Dear Parents,

Here are some things I think you'd do well to realize and remember:  Your children are miracles: miracles of life, miracles of love, and miracles of God (or whoever you believe in).  And not only are they such fantastic wonders, they are gifts, treasures that were entrusted to you.  Your gifts came with responsibility too.  It’s ultimately upon you to care for them, protect them, and raise them well.  I will also take this time to remind you that if you have children, it is because you chose to have them. 

They never asked to be born nor did they force their life upon you.  Even if they came from so-called unexpected pregnancy, you chose to have them.  Maybe you think you weren’t ready to have kids.  If you were ready to do what needs to be done to conceive one, you sure as heck should have been ready to have one.  If you didn’t want children, you shouldn’t have had sex and you shouldn’t have brought children into this world.  There were several options available to you.  You could have used better self-control, correctly used and effective contraception, and/ or planning to prevent pregnancy at all.  Even after conception, there’s the morning-after pill and abortion.  You could have even carried the children to term and given them up for adoption.  Here in CA and other states, there is also the Safe Haven Law.  Maybe you were socially pressured to keep your babies.  Even so, that is not your children’s fault nor should you ever blame them for their life.

In fact, for years after their born, children have very little to say at all.  Your babies, your tiny, defenseless babies, cannot speak.  They only way they can communicate is by crying.  The only reason babies cry is because they need you and are asking for help.  They have no words to express their fear, sadness, hunger, discomfort, or pain.  You yelling at them or roughly handling them will not help.  In fact, it will only make things worse.  Babies cannot understand you anymore than you can understand them.  If you don’t know why your baby’s crying, how on Earth can you expect it to know that you want it to stop?  Your baby is also definitely not crying so it can bother or upset you.  He or she is not thinking of your desires at all; all that baby knows and can understand is its own.

For most of their childhoods, people are very egocentric.  Very young children especially can only think in terms of themselves.  They honestly cannot see things from another person’s point of view.  They do not have that level of thinking or mental capacity available to them yet.  All the yelling, hitting, and punishing in the world cannot change that fact.  If you expect them to see things your way, you are being even more juvenile then they are.  You are an adult, a fully-grown human being with all forms of thought available to you.  Again, if you aren’t an adult, you shouldn’t have had children.  But even young parents are able to see things another person’s way whether they want to or not.  Adult or not, you are a parent.  You also know better.  Don’t expect a little kid to accept your way if you can’t even acknowledge theirs. 

I will not condone hitting even if it’s “just” spanking.  I cannot agree with physical punishment of any kind.  This includes withholding all types of physical necessities, such as food, drink, air, shelter, freedom of mobility, medical treatment, and cleanliness.  This includes forcing your child to “hold it”.  This includes forcing your child into hard manual labor.  This includes anything that causes your child pain and undue discomfort of any kind. 

One of the most despicable things in the world is to purposely hurt a child.  There is no excuse for it, none whatsoever.  I don’t care if you’re stressed out.  I don’t care if you’ve had a hard day.  I don’t care if your child was embarrassing you.  By way of excuse, I don’t even care if you were mistreated as a child.  That does not give you the right to hurt your own.  In fact, you better than anyone should know how wrong it is.  Maybe you just couldn’t handle the situation.  Again, that is on you.  Don’t you dare blame your kid for that, ever.  If you can’t handle kids, then guess what, you shouldn’t have had them.  Don’t punish your child for your own immaturity. 

For those who haven’t been hit and haven’t hit, here’s what happens:  Your child gets into trouble or does something you don’t like.  Maybe they know and understand why their actions were not okay, maybe they don’t; more likely than not, they don’t fully.  The main thing is they know that you are unhappy with them.  This will most commonly cause apprehension and uncertainty.  If you are very angry, they will try to avoid you or get away from you.  Uncaringly, you grab the kid.  Now they are most definitely afraid and maybe experiencing pain where your fingers are gripping them so tightly.  They struggle and try to escape.  Maybe one of their little hands comes up to pull yours off of them.  They will almost never be trying to hurt you.  Even if the kid is scratching your hand, he or she is only desperately afraid and trying to loosen or break your uncomfortable grip and not trying to cause you pain.  Again, kids generally only see things from their own eyes.  But you, just like them, only see your own view and feel what you feel, so you get angry.  Maybe in a quick upward motion, you bring your gripping hand up.  Maybe it catches them on the cheek and you’ve just hit your own kid in the face.  Or maybe, instead of yanking your hand away, you use your other hand to grab their opposite shoulder.  Suddenly speedy, you probably have them by both their shoulders.  You probably shake your kid a bit. 

As your anger grows, so does your child’s fear.  He or she is probably crying now.  In fact, he or she’s probably pleading with you and apologizing, saying, “No, Daddy!  Daddy, please I’m sorry!  Daddy!” or “I’m sorry, Mommy!  I’m sorry!  Please!”  But just as you cite as an offense against you, you’re not listening.  No, you, the “smarter”, “better” adult are just too angry.    

Really, stop and think about it.  Your child, your precious child, is terrified.  Not of some monster-under-the-bed, not some scary animal, you.  You, the person who has been charged with their care and protection; the great being they look up to and love, trust.  And they definitely have to look up to you.  You are several times their size, several times stronger than them.  Your one hand can be bigger than their whole face, their whole bottom.  Still, quite often, an adult will hit.  That little child can be begging and pleading.  He or she can be crying and urgently trying to escape from the one person they’re always supposed to want to come to.  Some people hit again, and again.

It hurts.  It hurts a lot.  Since you hit when the kid was scared, their little muscles had been tensed and that makes the blow(s) worse.  You could easily lift your child with one arm.  Now you’ve focused your strength to one little part of their little body and hit hard.  If you had used the same amount of force to hit that kid in the head or chest, you could have killed him or her.  That’s how hard you just hit your child.  That boy or girl is screaming, not just crying.  You hurt him enough to make him scream.  What, what was that thought?  Well, kids are weak.  It doesn’t take a lot to hurt them.  Exactly.

Well, congratulations.  Congratulations Mr. Big Man.  You too, Mrs. Big Lady.  You just showed that kid who’s boss.  …Why… why was that again?

Oh!  That’s right.  That kid wasn’t listening to you.  Well, no, you didn’t really listen to her when she was begging you to please not hurt her.  But that’s fine.  You will is just so important.  And your desire for him to pick up that toy was more important than his desire to not be smacked by someone five times her size.  What, that’s not it?  Ohhh, he wasn’t listening to some other equally all-important commandment.  He was embarrassing you in the store.  That brat was embarrassing you in front of people you don’t know and don’t care about?!  Then by all means, he deserves to be hurt and shamed by the one or two people he loves most!  His actions were much more terrible!  He deserved to be scared and humiliated, right?  That pain you caused him was justifiable.

Well, you’ve taken care of that haven’t you?  People definitely know you’re boss now, huh?  Because, that wasn’t at all obvious by your superior size, or, like, you know, being the parent.  It sure as heck wasn’t obvious by your intelligence or superior morality.  But, but, it wasn’t your fault!  You just couldn’t handle the stress!  …But your kids were supposed to handle themselves… I see.  You just wanted someone to listen to you!  Just so you know though, not everyone will listen to you.  You think that’s frustrating, try being someone very few people listen to and take seriously.  Try being a kid.  Again. 

And really, what did you just gain?  What did hitting your kid do?  For you, you got a little power.  If you really need to feel powerful and you’re so desperate for it that you’d hit a little child, that points to deeper issues in you.  You’ll just have to keep doing it.  It’ll almost be like an addiction.  You’ll need more and more to feel the same level of power.  Mix that with the guilt after and it’ll never be enough.  You’ll beat the kid until he’s seriously injured; or dead.  And what did your child gain from this?  Fear and distrust in you.  They will probably gain difficulties in self-worth too.  They must have been a really bad kid for their beloved mommy or daddy to hurt them so much.  They must be really, really bad to make their loved one so angry.  If you keep hitting habitually, those thoughts will only be reaffirmed.  Even more, they must be pretty stupid to have to keep being punished.  If you’re really terrible, you’ll tell them those things.   

I’ll tell you what your child didn’t gain: understanding of what and why what they did was wrong.  They didn’t gain respect for you.  They fear you.  Animals naturally avoid pain.  A dog and your child would have the same understanding.  Your child won’t learn the true lesson.  It won’t be “I shouldn’t steal because that’s wrong”, it’ll be “I shouldn’t steal because Mommy’ll hurt me if I do.”  They won’t learn anything separate from you.  Once you’re not there and they think you won’t find out, they’ll do those wrong things.  They never learned the true lesson.  You shouldn’t expect them to either if you never taught them.  The misdoings will only embarrass you if others witness it.  And we both know you definitely can’t have that.

You don’t want to be like that, right?  You don’t want your kids to end up as I’ve described, yeah?  Don’t.  And don’t let it happen.  Be an adult and behave like one.  Treasure your children.  Cherish them.  Take care of them and never hurt them, okay?

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