Corporal Punishment and Racial Identity

By Tim | Friday, July 22, 2011 | 18 Comments

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8a ruler Corporal Punishment and Racial Identity Recently, someone put out a request on Twitter for Asian views on spanking after reading a blog post on Racialicious.com on the same subject, but from the African American point of view. Our humble editor, Ernie passed it on to our internal mailing list, and the response was immediate.

Ben was first to comment, asking “What’s so curious [about spanking]? The answer is: we do”. Corporal punishment, like spanking or my own mom’s favorite of using a ruler on the back of the hand, does seem more prevalent in cultures outside of the United States.

In the U.S. we have this civilized notion that you don’t lay a hand on your children, that instead you get by with time-outs, reward systems, and self-control. As a parent of a six year old, and one who grew up in the U.S. with these ideals, I can tell you that it’s easier said than done. Before I became a parent, I certainly believed that my parents “abused” me in the sense that they used limited forms of corporal punishment. Now, having a child makes me wonder how my parents didn’t use it more.

With my own daughter, we’ve tried to refrain from any types of physical punishment and I can say we’ve generally been successful. The exception has been a rare pat on the bottom when she’s really been misbehaving and we’ve lost all of our patience. Overall I’d have to say we’ve been pretty lucky with less drastic discipline measures like withholding toys, TV time, and bartering good behavior for prizes. But I have to admit the idea of spanking does seem really appealing when she’s been acting out. That’s where there’s an advantage to having two parents; the second one can always step in and intervene before it gets to that point.

In China, corporal punishment used to be standard in schools until 1949 when it was banned, but it’s believed caning and paddling are still used in some schools in China. It’s estimated still 60% of Chinese children receive some form of corporal punishment. So it’s still the norm for those children, even if it’s not for kids in the U.S.

The same holds true in other Asian countries like South Korea, Singapore, or Malaysia, where corporal punishment in schools is legal. In other Asian countries, it’s supposedly illegal, like in Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Japan, and India, but it’s believed to be widely practiced in schools in those countries.

I remember when I was five years old and my mom was trying to get me to remember multiplication tables. (Yes, I said multiplication tables.) If I got one wrong, it meant a slap on the back of the hand with a wooden ruler. You can be sure I learned my tables fast. As I grew up, the punishments continued, and it was worse for me than for my sisters. There was rule in my house that if my sisters did something wrong, I got punished, since I was the male and was supposed to know better to keep my sisters safe. In the same vein, I noticed when reading about corporal punishment in various Southeast Asian countries, where it is legal or practiced, it tends to be only for male children.

There are plenty of studies that show that corporal punishment, like spanking, is perhaps the least effective and most damaging form of punishment on children. With that said, it appears culturally that many Asians and Asian Americans have yet to embrace a philosophy that doesn’t include corporal punishment. As an Asian American, did your parents use any corporal punishment on you when you were growing up? Did it affect you negatively, and do you plan on using corporal punishment on your children?

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askakorean

“In the U.S., we have this civilized notion that…”

Wow, it is a bit rich to see that phrase dripping with superiority on 8Asians. Those poor Asian countries, we must enlighten them! Who cares if the U.S. comes in 42nd in the world in childhood mortality, comes in dead last in international examinations and is the only country in the world that has a yearly ritual of school children shooting up their school and killing their classmates?

I received corporal punishment all the time. Many times over. And it only left me with positive results. Grapple with that, jerk.

The Korean

http://www.askakorean.net
timat8asians

@askakorean the point of that comment wasn’t to be superior, it was to point out in the US if you even dare talk about spanking your child, you’re immediately looked down upon and people start talking about calling CPS.
askakorean

@timat8asians that is a lot of subtext to cram into two words. I wonder how many people would have gotten that.
timat8asians

@askakorean that’s why in the paragraph I talk about it as a standard that’s hard to live up to
http://www.8asians.com/author/akrypti/ akrypti

We don’t need a study to prove that whacking away at a kid with abandon is going to cause long-term psychological damage. That said, there is a whole sliding scale on which different forms of corporal punishment fall. Whacking away at your kid with abandon because he got an A-? Probably bad. One firm, well-planned, strategically placed smack on the bum because she is knowingly and intentionally acting like a terror to spite you and has been acting this way for the last 19 hours because she thinks she runs this town? Probably not so bad. Whenever I got smacked as a kid, I pretty much deserved it. Like shredding all my piano lesson books and then lying about it, pretending yeah, I have nooo idea where they went, guess this means I can’t practice!… Can’t really blame a parent for smacking the kid when you find Fur Elise in fifty pieces in the kitchen garbage can, now can you.

What alarmed me, as it seems it did with @askakorean, is the implication that the contemporary Western view against corporal punishment is more “civilized” and therefore superior to the traditional Asian view in favor of it. Simply put, there’s two diametrically opposing views on this issue. And that’s that. One isn’t better or more civilized than the other.
http://www.8asians.com/author/akrypti/ akrypti

@timat8asians @askakorean I thought I left a comment, but it’s not here. Hmm, weird. It’s in my Livefyer stream thing though…
Kimiye

My parents whipped all three of us as children, using hands, switches, and once a belt. My Japanese Canadian mother spanked all of us, while my white American father whipped me, but not my younger sisters. I was also spanked at school in the first three years (at least once because another student lied). My crime was usually not obeying instantly, or backtalk.

I decided not to use corporal punishment on our son– I would tell people I wouldn’t swear I’d never spank him, but he hadn’t tested me that far yet. In truth, if I couldn’t come up with anything to control his behavior besides hitting him, it would be my failure. But I did not tell other parents that since people really get offended if they do spank.

When my son was around four, my mom saw me put him in time-out. She came to me later with tears in her eyes and said, “That would have worked on you girls. I didn’t need to hit you. I didn’t know any better.” I knew I’d made the right choice for my family, and that was the second best validation.
xiaolei622

My mother spanked me quite alot as a child while my dad mostly got by on threats. The sick thing was, as my mom was swinging the belt around, she’d say, “I’m only doing this because I care about you and want you to improve as a person. If I wasn’t your mother, I’d just let you do whatever you want.”

To this day, she maintains that she did the right thing because of my continuous straight A streak from 3rd grade through college. Personally, I couldn’t care less about those grades; they came at a great mental cost. I suffered from extreme test taking anxiety and panic attacks on report card days because I knew if I performed subpar, there’d be a beating coming. My skin would tingle with perspiration as my heart raced in my chest. Memory of those beatings kept me studying for tests hours longer than I probably needed to. For years during my childhood, I really hated my mom but in retrospect she was just doing what she thought was right, and based on her upbringing in rural China, her discipline methods were completely normal.

So to answer the other question, no I will not be spanking my kids if I have any. I just think that resorting to violence is both barbaric and lazy. There are so many violent practices from the past like public flogging or stoning that have all gone out of style because societies have evolved to become more civilized. Why can’t violence toward children be one of them? An occasional mild spanking may not do any long term psychological damage but it still presents the idea that violence is okay if it had been well-intended. Plus, children’s behavior should be guided by a burgeoning sense of morality, not a fear of punishment. It’s the same principle behind not stealing something even if you know that there’s no way you will be caught.
A_Lee

Just as an FYI, Taiwan did make corporal punishment illegal in school, and for the most part, it was drastically reduced because of that law. Obviously there are a few old-fashioned teachers here and there, but those are exceptions.

I got hit when I was small, using small, flat, slender sticks of various types, across the palm. I wised up pretty fast, and there wasn’t much reason to spank me after age eight or nine. I thought it worked pretty well.

I don’t think it should be banned, but I don’t think it’s for everyone either. You have to be a pretty good parent to know where to draw the line, and to know where corporal punishment would be effective. You’d have to have very good self-control and communication skills. If you can’t do that, then not daring to touch the kid at all would be better than hitting them indiscriminately. IMHO.
bmastou

I agree with the racialicious article, I don’t see spanking as a problem but then again its not for everyone. The enviroment your child grows up in also has a lot do do with any decision to spank them. I think this issue is similar to the Tigermoms way of discipline, in fact I they are the same, some parents find it extreme others don’t.

I’ve seen some parents screaming at their kids to listen, to no avail, things like kiddy corner can only take you so far. My mom saw no problem in using the cane on me and my brothers, when we were growing up, I don’t resent her for it, although there were some things I wish she had not done. I just know not to make those mistakes with my kidsand I will use a cane if necessary,
MariaCastilloStone

My mum smacked me either with her hand, a wooden spoon (because she was cooking at the time!) and her slipper. I may have thought it cruel as a child but having reflected on my parents methods of discipline, it never did me any harm and compared to some of my peers I turned out fine. The difference being, my parents smacked me for a good reason while other (abusive) parents who systematically hit their kids have no good reason at all, and are psychologically ill.
ellebee11

@Tim – don’t give your kiddie prizes for good behavior. I wish I knew the book off the top of my head – but this sort of reward system leads to a sense of entitlement in children, and they don’t develop good coping skills for disappointment when they become adults. Hence we have a generation of young adults that think they deserve a prize at work for just doing their goddamn job!

I’m all for a slap on the bum or hand when kids get out of line. I hypothesize that if the 1st punishment is way over the line for the 1st offense, then behavior will stop, and the kid wouldn’t dare test the parent by doing similar behavior in the future. However, if corporal punishment needs to be repeated over and over again, then the results aren’t effective and you inflict psychological trauma perhaps. A story – my bf when in his early teens was asked to take out the garbage or something by his father. His mother was in the kitchen nearby. My bf replies w/ a “i ain’t doing that shit.” (this was in the early 80′s, I think today kids curse a lot more in front of their parents w/o care) and his father, b/c my bf cursed in front of his mother, went ballistic. My bf remembers his father basically threw him down the stairs and after that, my bf never dared to curse in front of his mother. And he still doesn’t as a grown man.
micromermaid

The way I see it, spanking is an acceptable and effective form of punishment for when a child is behaving with hubris. When a child is being an insolent brat, thinking that they are invincible, and simply refuses to understand the consequences of their actions (unto themselves, as well as unto those around them), the HUMILIATION of being spanked, and not the physical pain, is perhaps the best way to remind them that impudence won’t be tolerated. I think it’s important for children to fear their parents to a certain degree, and when a child is behaving in a way that makes it clear that they don’t fear their parents at all, I think spaking is called for.
timat8asians

@ellebee11 I have to disagree for a number of reasons. I don’t think I would have disagreed without having my own child first, so I think things change when you have a child, your whole world, your perceptions change. My parent moved our family to the US to give us a better life. In that same vein, I want my daughter to have things I never had. Her generation is going to be the first where her standard of living is going to be worse off than her parents. Her whole life is going to be filled with disappointments. At the age of six, she already realizes this, as I constantly make her look for bargains, “you can’t buy that because it’s $4 here and only $1 at the dollar store”. In addition I don’t let her get a prize unless, it was a bargain in the first place. She knows she can’t have a build-a-bear unless we find a coupon for it first. As she gets older, I already know she’s not going to get all the sports activities, dance classes, etc that she wants. We’ve already told her she has to make a choice as we can only afford one extra curricular activity. Finally we already know that we can’t afford to send her to private school for college. It’s expected to be $200k a year when she’s old enough. So yes, I like prizes, because there’s plenty of disappointments coming soon.
ellebee11

yes, totally agree with the boundaries you have provided for your daughter Tim! I think the young generation in general that is growing up during the recession will be for the better than the young adults that are headed to college or the workforce where the whole parenting philosophy of the 90′s and on was to ensure your child to always being happy. I see this age group of adult-kids as not able to cope with disappointment. And then at work – they expect a lot of rewards just for showing up or working “extra” hard. (I thought working extra hard was to make sure one was still keeping their job). They have inflated egos since they were raised with parents saying they were great, but when they don’t hear it from their employers, they sulk and think life is unfair or they can get a better job. How many times have I thought to myself about my staff “are you frickin’ serious?! Do we have a generation of idiots?”

I see it with the kids and their parents where I work. Some of these kids dictate to their parents what they’re gonna do and there is NO fear of the parents. I think it’s good to have a little bit of fear for your parents since they should be the authority figure of the house. And that’s where a little bit of corporal punishment comes in.
peptea

i dont believe in corporal punishment. my father hit us with abandon and i am living evidence that it does much more harm than good. he wasn’t merely disciplining us – he crossed the line into horrific physical abuse over insignificant things. i am talking almost daily abuse for years, here. if the parent knows the limits to corporal punishment and uses it very sparingly, i’d be more understanding of its use. but i see too many parents use it as an excuse to take out their personal frustrations and anger on their children.
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