Oh, save me from the arrogant, ignorant and certain.

[catsidhe]

Save me, Lady, from people who take a good idea and an inability to see reason, and combine them in a whirlwind of slander and bullshit.

Thesis: Hitting children is wrong.
Thesis: Spanking is hitting.
Conclusion: Spanking is morally indistinguishable from beatings, and anyone who has ever spanked their child for any reason, or who tries to suggest that there might ever be mitigating or even condoning circumstances is practically as much a monster as someone who beats their children to sleep at night.

Save me. Save me from people who think that their successes and luck set a minimum moral standard. Who think that a hint of gray is as good as the pitchest black. Who refuse to consider that others might be different.

His hyperbole gripped me. His absolute conviction that a single smack on the bottom is as much child abuse as is a backhand to the face. That context is irrelevant, a trivialising distraction, a craven attempt at excusing something abhorrent. And it made me angry, because he is accusing me of torturing, tormenting, my children. [Ed: by implication.] Of accusing me of saying that “terror is an acceptable way to raise a child.”

He accused me of terrorising my children. How dare he? He really, honestly and deliberately made the claim that my ever having given my child a swat on the bottom if they try to run onto the road is equivalent to keeping my family under a climate of fear and intimidation.

And then, in a hissy fit to put a child to shame, he unfriended me. It's his right. It's his journal. But still: how juvenile! The action of a petulant teenager: who knows that he omniscient, and the existence of an alternative is not something to be argued, but something which is a personal insult just by existing, and the best answer to this is to stick your fingers in your ears and shout. [He now claims that it was because I was becoming hysterical, and he has indeed unscreened all my comments. He is also accusing me of being a liar.]

Well, I hope he enjoys his life, and the company of his echo chamber. Just because I have been known to agree with him and those on his journal, what he has is an echo chamber, if he systematically excludes anyone who disagrees with him, it's an echo chamber. But because he does say things worthy of hearing, I have not unfriended him. [OK, after the way he has insulted every one of thse of my friends who expressed sympathy or support, and then insulted my wife, he has earned contempt. I've unfriended him and if he wants to say something here he has to wait for me to grant him the right.]

Me, that exchange left me shaking. So I drove home, and gave my daughters, my treasures, the pulse of my heart, a hug goodnight and somehow completely failed to hit them in any way whatsoever. But because of sammaelhain, for the first time in my life, I couldn't get the image out of my head of me hurting my own children. I hope he's happy. [He claims that this is because I have a guilty conscience. I respond that it is because it is a deeply disturbing thought, of which nightmares are made.]

He has done to me the same thing that people like Hetty Johnstone have done: he has made me second-guess every interaction I have with my children. He has made me look for evil in every innocent interaction. He has done his little bit to murder the joy I feel with my children. I hope I get over it, but the scar will twitch for a long, long time. I shouldn't let it, but it will.

Comments

[sammhain.livejournal.com]

so people who adopt kids don't love them as much as you love your biological kids?

And I don't love my brother and sister or my nieces as much as you love your kids?

Bull to the fucking shit.

[sjl.livejournal.com]

People who adopt kids are taking on all the rights and responsibilities of parents. For all moral and legal intents (save that of biological history), they are their parents. As such, it is their responsibility to raise them well.

To say that they "don't love them as much as you love your biological kids" is a strawman argument.

[sammhain.livejournal.com]

Tell that to your friend who raised the issue in the first place.

You know the guy who can't stop thinking about hitting his kids.

[sjl.livejournal.com]

Where, exactly, did he talk about parents that had adopted children? From what I've read here, that was you that brought that up. Not him.

You're not giving a particularly good impression of yourself here, especially with your ad hominen attacks.

[sammhain.livejournal.com]

Because an ad hominem attack is totally as disturbing as being unble to control thoughts about hitting your kid.

He suggested that when kids are not your own you feel differently toward them..which is perhaps true in some sense, but not true in the depth of love one might feel.

He's since clarified what he meant, and while I think it was flimsy, I understand his point well enough to drop that particular issue.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

I would strongly suggest you go to Sammaelhain's original post and see if you still think that what he said is what I think he said.

I was, as you might imagine, quite upset at the time, and so was he.

[omnot.livejournal.com]

I did re-read as prescribed. I find that sammaelhain has said that smacking children constitutes child abuse.

In saying that, he calls any parent who smacks a child a child abuser. I believe his premise is wrong, and I am offended by the implication.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, then.

I would hate for anyone to make a judgement based only on what I had said in the heat of argument. That would be fair to no-one.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

I didn't say the love isn't as deep, I said that the circumstances are different.