so...just how DOES a person wind up hurting their children?

[Wonder Woman]

(an old blog post from a no-longer maintained blog)

According to Wikipedia...these are the characteristics of someone who will torture another person.


Motivation to torture It was long thought that "good" people would not torture and only "bad" ones would, under normal circumstances. Research over the past 50 years suggests a disquieting alternative view, that under the right circumstances and with the appropriate encouragement and setting, most people can be encouraged to actively torture others. Stages of torture mentality include:

• Reluctant or peripheral participation(no one WANTS to hit their kid)

• Official encouragement: As the Stanford prison experiment and Milgram experiment show, many people will follow the direction of an authority figure (such as a superior officer) in an official setting (especially if presented as a compulsory obligation), even if they have personal uncertainty. The main motivations for this appear to be fear of loss of status or respect, and the desire to be seen as a "good citizen" or "good subordinate".(God says you must beat them with the rod to save their soul from Hell. You are a reprobate, humanistic, godless person if you do not hit your child.)

• Peer encouragement: to accept torture as necessary, acceptable or deserved, or to comply from a wish to not reject peer group beliefs. At worst this leads to torture gangs roaming the streets seeking dominant torture status.(So and so is teaching a nifty class on how to do things 'God's Way.' My pastor says we must 'Train up a Child'.Good Christians obey their pastor.)

• Dehumanization: seeing victims as objects of curiosity and experimentation, where pain becomes just another test to see how it affects the victim.(I wonder how many times I will have to spank my 6 month old before he stops wriggling when I change his diaper? That manipulative little brat deserves what he gets for defying my God-given authority!)

• Disinhibition: socio-cultural and situational pressures may cause torturers to undergo a lessening of moral inhibitions and as a result act in ways not normally countenanced by law, custom and conscience. (Good Christians take their children, assault their bodies, inflict pain and sometimes bruises, then hit the child again if they don't smile and acknowledge it as necessary to their spiritual well-being.)

• Organisationally, like many other procedures, once torture becomes established as part of internally acceptable norms under certain circumstances, its use often becomes institutionalised and self-perpetuating over time, as what was once used exceptionally for perceived necessity finds more reasons claimed to justify wider use.(My 4 month old gummed my nipple when she nursed! My 7 month old crawled off the blanket! My 2 year old asked TWICE for a treat after I said no! My 4 year old wanted to stay at the park two minutes longer than I said! My 12 year old back-talked me! My 14 year old expressed an opinion that I disagreed with!)

Am I the only one who draws a parrallel here? Or do others see, too, how group think mentality leads to the abominable treatment of our children? Otherwise loving parents, church leaders, teachers - all under the influence of parenting gurus and mis-interpreted Scripture. There needs to be some severe accountablity for those who peddle child torture in the name of the Lord. How God must weep at each cry from one of the little ones....How many tears He has kept in a bottle - tears that never should have been cried....

[Psyche]

Yes. The same way it led to slavery barbarous treatment of other humans.

[mountainash]

There was a TED talk that related to this topic. Link broken because it's very graphic.

http://www. ted.com/talks/lang/eng/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

This reminds me of something Waybe Jacobsen said once about how (paraphrasing) institutions don't make for healthy Christians just like they don't make for healthy children. I know...That's really biased. I'm speaking as an unschooling unchurched individual, can ya tell? But the truth remains that no one should restrict themselves to socializing only with people who believe as they do. We're meant to be a salad bowl, not a melting pot. There's a Mark Twain quote that says, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Similarly, I believe going outside of our comfort zones socially is crucial to the destruction of violence provoking paradigms. This brings to mind Hebrews 13:11-14

The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

[tigerlily]

I was speaking to my dh about the prison experiment just the other night. It was in regard to something else, but it really makes sense with authoritarian parenting styles, too. Parents take the God-given authority over their children, and begin to wield it negatively and lord it over them. Because the parent knows that the authority was given legitimately, they don't see their actions as wrong -- and the further you go with it, the more warped and wrapped up in it you become. You literally can't see it as wrong.

Thanks for sharing that article, it had some good insights into the psychological elements of this kind of abuse.

[Heather Micaela]

bad company corrupts good morals

[Chris3jam]

Wow. I just watched this, and I am . . . . . well, traumatized. I actually had a memory that surprised me, one I hadn't thought about in years. It didn't seem like it fit, but, I guess "it starts with 15 volts". I was talking with a lovely momma, who I knew to be gentle and sweet and nice. She had, some weeks ago, given birth to twin boys. One of them was just out of the ICU and at home, for about 4 weeks. She started talking about the differences in them. She said that one child was so sweet and wonderful, and just cooed and smiled when she changed his diaper. She said that the other twin once "gave a scream that was obviously temper, and I swatted him on his naked bottom right quick! I wasn't having *any* of that in my house! I didn't hurt him, I just got his attention. He didn't do it again!" Now, I was still in the throes of Gothard-ism and reading the Pearl materials (I do not think this momma did that, but was definitely a hardcore conservative fundie -- like me ), and I thought I would throw up. This baby twin boy. . . . .four weeks out of the ICU, just born. . . . .

And, I also remembered that, like me, she had an almost grown son, who had, after he was old enough for the courts to listen to him, left to live with his dad. I remembered her once saying (just matter--of--fact) that his dad didn't have a lot of rules, which was most likely why he wanted to live with him. I also remember having had that son in AWANA, and I remembered thinking that he had a few "issues", and acted scarily like my own son (who, if I had to self-dx now, after years of study and experience under my belt, had at least a mild form of Asperberger's). I had a soft spot for him, since, like our whole church, spanking was *THE* form of discipline, and "mental" issues did not exist, they were just "sin" problems, that spanking "fixed".

This all came flooding back to me like vomit when he said, "It starts with 15 volts", and I started to think about how children are taught to obey authority (men in white coats, men in police uniforms, teachers, etc., etc.) blindly, and I thought of Alice Miller's book "For Your Own Good." And I just sit here and

I also remembered just when and how *I* crossed that line. : bheart Never mind my own son not recovering from what I did, but I will never recover, either.

[relizabeth]

Oh Chris3jam.

[hey mommy]

Like the Germans and the holocaust.

I'll have to watch the video later. My adorable boy needs homework help.

[brandi]

Originally Posted by mountainash

There was a TED talk that related to this topic. Link broken because it's very graphic.

http://www. ted.com/talks/lang/eng/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

This reminds me of something Waybe Jacobsen said once about how (paraphrasing) institutions don't make for healthy Christians just like they don't make for healthy children. I know...That's really biased. I'm speaking as an unschooling unchurched individual, can ya tell? But the truth remains that no one should restrict themselves to socializing only with people who believe as they do. We're meant to be a salad bowl, not a melting pot. There's a Mark Twain quote that says, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Similarly, I believe going outside of our comfort zones socially is crucial to the destruction of violence provoking paradigms. This brings to mind Hebrews 13:11-14

You might want to mark that link as sensitive. I was not prepared for that.

[tofufoofoo]

Originally Posted by Chris3jam

This baby twin boy. . . . .four weeks out of the ICU, just born. . . . .

[mountainash]

Originally Posted by brandi

You might want to mark that link as sensitive. I was not prepared for that.

Sorry about that.

[joyousTXmama]

Originally Posted by Wonder Woman

(an old blog post from a no-longer maintained blog)

How God must weep at each cry from one of the little ones....How many tears He has kept in a bottle - tears that never should have been cried....

Yes, I think he does...

I also think of God's wrath. And I think His wrath against those who promote the harm of children in His Name will be frightening to behold.

[Rabbit]

I know that I struggled with not believing that my children -really- hear me when I'm yelling at them. That they're oblivious and that's why they act the way they do. If I could just get through to them, if they had any understanding, then surely they would stop.

There's also the total lack of accountability. CPS -could- swoop in at any moment, but parents are alone with their children. There's no one there to raise an eyebrow at the right moment, or clear their throat, or say, "Hey, you know, that might be out of line." And so it's really easy to escalate from whatever your starting point might have been.

[peridot]

Rabbit- ITA.