On Harsh Punishment for Children
"One Day I'll Kill
The Son of a Bitch"
The Son of a Bitch"
A new
show on NPR, weekdays at 10 a.m. , has
replaced the legendary Diane Rehm, who’s retired. It’s called One-A and is
hosted by a young, energetic Joshua Johnson. Today’s subject: How much
punishment is too much for wayward juveniles who don’t yet understand the
difference between right and wrong?
I didn’t
fully understand that difference until I’d gone way off the rails in the late
1960s-early ‘70s. Part of my late-blooming sense of morality was caused by the
deeply held resentment I felt toward my father, who beat me once too often when
I was eight years old, and then again, sealing my contempt, when I was ten.
I don’t
need to go into the details of those rough sessions, but they destroyed my
loyalty to either of my parents—him for doing it, her for letting him—and,
frankly, I never fully regained that trust again. Feelings mellowed over the
years and have healed somewhat since they died. But my distrust of the dominant
society they represented—the family is like the larger society reflected in a
parakeet mirror—created in me a stubborn determination to participate as
little in that society as I possibly could without sacrificing my basic human
needs of food, clothing, shelter, and love.
So I can
say from experience that harsh punishments for children, especially before they
understand the difference between right and wrong, is detrimental to society.
It creates angry citizens. How many Trump voters are former victims of what
amounts to child abuse?
Well, I
wasn’t a Trump voter. But I do harbor a simmering anger at the violent men in
society who enforce social order over the dissidents and criminals they’ve
created with a show of superior force. It’s a sick, repetitive cycle, and it’s
spinning out of control, as it has before in the history of the world. Let’s
hope it can be interrupted before it takes a world war to expel the bad energy
of recent history.
One way
to interrupt it which I’ve found useful is to practice meditation regularly
and, while in that state, call up my parents and make my feelings clear. I’ve
made some good progress with my mother, who listens more now, but my father is
diffident, though he still hangs around. When I call him up, he’s there, but we
don’t exchange much specific communication. All I know is, when I think about
it, the marks he left on my body still burn, and the anger flames up again in
my second chakra as if I were still a little boy sobbing on the floor as the
bastard leaves my room, closing the door behind him, while I vow under my
breath that when I’m big enough I’ll kill the son of a bitch.
This is
not a good thing.
I don’t
have children, and I’m glad. I knew I wouldn’t be any better a father than he,
no doubt passing on what he learned or experienced from his father, which he
could never talk about either. In fact, he never talked about his father or his
mother. He barely talked about his birth family at all.
I didn’t
want to pass it on—the family violence that caused me both anger and shame
which I carried for decades and still feel in my gut today.
I don’t
know how you’re supposed to raise children in this harsh world. But I do know
that enforcing discipline with violence does not produce psychological health
or well-being. It creates maladjusted people with defensive responses and deep
issues involving trust.
On a
brighter note, things got a lot better after I grew up and got out on my own. I
was in my late 30s then, a little late, but better late than never.
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