Prov 13:24 has to be one of the most wicked verses of the Bible:
“He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”
This goes along with the idiom “Spare the rod, spoil the child” – which, of course, is total hokum. Literally billions of children have been raised in a hit-free environment without being spoiled. It would be ridiculous to even attempt to claim otherwise. Besides that, the phrase doesn’t even make sense. Just think about it for a second: To spoil a child means to pamper the child, to indulge his every desire and wish. In other words, for a person to spoil a child, it requires something active to be done. Refraining from abuse is the exact opposite of something active. The entire mantra is incoherent.
Of course, incoherency has never stopped people from thinking they can do what they please with their children because, ‘Why, that there child came from my seed!‘. As if children are crops. Corporal punishment is even still legal against schoolchildren in 19 states. Not that a teacher striking a child would go by without a lawsuit in most instances, but this is sort of like when Southern states wait decades to remove anti-miscegenation statutes from their constitutions. A majority of adults know it’s wrong, but so many people are downright stupid about this that it would be a pain to correct such human rights (and moral) transgressions. And don’t even think about outlawing parental spanking. The majority is not right on that one. Not even close. But that isn’t to say there hasn’t been at least a little progress:
A man who was elected to direct a California water agency was arrested on suspicion of felony child abuse after a neighbor caught him on video beating his stepson.
The video shows Anthony Sanchez, 34, playing catch with his stepson. When it appears the boy drops the baseball, Sanchez approaches and allegedly whips him with his belt.
An outraged neighbor, Oscar Lopez, filmed the incident from inside his home and knew he had to step in.
“That’s enough. I’m having a (expletive) problem with you for beating the (expletive) out of him because he won’t catch the damn ball,” Lopez tells the angry stepfather.
Sanchez asks if he knows his son.
“I don’t know your son but I’m watching you. I’m a (expletive) father too,” Lopez says.
A felony charge seems excessive, but I’m not sure what the charge would be if Sanchez was caught hitting any other minor with a belt. If he would get a felony charge for smacking around someone else’s kid, then I have to agree that he should get one here. Take a look at the video:
There are other recent outrages over alleged parent-to-child child abuse. Of course, there was the judge in Texas, but now there is a pastor in Atlanta:
The 15-year-old daughter of megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar told authorities her father choked and punched her, and hit her with his shoe during an argument over whether she could go to a party, according to a police report.
Dollar’s 19-year-old daughter corroborated most of her sister’s story, but Dollar disputed it, telling a sheriff’s deputy he was trying to restrain her when she became disrespectful. When she began to hit back, he wrestled her to the floor and spanked her, according to the police report.
Dollar faces relatively minor charges compared to Sanchez, presumably out of pity for his ridiculous name. If he is guilty, I hope he gets at least some jail time and a long probation period – if he hits his daughter again, I would like to know he would be spending an appropriate period of time in order to correct his misbehavior. Of course, not everyone cares about stopping child abuse:
And they go on and on at the above link. Apparently violence is a solution to a problem when children are involved.
Filed under: News | Tagged: Abuse, Anthony Sanchez, Child abuse, Creflo Dollar, Oscar Lopez |
For the Sake of Science 
Child abuse would be the charge. Child abuse is almost always a misdemeanor unless there are serious injuries or it’s a repeated offense.
Literally billions of children have been raised, not to their detriment, with their parents striking them and they aren’t spoiled either, rather well-adjusted. I live in Southeast Asia, there’s a definite difference between striking a child and abusing him/her. But, like it or not, billions of kids are getting struck by their families here and go on to live normal lives.
It’s a false dichotomy. If you want to rail against abuse, then do so…but a smack on a child’s behind is NOT abuse. Billions of people do it without biblical verse to back them up. Granted, they don’t use rods, but it’s still another false dichotomy.
I’ve had my blog for over three years. That has to be one of the worst comments I’ve seen yet.
That’s nice. So? Do you think you’ve countered my point that children are not spoiled by virtue of not being abused? You haven’t. All you’ve done is argue against a strawman.
Of course it is. Moreover, it’s wildly immature. A person who hits a child is intentionally causing unjust physical pain out of frustration for not being able to intelligently deal with a tiny person who may have only recently learned how to tie a shoelace.
So? I premised the majority of my post on the secular version of the Biblical mantra. It sounds to me like you’re a big fan of strawmen.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Parental spanking is LEGAL in the US? You guy sknow it’s not the 18th century any more, right?
I’m not for beating kids, or anyone else for that matter, but I do maintain that it could be a perfectly reasonable response in some circumstances. There great gobs of people out there who really just need someone to smack them up side the head.
Unless parents are causing physical or psychological damage, it’s hard to hold parents accountable for their children’s actions if they aren’t free to reasonably discipline their kids. Which, like I said, could be appropriate every so often. I can’t ever remember being spanked, but my mother did smack me when I was 12 or 13 for calling her a bitch, which was exactly what she should have done.
I remember spanking your mom last night.