higher SES families don't even have domestic staff. Some do, but not most. The majority of those that do, probably have someone come once/week or twice/month, and doubtful there's abuse happening in that one day. So most of the data would not be negated by your weird unsubstantiated claim.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:I think that Jeff does a great job with this site but he and all of us participants really need to try to get control of this. This race bashing is really getting out of hand. There are a lot of AA moms on these boards (I know a few of them) and it is starting to be an uncomfortable place to be.

You are preaching to the converted. In general, we have a large number of posters of all races who are capable of talking about race in a non-insulting manner. We also have a number of users who are able to take a thread that is about to go off the rails and get it back on track. But, lately, these threads have been overwhelming. I can easily see the most patient of users reaching the point of offense pretty quickly these days. But, just to let you know, I am not oblivious to it. I have been locking threads, deleting threads, and trying -- admittedly with limited to no success -- to moderate threads. I'll keep trying. Provocative discussion is great. Asking a stupid question that may be insulting to some is better than remaining ignorant of the answer. But, DCUM does not need to be a place where users are inundated with prejudicial messages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my neighborhood I see a lot of very little black kids get shoved, hit, and yelled at and yanked by their (I assume) moms. It's rough rough behavior where kids are getting hurt. Like one and two year old, and up from there. They are often very upset over what seems to be stuff kids do--like making noise on the bus. I often am so horrified I want to say something, but I have been biting my tongue. Is this an AA thing? I live in a low income neighborhood. I am not trying to get racist here but I don't feel comfortable asking anyone I know who might have insight about these situations.

Yes, black parents hit more that other races. Much has been researched/written about this. Start searching the topic, and you'll find many articles.

A couple of articles to get started: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/some-black-parents-see-physical-discipline-as-a-duty-the-naacp-shouldnt-agree/2012/06/22/gJQAyo5ovV_story.html and http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2011/08/should-black-children-be-parented-differently/

Some researchers, like Kerby Alvy, have found that the use of authoritarian parenting and physical discipline in the African-American community has its roots in slavery.

[Anonymous]

A good friend of mine spanks. I do not. Her kids are better behaved than mine are. I sometimes question my decision not to spank; however, my kids are now 9 and 10 so too old to spank now anyway. Good friend highly educated as is her husband.

[Anonymous]

^^ good friend is white BTW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good friend of mine spanks. I do not. Her kids are better behaved than mine are. I sometimes question my decision not to spank; however, my kids are now 9 and 10 so too old to spank now anyway. Good friend highly educated as is her husband.

Spanking is not reserved for the poor and uneducated. I know several parents who spank across the SES divide. What this thread is about is the form of discipline used by parents that just don't know any better (or those who parent they way they were parented). The yelling, cursing, shoving, snatching up, verbal abuse, cursing, etc... is what this thread is about.

Whether or not you agree with it, no person in their right mind would compare spanking with what you see in some areas or the extreme behavior that is being discussed in this thread. Spanking by nature isn't abuse; it may not be an accepted form of discipline in most homes but it doesn't constitute abuse. If it did, the courts would have intervened decades ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Whether or not you agree with it, no person in their right mind would compare spanking with what you see in some areas or the extreme behavior that is being discussed in this thread. Spanking by nature isn't abuse; it may not be an accepted form of discipline in most homes but it doesn't constitute abuse. If it did, the courts would have intervened decades ago.

So slavery isn't abuse, because the courts didn't intervene to stop it?

I bet in a hundred years time spanking will be seen as abuse in the US, just as it is already in more progressive European countries.

[Anonymous]

I find it interesting that a lot of threads in DCUM seem to be White parents "analyzing" or attemtping to analyze how other races parent. We have threads like this and threads about Asian "Tiger moms." What's this all about? I do not think that parents of any race parent "monolithically" and I think that you will find that good and bad parents come in all races. Why this push to make certain parenting methods the province of one race or another? What is the point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my neighborhood I see a lot of very little black kids get shoved, hit, and yelled at and yanked by their (I assume) moms. It's rough rough behavior where kids are getting hurt. Like one and two year old, and up from there. They are often very upset over what seems to be stuff kids do--like making noise on the bus. I often am so horrified I want to say something, but I have been biting my tongue. Is this an AA thing? I live in a low income neighborhood. I am not trying to get racist here but I don't feel comfortable asking anyone I know who might have insight about these situations.

It's a poor people thing. You said it in your post. Go to the trailer park and you will see similar behavior.

I've seen a theory that low-income people are harsher with their kids because they are training the kids to deal with the world their parents see when they go to work. That is, if you work in a job where you are just supposed to take orders and not think about what you're doing, that's how you raise your kids. And middle and upper income people teach their kids to think for themselves and speak up because that's what's valued by their parents' employers. Haven't seen the research on it so I can't say whether I think it's verified or not but it's an intriguing idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The other day I saw a woman on the Metro shove her son to the ground because he leaned on the door of the train. I always wish there was something I could do in situations like that, but it seems like anything I might say or do would possibly just make it worse for the poor kid. I agree that race doesn't have a lot to do with it. It's more correlated to age/socioeconomic status.

Yep. And unfortunately, black people tend to be worse off economically than white people. I am Indian and have also seen this in poor/uneducated Indian families - they tend to hit, while the more well off ones don't.

[Anonymous]

REPEAT POST:

It boils down to parenting styles, discipline techniques and social norms for different groups.


People have different styles of marriage, work ethic, personal and religious beliefs, and parenting. Why would how a parent raises their child be any different?

You may want your child to go Ivy - I may want a child to go HBCU. You may want a child to not have to pay for college, I may think working your way through school builds a work ethic that is much more valuable.

Spanking a child is a form of discipline. There are ways to do it effectively. Hitting a child, pushing, shoving and cursing at a child are forms of abuse and a lack of control, and it is illegal.

My mother spanked me occasionally, but my brother never flinched, so he was always disciplined with getting toys or rights taken away.

The point is, you can't suggest that all children will fit into a model of your experience, ever. There needs to be flexibilty with parents.

Another point - I was taught that you punish with the rod, and love with your hands. We don't hit with hands, but a smack on the bottom with a ruler or a switch from the tree? Totally appropriate. It was always prefaced with an explanation of WHY the punishment was being given, it was never done in rage or anger, and afterwards, there was love, an understanding and we moved on.

I turned out fine, and see NOTHING wrong with that form of discipline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:REPEAT POST:

It boils down to parenting styles, discipline techniques and social norms for different groups.


People have different styles of marriage, work ethic, personal and religious beliefs, and parenting. Why would how a parent raises their child be any different?

You may want your child to go Ivy - I may want a child to go HBCU. You may want a child to not have to pay for college, I may think working your way through school builds a work ethic that is much more valuable.

Spanking a child is a form of discipline. There are ways to do it effectively. Hitting a child, pushing, shoving and cursing at a child are forms of abuse and a lack of control, and it is illegal.

My mother spanked me occasionally, but my brother never flinched, so he was always disciplined with getting toys or rights taken away.

The point is, you can't suggest that all children will fit into a model of your experience, ever. There needs to be flexibility with parents.

Another point - I was taught that you punish with the rod, and love with your hands. We don't hit with hands, but a smack on the bottom with a ruler or a switch from the tree? Totally appropriate. It was always prefaced with an explanation of WHY the punishment was being given, it was never done in rage or anger, and afterwards, there was love, an understanding and we moved on.

I turned out fine, and see NOTHING wrong with that form of discipline.

Oh, and I am AA by the way.