CHOAM Nomsky 💭: I call this passage The Discovery of America

I call this passage The Discovery of America

I have a very visceral reaction to hitting children that I have to suppress when I see it in public

I know. I hate it. In my limited experience bystander intervention is definitely the wrong way to go but it’s so sickening to see.

Also, dogs.

Threatening the parent probably isn't so helpful. OTOH "Looks like a really rough day, here can I help [clean up the juice, put the groceries in the car, etc.]" can be helpful if you can manage it. Redirect, validate (SUPER hard, OMG), support, meanwhile you've interrupted the violence for now.

The words “if you raise your hand to that kid again, I will redefine your idea of pain” have actually come out of my mouth under just such circumstances.

I remember being with my mom in a parking lot and a mom smacked her toddler more than once. My mom told her straight up "You hit that baby one more time, I'll show you what it feels like." The mom was like "she needs to learn" and my mom told her "The only thing she's learning is that Mom is mean"

Did it help? Probably not. But at least somebody said *something*

I've had similar conversations; "the only thing your teaching him is that the person who is supposed to love him will hurt him, and he'll never really understand why."

And it truly sucks because you know most of them were raised the same way so to them it's Normal. I think the most visible impact I've ever had was asking someone "do you want your kid to look at you the way you look at your dad?" and you could SEE the lightbulb turn on

"I was hit as a kid and I turned out fine", they love to declare. No you didn't, you're completely broken, traumatised and trapped in a vicious cycle.

Arguably the most important epiphany I ever had as a younger person was, "I was hit as a kid, it was not right, and I am not ok because of it."

Again, spanking and other forms of hitting should be an ADULTS ONLY activity.

A child is by and large completely helpless and powerless and lacks the tools to fully engage with the world around them; they should be able to implicitly trust *any* adult they are in the care of, most especially a parent. Hurting them is a profound betrayal of that trust.

...Badass.

I was a physically abused kid, and I have a pretty firm grip on my temper otherwise, but the sight of someone harming a child turns me into Wolvervine, I swear. One of the few occasions I feel no shame about leaning hard on my adult male privilege.

I’m not going to discuss my personal life online but I understand how you feel.

Completely respectable position. And for the record, I am not arguing that my impulse control here is particularly commendable.

Yeah, violence for violence isn't exactly enlightened. But I absolutely got what you meant, and I think that people who hit children may only understand the language of threats-of-worse.

And it usually begets more. I beat the shit out of a parent hitting their kid? OK, immediate issue resolved, but that kid's likely going to catch it even worse later (the violence my father directed at me often came months after the inciting incident).

dogs too... i lose it.

Yup.

It’s 10:18 am and just reading that excerpt has ruined my day.

I always think, “Jfc what are they doing in private?” He hit his kid in the face. I have 4 sons, 3 over 20 and never at any moment in my life do I remember thinking smacking them in the face would be justified.

the reporter did Nazi that coming…

This man is a psychopath.

Their ideology, if you can call it that, is divergent enough that I'm not sure they qualify as neo-Nazis, but they are undoubtedly soulless eugenicists and frankly, terrible parents

They are definitely white supremacists and that is the important thing here I think

White supremacy usually goes hand in hand with soulless eugenics. And they'll form an alliance with Christian Dominionists if it furthers their aims

It's VERY obviously Nazi inspired.

They are certainly part of the New Right, and although their ideology may be too scattershot to call them Nazis, the New Right has a big and noxious tent

If one sits down and reads what they read and what they write, there is no difference between the two. The nuance is that they are trying to use language to obfuscate and hide. But they are clumsy at best and incompetent at worst. The fact that it is working irks me.

Understandable.

"wHY dOeZ CPS kEeP CoMInG 2 R HoUSe, mUSt bE PreJUdIZ???" [smacks kid in face in public]

The slap and the unheated house stand out, but there were so many red flags in that interview it was like a Zillow search for Manhattan real estate

"I'll just get them white rice." Way to nourish those ideal genes, Dad.

“it’s how a female tiger disciplines her young,” he explains, referring to an unnamed nature doc he says he and his wife saw one time as though the “write a contract to the Future Police about how you’ll improve the world to get your toys out of impound on Future Day” bit wasn’t bad enough

As if there is no need to look at decades of academic research into child development because people are basically the same as tigers 😭 They are so desperate to deny humanity.

I honestly believe that one of the major triggers for this culture war is that research into child development and education has consistently been proving that approaches based on absolute hierarchy are fucking shit and terrible.

it doesn’t make them look any less like they’re raising child soldiers!

that makes a lot of sense. do you have some specific literature to recommend? It is super very relevant for my ongoing research on classical music

The work of Dr Suzanne Zeedyk has been really useful for me, her personal website seems to be down at the moment but she also runs this (and is on twitter). connectedbaby.net/about/

About - connected babyconnectedbaby.net connected baby is the vision of Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk. As a developmental psychologist and research scientist, she loved what she called The Science of Connection.

great, thanks a lot, I'll look into it!

What article is this from?

'fucking shit and terrible' is not a literal research quote here lol

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’www.theguardian.com Elon Musk (father of 11) supports their cause. Thousands follow their ideology. Malcolm and Simone Collins are on a mission to make it easier for everyone to have multiple children. But are they reall...

There is so much awful there it’s hard to pick. But also I’m annoyed they are getting any publicity. I’m certain I’ve read about them before

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