My teenage daughter (who uses the name Aquilifer online) and her friend Ezra take a close interest in current events but I was surprised when both argued firmly with me that parents should have the right to smack their children.
The occasion was Aquilifer’s recent birthday which she, her mother, Ezra and I celebrated at a Mexican café. The teens knew I’d supported last year’s repeal of the Crimes Act Section 59 defence allowing physical punishment of children. Small children could be naughty, the two told me, and a smack was something useful to bring them into line.
“But neither of your parents have ever smacked you,” I told my daughter. “If children misbehave, there are plenty of other ways to deal with that than hitting them. Time out, withdrawal of privileges.”
Smacking was still a good option, she replied, citing approvingly the pro-smacking referendum forced by “Families First” that will be held next year.
“Look at this way,” I said, raising a hand in a mock threat to her mother. “If I hit your mum, I go straight to jail. Before the law change, if I hit you, I had the legal right to do that. Why should it be lawful to hit you, a defenceless child, but unlawful to hit your mother or any other adult? Surely children deserve equal rights to the full protection of the law.”
The teens continued to disagree. They are very good debaters and know how to argue their case and hold their ground. I do hope they were taking the affirmative side in the child-smacking debate just for practice, but I fear they genuinely believed in their argument.
Children should not be clones of their parents and I delight in how my daughter (who, yes, is a keen student of Latin) has strong, well constructed opinions on many issues that she’s formed herself.
But there are times when I wonder, such as the day her older sister went to the Big Boys Toys show in Auckland and came away with a sweat-top brazenly imprinted with the declaration I’M A BIG BOY’S TOY. Her mother shrieked in horror at the sight. “My generation fought to save our daughters from that kind of thing and you think it’s a joke!” she screamed, before confiscating the top and announcing she would cut it up.
24 Comments
November 19, 2008 at 9:17 am
My parents and a lot of their friends are experiencing the same thing. Hardcore second gen feminists gritting their teeth as their daughters plan huge white weddings and change their names, ex-hippies and alternative lifestylers watching with dismay as their sons vote National. Family Ties anyone?
November 19, 2008 at 9:30 am
Another example of how the younger generation doesn’t see things as their elders do: a survey of pupils at Waitaki Boys’ High a year or so ago found a majority in favour of corporal punishment.
From memory those quoted said it was because a caning was over in a few moments, other punishments lasted much longer.
If other punishments are less preferred that might mean they’re more effective.
November 19, 2008 at 9:40 am
If other punishments are less preferred that might mean they’re more effective.
That reminds me of when I taught in Korea and if the classes were disruptive I would keep them in for a minute depending on how many ’strikes’ they had. The boys would be begging for me to just hit them because free time was such a valuable commodity to them.
November 19, 2008 at 9:43 am
Stef:
ex-hippies and alternative lifestylers watching with dismay as their sons vote National. Family Ties anyone?
Not quite so funny when your father doesn’t talk to you for six months when you mention you’ve not only joined the National Party, and being the bloody-minded cuss that I am, I not so politely suggested various places he could go and what to do when he got there. True story.
November 19, 2008 at 10:36 am
I think it’s a win-win, really: if any of our children join the National party or become fundies, it’s that much more inheritance we can feel free to fritter away.
November 19, 2008 at 11:00 am
Craig,
I believe my dad and brother still aren’t on speaking terms at the moment after he came home from his first vote proudly declaring he had supported National and spent election night winding my father up.
November 19, 2008 at 11:38 am
poneke,
Good to hear that your kids & their mates are thinking independently. Haven’t heard too much support from the Left for such a crazy idea..
November 19, 2008 at 11:52 am
Don’t worry socialists/ liberals/ progressives. National are as close to Labour as they could possibly be. There will be little real change, and they’ll most likely lose the next election. Take heart, your lemming like leap over the precipice has only been delayed. The abyss is still well within your reach.
November 19, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Carol:
Aw, I was just venting. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t find Simon Bridges hard on the eyes, he’s perky as all get out, not exactly from a stereotypical Tory background and widely tipped for a very bright future indeed. (I’d even put my neck out far enough to say “potential Prime Minister”, if so many people didn’t say exactly the same thing about the last but one Member for Tauranga.) But you don’t see every damn story about him read like it went AWOL from Woman’s Day.
She’s “bubbly”? Hell, if I’d just won a previously deep red electorate, and gotten into Cabinet, I’d be fizzing like a bottle of Bolly that just came out of a centrifuge too.
I believe my dad and brother still aren’t on speaking terms at the moment after he came home from his first vote proudly declaring he had supported National and spent election night winding my father up.
Heh… winding my father up was a truly Herculean task, because he was usually so laid back I suspect he was a chaise longue in a previous life. But I’m rather glad we came to our senses long before he died. I’d feel like a sack of A-grade manure if pettiness and sheer bloody-minded pride had separated us at the end.
November 19, 2008 at 1:04 pm
> If I hit your mum, I go straight to jail.
Well, that would be dependent on her complaining to police. And , of course, if you were defending yourself, you would be entitled to use reasonable force.
> Before the law change, if I hit you, I had the legal right to do that.
Well, you still have the right to use reasonable force if your child could harm itself or another child.
I trust you informed your daughters of these facts.
> Surely children deserve equal rights…
I agree…let’s give young kids the right to vote, drink alcohol, smoke, drive a car, gamble, have sex, etc.
November 19, 2008 at 1:10 pm
[...] 19 November 2008 · No Comments Poneke has been blogging about independent minded daughters. We have some of those in this house too. I struggled out of sleep this morning to the dulcet tones [...]
November 19, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Interesting discussion – but could someone send Redbaiter back to Kiwiblog? Having look-at-me tantrums is detracting from the adult tone of your blog
[Poneke says: So why do you feed him by making a comment you know he will respond to at length? Please do not answer this rhetorical question.]
November 19, 2008 at 1:54 pm
But there are times when I wonder, such as the day her older sister went to the Big Boys Toys show in Auckland and came away with a sweat-top brazenly imprinted with the declaration I’M A BIG BOY’S TOY. Her mother shrieked in horror at the sight. “My generation fought to save our daughters from that kind of thing and you think it’s a joke!” she screamed, before confiscating the top and announcing she would cut it up.
The sweat-top is clearly a celebration of post third-wave feminism; by cutting it up you are oppressing her with your outdated, 20th century gynocentric, misandry.
November 19, 2008 at 2:20 pm
James said..”Well, you still have the right to use reasonable force if your child could harm itself or another child.”
You can use reasonable force to prevent it if imminent, or stop it while it’s happening…. but not to discipline them after the fact….
So, push your child out of the path of an on-coming car… pull on their arm to stop them punching another…. but once the immediate danger is gone… you cant use force for “correction” (ie. discipline, “teach them a lesson”)
November 19, 2008 at 2:24 pm
“So why do you feed him by making a comment you know he will respond to at length?”
Please don’t make yourself anxious. I feel no compulsion to publically respond to Leopold’s comment. Like yourself, I understand the inherent contradiction, in that he claims my posts are of no import, whilst apparently, they are all he is interested in commenting on, and anyway, I’m long ago immune to that kind of smug self serving elitist rubbish.
PS- don’t feel under any obligation to post this. I understand how hard it is for the left to deal with the freedom of blog comments, and even though I’m grateful (and surprised) at what you have passed through “moderation” so far, I’m only bored by the kind of dialogue Leopold introduces.
[Poneke says: Red, everyone is welcome to post comments on this blog, as long as they have some link to the subject matter of the post and they are not abusive or defamatory or simply being used to cause mischief for an innocent party.]
November 19, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Smack her until she changes her mind. She can hardly complain, can she?
November 19, 2008 at 10:02 pm
And as an adult, if you cut up rough in Courtenay Place, a policeman will come and use ‘reasonable force’ on you to impose the limits on your behaviour that your parents are no longer allowed to.
November 20, 2008 at 8:02 am
Panic not Poneke,it may well be that your children have a much better grip on reality than you ever imagined.You should listen to them and learn.
November 20, 2008 at 6:26 pm
But there are times when I wonder, such as the day her older sister went to the Big Boys Toys show in Auckland and came away with a sweat-top brazenly imprinted with the declaration I’M A BIG BOY’S TOY. Her mother shrieked in horror at the sight. “My generation fought to save our daughters from that kind of thing and you think it’s a joke!” she screamed, before confiscating the top and announcing she would cut it up.
I remember having this argument with my mother and later with an aunt. The latter conversation was in relation to a Tui billboard that in her eyes was blatantly sexist, and in my eyes was just funny.
The explanation that finally got her thinking my way was something along the lines of, those kinds of statements have been so marginalised as ‘normal’ thinking for everyday people by the excellent job early feminists did, that when we females who grew up in a world of equal opportunity see them, we think they are funny. Like, there is NO way in our minds that that mindset would ever be taken seriously, and so it’s obviously not true in our eyes. So we see them as funny or smart or just interesting, but even when we wear a shirt or something such as that, we don’t ever expect it to be true!
Unfortunately as I got out of my teens and into university and life, I can still see places where ‘old boys clubs’ and sexist jokes that go too far are a way of life that continue to make women in workplaces uncomfortable. So I can see the point of those women over 35(40?) that don’t see these things as funny. Luckily in most places that isn’t the case though, and sexism certainly isn’t something your average teenager comes up against these days. Thankfully.
November 20, 2008 at 6:43 pm
wellygirl,
Watch Will Ferrell’s antics in “Anchorman” and see how far women’s rights have progressed.. I was a mere tadpole back in the Seventies but it seemed to be a depressingly accurate portrayal.
I suspect similar motivations for Boobs on Bikes parades & sexist t-shirts : an immature/desperate cry for attention.
November 20, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Boobs on Bikes is more or less a public monument to arrested development, but no-one has to watch it and (presumably) no-one is forced to take part it in it, so where’s the harm?
As for Tui billboards, Wellygirl seems to be saying that the sexism is kind of knowing and ironic – that sounds like wishful thinking to me. I’m over 35 so maybe that explains this view.
November 23, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Funny you say you supported the law change on the basis of equality argument, I couldn’t do this to my wife so I shouldn’t be able to do it to my daughter, but then you end on your wife taking your daughter’s property and destroying it, demonstrating the flaw in the equality argument.
November 24, 2008 at 1:15 am
“. . . but then you end on your wife taking your daughter’s property and destroying it, demonstrating the flaw in the equality argument.”
Nonsense – all it appears to demonstrate is that when it comes to opinions, Poneke’s wife is no more his clone than is his daughter.
November 24, 2008 at 7:38 am
but then you end on your wife taking your daughter’s property and destroying it, demonstrating the flaw in the equality argument.
Not at all — sorry, but if anyone wants to come into my house wearing an outrageously homophobic or racist T-shirt, they’re free to do so. But they should expect to be told to cover or remove it, stay the hell out of my line of sight, or get the hell out of my house. I’d trying and avoid the ever-so-pompous “my generation” line, but I’d certainly be having a free and frank discussion about why I’ve little tolerance for certain things.