I personally believe they were largely revolting against abuses of authority. They took it way too far in the other direction however. Just because authority is sometimes abused doesn’t mean there is no legitimate authority. At any rate, my point is that spanking didn’t stop the generation in question from moving down the path of “social degradation” as the other poster put it, so to say that lack of spanking is the cause of said “social degradation” doesn’t really add up.
I know that you are in the UK, so our frames of reference are different, just know that I of course am particularly speaking about the USA. Everyone always throws around the idea that people don’t use spanking anymore, and yet surveys of American parents show that the large majority have/do use spanking. Additionally, the socio-economic groups that use it the most are also the ones that have the highest crime rates for juveniles and adults. So clearly spanking is not the magic bullet of discipline that fixes all of children’s and society’s ills (I’m not saying that is anything you have said, I just get that implication from various people when this topic comes up). Obviously, there are many factors to the problems of Western society and it is a gross oversimplification to blame the use or lack of a single form of discipline for “societal degradation”. I do believe that lack of parental discipline in any consistent form is a major problem in our society, but I don’t believe there is any special power to using one form over another. I think failure to establish and consistently enforce boundaries is the main issue, much of which stems from tired, guilt-ridden parents of broken families.
Dear mini_me640,
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response above.
First, that the post-war generation were only reacting to the abuses of authority, dear friend, is an excuse that is sometimes made, but this was, you may recall, the anti-authoritarian ‘Age of Aquarius’ lot who were rising up in rebellion against almost anything that even smacked of authority. Besides, moral and cultural deterioration would have occured irrespective of whether or not that generation had been the recipients of corporal punishment. Other factors played a major part in societal degeneration, for example the invention of the contraceptive pill and the consequent permissive revolution, the coarsening of standards in the new media and hostile legislation. However, none of this addresses the issue as to whether physical correction is ordinarily an effective deterent in keeping wayward children on the straight and narrow path, as the wise Book of Proverbs long ago maintained.
The effectiveness of corporal punishment, dear friend, will, of course, be contingent very much on the context in which it is administered. If it is applied as a result of the parents reaching the end of their tether and when they have lost control, then it will probably be next to useless and the same would be the case if the parents had lashed out in desperation or even, God forbid, revenge. Sadly, many children are only ‘punished’ when their faults or wrongdoing become troublesome to an extremely stressed parent. Needless to say, the wrong sort of responses will, indeed, semaphore to the child that their parents are not in control and cannot cope. Now, if these are the circumstances in which physical correction occurs, then I can quite see why the wrong message is being sent to the child and why there may be issues with juvenile delinqency later, for they are coming from a background of very inadequate and even abusive parenting. However, dear friend, this is all poles apart from moderate chastisement, when called for, within the context of a loving home, and I believe that most reasonable men would appreciate that.
It is quite true, dear friend, that corporal punishment cannot be regarded as some sort of universal elixir for parental correction of children, nevertheless, it remains an effective tool in the behaviour modification of the young within a loving family environment. Most evidence points to the efficacious effects of the moderate use of physical chastisement in conjunction with consistency of discipline, affectionate (but not indulgent) relationships between parents and their children and parental vigilance over their children’s conduct. Indeed, unless one has been so heavily influenced by liberal ideology on child rearing, it admits of no doubt that corporal punishment is an integral and indispensable component in the character formation of the young.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
