[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Happy to. I believe that "respect for elders" is a bull**** concept and ones elders should only be respected if they are in turn being respectful. In fact, I'll go further than that. I think pushing the idea that one must unquestioningly "respect one's elders" is straight up dangerous and opens to door to covert abuse and exploitation. It's an idea that has been used time and again throughout history to intimidate and silence young people when they are being mistreated by a supposed superior. One does not become more worthy of respect with age. Respect should be the default from birth and equal for everyone until they do something to lose that respect.




Are they? Do you have some stats on figures on this? Or is it observational?
Because fear and ingrained response =/= respect, and I would counter that what you are identifying as "respect" is little more than Pavlovian dog training, and completely unrelated to true, deserved, ideological respect.

That's a great point actually. Here I'm going to speak about my own culture as an example of that in practice, with the Catholic Church and the unquestionable and un challangable respect that was given to priests in the past and look at what happened because of that, all the sexual and physical abuse that went on, mainly towards children and they were far too scared to speak up because of that power and respect they were given. My mother told me once that she heard a rumour that a priest in her area had fathered a child and she went home and said it and her dad said "don't you dare say something like that about a Priest!" you couldn't say a single bad word about them

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Redway

Look at this guy trying to quantify traditions passed down from generation to generation.

“Respect for elders is a bull**** concept.”

That attitude’s the reason why the kid was bold enough to call the bus driver a prick in the first place.

Please explain why relative age merits increased respect. You haven't and don't seem willing to; I can only assume because you have no idea how to.

And no, it doesn't explain why this kid was disrespectful. I quite clearly said that the default should be respect. He should have been respectful towards the driver because he should be respectful towards everyone and likewise vice-versa. The reason he was disrespectful was not "because he hasn't been taught to unquestioningly respect his elders", and the reason for him having a generally bad attitude CERTAINLY isn't "because he didn't get hit enough".

You're battling a point from a purely subjective stance of what you believe to be true and what you have been raised to believe is true. You have absolutely NO objective evidence for any of it, other than what you believe to be true and what you want to be true, and a few unsubstantiated observations that have far too many variables to be conclusive of anything at all.

[Redway]

“Objective evidence. Unsubstantiated claims.”

You don’t sound any smarter by throwing around academic terms like that. Especially where emotionally toned topics go. I hope you know that.

You can quote my words literally and take them at face value or you can take the substance of what I’m saying. Either way it’s all subjective so long as she and cultural differences come into it. That’s why no one other than you’s linking up ‘conclusive studies’ to substantiate something that all comes down to personal interpretation.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Redway

You know what I’m saying. Calling parents from non-Western countries lazy and crap parents because you don’t agree with their mode of discipline is more offensive than anything I’ve said on this thread.

Oh and to add to this, I'm not only calling people from non western cultures lazy parents btw, plenty of parents in Western cultures still use corporal punishment too(just read this thread for a start) so you can stop trying to paint me as a racist or something. You're the one who brought culture into it not me, I disagree with it regardless of culture.

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Oh and to add to this, I'm not only calling people from non western cultures lazy parents btw, plenty of parents in Western cultures still use corporal punishment too(just read this thread for a start) so you can stop trying to paint me as a racist or something. You're the one who brought culture into it not me, I disagree with it regardless of culture.

No one’s trying to paint you as a racist but culture and generation have the strongest bearing on how people interpret these things.

Bottom line is whether you’re in agreement with different practices or not corporal punishment to kids is so deeply rooted in some cultures it’s seen as an essential part of child training. Dismissing it as lazy just because it doesn’t resonate with you comes off as just a little bit offensive.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Redway

“Objective evidence. Unsubstantiated claims.”

You don’t sound any smarter by throwing around academic terms like that. Especially where emotionally toned topics go. I hope you know that.

You can quote my words literally and take them at face value or you can take the substance of what I’m saying. Either way it’s all subjective so long as she and cultural differences come into it. That’s why no one other than you’s linking up ‘conclusive studies’ to substantiate something that all comes down to personal interpretation.

No, you're conflating the objective question of whether or not violence against children results in better / more respectful adults (something that absolutely can be and has been examined through detailed study, and is not purely a matter of opinion) with a statement about cultural norms that by your own admission is fuelled by personal bias. You came into the thread specifically to do that, and you were up until that point the only person who had done that.

I'm not "throwing around terms to seem smarter", and you should be careful when assuming that just because a topic is emotionally toned for you due to your own personal circumstances, that it's that for everyone else involved in the discussion.

I have little to zero interest in the emotional or cultural attachment to using physical punishment against children. I'm interested in whether or not it's objectively damaging to psychological development and the creation of stable, respectful, non-violent adults.

To state that this kid is disrespectful towards adults because he wasn't physically punished enough is at absolute best complete guesswork - not least because we have no idea whether he was or wasn't. It's a guess based on another guess. To state that it's acceptable for an adult man to physically put his hands on anyone - let alone a minor, let alone one who is a stranger to him - is in my opinion morally dubious, and legally just plain false.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Redway

No one’s trying to paint you as a racist but culture and generation have the strongest bearing on how people interpret these things.

Bottom line is whether you’re in agreement with different practices or not corporal punishment to kids is so deeply rooted in some cultures it’s seen as an essential part of child training. Dismissing it as lazy just because it doesn’t resonate with you comes off as just a little bit offensive.

But only offensive to non western cultures? It was also a cultural thing in Western cultures too but that's starting to change because people realised its wrong to hit children.

You say it's a way of child training. It was also a way of training dogs in the past but dog trainers have updated their methods because they realised it was less effective and a bit cruel. Hitting puppies/dogs as a way of training them makes dogs fearful which in turn can make them dangerous/aggressive. It makes sense. It's logical.

I'm not going to ever sit here and say it's ok to hit a child because it offends you btw, not ever.

[Redway]

But to go on and call half the world’s parents bad parents all because you’re not in agreement with their mode of discipline kind of is offensive isn’t it.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Redway

But to go on and call half the world’s parents bad parents all because you’re not in agreement with their mode of discipline kind of is offensive isn’t it.

I never once said bad parents, I said lazy parenting in regards to disciplining their kids.

[Redway]

There’s always a difference between hitting a kid out of laziness and out of deeply rooted tradition.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Redway

There’s always a difference between hitting a kid out of laziness and out of deeply rooted tradition.

A tradition is putting up a Christmas tree not using physical force against a child without questioning it's merits, surely? I understand what you're saying, it's the way it's always been done however should we always just carry on doing what our parents have done and their parents before without ever looking at whether or not it's the right thing to do? If we did that society as a whole would look alot different to what it does now.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Are you accusing me of not having that opinion consistently? because I do....and I like Livia and LT so there goes that theory

Being friends and also being able to disagree is the grown up approach.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

Being friends and also being able to disagree is the grown up approach.

Indeed, i like a good ol debate

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Redway

But to go on and call half the world’s parents bad parents all because you’re not in agreement with their mode of discipline kind of is offensive isn’t it.

One questionable parenting practice doesn't make a "bad parent", there's plenty of parenting things I do that are far from ideal but the idea that there's any such thing as a perfect parent is nonsense . Whether or not someone is a good or bad parent is mostly about balance, with the exception of outright abuse (as a parent who is amazing 95% of the time but outright severely abusive 5% of the time is never going to be good). No one is saying that all parents who use physical punishment are "bad parents", just questioning whether or not that one practice SPECIFICALLY is positive or negative on balance.

Originally Posted by Redway

There’s always a difference between hitting a kid out of laziness and out of deeply rooted tradition.

You say this like it wasn't "tradition" or common-practice globally within recent history. It was very much "culturally normal" for children to be physically punished in the UK, as recently as a few decades ago? It's STILL relatively commonplace . I think you maybe have a skewed perspective of it being a thing used in certain cultures that's based only on very, very recent history.

I also think there's some conflation between "hereditary habit" and "culture and tradition" here because I can't imagine many people unironically saying "Of course I hit my kids - it's tradition!"... more likely a much more generalised "Well sometimes it's necessary and my parents did it and it hasn't done me any harm" etc etc.

I would add there though my opinion that refusing to challenge and think through the merits of tradition (no matter which side someone then eventually comes down on) is indeed lazy, or perhaps just stubborn, but either way not ideal in terms of parenting. Parents should always and repeatedly be considering what's the best move and assessing what does and doesn't work. Again I feel like I need to double down on saying that this is my opinion.

[Tom4784]

I think when a parent resorts to violence to raise their kids then they have failed as parents.

[LeatherTrumpet]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

I think when a parent resorts to violence to raise their kids then they have failed as parents.

you may change your mind if you had 3 under 10 and 2 were having a tantrum and you were tired

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

It's very interesting how some people think that unless a child is hit as a kid they won't be well behaved or respectful. I have two really well behaved/respectful teenagers and neither were hit as kids. It's not about hitting your kids, it's about disciplining them, hitting them as a method of discipline is lazy parenting. We don't tolerate adults hitting adults so why is an adult hitting a small child ok? I don't get the logic at all

No not at all, this guy did not not hit him, he pushed him off the bus for being rude and disrespectful, there is a huge difference between the two, the driver could have handled it a bit better but the message was clear, be polite or you are not getting on

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

I think when a parent resorts to violence to raise their kids then they have failed as parents.

Don't be silly now, this is not a violent episode

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

you may change your mind if you had 3 under 10 and 2 were having a tantrum and you were tired

You sound very sure of that LT, I have two under 10 and my youngest is (mostly) non-verbal autistic and can be very, very destructive and can lash out herself, and I'm literally always tired, often operating on 4 hours sleep and never more than 6.5. I've never so much as tapped either of them (other than playfully, as they both like to wrestle and tbh the little'un plays bloody rough) and neither has my wife . Again I'm not going to condemn every single person who has momentarily lost their cool, but you talk about it like it's an inevitability when it isn't.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Cherie

No not at all, this guy did not not hit him, he pushed him off the bus for being rude and disrespectful, there is a huge difference between the two, the driver could have handled it a bit better but the message was clear, be polite or you are not getting on

I honestly think this is a totally different debate to the parenting one though and I don't get how people are defending it... it's literally illegal and not excusable to do this to someone else's kids and encouraging it is bloody stupid. For the pusher AND the person doing the pushing. Honestly, all it takes is that kid being "pushed off the bus" to fall and properly hurt himself and that guy's life is wrecked. Definitely job lost, very real possibility of criminal charges. Even if you don't AGREE that pushing people should be illegal, IT IS and pretending that it's OK to do it and someone taking that advice is going to land them in trouble.

[Toy Soldier]

Here's another thought to muddy the waters;

I don't imagine for a second that people would be coming down so heavily in the driver's favour if this was a girl mouthing off, and he called her "fat bitch", threatened to "punch her face in" and physically shoved her off the bus.

Give that some thought, and think about why that wouldn't be OK. Now think about why it's apparently OK to do it to a teenage boy.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

you may change your mind if you had 3 under 10 and 2 were having a tantrum and you were tired

Or maybe you should not make the mistake of thinking that your patience and experiences are a baseline to hold everyone to. There are plenty of parents in worse situations that don't resort to hitting their kids. Instead of making out that everyone hits theirr kids, you should probably consider why you are endorsing it so much.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Cherie

No not at all, this guy did not not hit him, he pushed him off the bus for being rude and disrespectful, there is a huge difference between the two, the driver could have handled it a bit better but the message was clear, be polite or you are not getting on

The post of mine you quoted was talking about the comment that was made about "If the boy had been hit by his own parents then he wouldn't have behaved that way", so you're replying to a point I didn't make there

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Here's another thought to muddy the waters;

I don't imagine for a second that people would be coming down so heavily in the driver's favour if this was a girl mouthing off, and he called her "fat bitch", threatened to "punch her face in" and physically shoved her off the bus.

Give that some thought, and think about why that wouldn't be OK. Now think about why it's apparently OK to do it to a teenage boy.

I think you're crazy if you think that some people wouldn't still think it was justified tbh, remember that thread about the teenage girl who the police officer threw to the ground?

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I think you're crazy if you think that some people wouldn't still think it was justified tbh, remember that thread about the teenage girl who the police officer threw to the ground?

Oh I'm sure some people would, but I do think it would be fewer, with there being an idea that a "real man" wouldn't let a young boy talk to them a certain way and not respond aggressively.