Line in the sand

[ailbhe]

I've decided that I am just not going to accept "hitting children" or "physically assaulting children" as something grownups can't help doing. If I'm losing my temper that badly, I need help. I have a list of excuses, reasons or triggers as long as anyone's arm, but that doesn't make it ok, and I am allowed to insist that no-one persuade me that it's actually ok to hit children sometimes.

I really, really don't want them to grow up thinking it's ok to hit children "if you're cross enough" or something. I don't want them to fight the same urge to hurt I have to fight.

Also, I want everyone to breathe properly so I can get some sleep, please.

Comments

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's not OK, and if it's happening, the right thing to do is to seek help. It is, however, an understandable error that good people sometimes fall into - that doesn't make it OK, but it does make it not something that proves someone is a bad person. Chiefly, it is understandable because children, being children, don't stick to the social rules that (generally!) make it straightforward not to want to hit adults, who have learned to stick to those rules. I strongly suspect that the instinct to hit in certain extreme circumstances when children violate adult social norms is not something that's going to be eradicated from humans any time soon - in particular, I don't see any reason to think that someone who was never hit as a child will be immune to the instinct. Not following this instinct is a civilisation mark, and civilisation is not very deep!

I hope you will find it easier from now on. Reading these last few posts have reminded me that it's a very long time (years) since I felt the urge to hit C (no credit to me: C has become a pretty civil young man). I am sorry that I did give in to it a small number of times when he was younger, but I'm confident I'll never do so again. I don't think he remembers any of those occasions. I do remember several occasions on which my mother hit me - on the last I was 16, and she hit me when I came back from school because of something I'd said before I left!!