The Furious Spinner

I attended The Gathering last night, the monthly get-together of local women. We were on the porch of a house in the woods, near Falling Creek. I got to see some people I hadn't seen in a while. It was one of those Gatherings when we sat in a circle and talked, so I didn't get to catch up with people individually, which was too bad, but we had some interesting conversations.

After we talked about how bad the government was right now, we somehow started talking about children and punishment. One of the women said that children had to be afraid of their parents; that was how they survived into childhood. Only two people disagreed, me being one of them. That doesn't mean everyone agreed with that statement, but several people said that that was absolutely true. I said that I had been spanked and slapped as a child and all that taught me was to react with violence when something didn't go my way.

Well, then we were off. Some of the women were saying that parents had to hit their children, maybe just a swat, to keep them safe. Another woman, who has a three year old child, said that she had to be able to go in public with her child so how else would she get a "stubborn willful child" to behave? (!!!!) I suggested trying to find out what was going on with the child. With a three year old? Yes. I said I wasn't knowledgeable enough about nonviolent communication but maybe she'd like to find out more about that. I said that hitting children was part of what made us a violent warring nation. They were appalled with me. They kept saying how do we get our children to behave? I'm thinking what is with all this control? Yes, you want your children to be safe; yes, you want them to be part of society, but why do you want them to be cowed into obeying you? I said I didn't have children—they were new to The Gathering so they didn't know that—but there must be a better way than hitting them. When I said that, they said, "Oooooh, well, obviously you know nothing." I've encountered this before whenever I have an opinion about children. I said, "That's like saying because I haven't bombed a country, I can't have an opinion about war."

I love discussion. I appreciate when people disagree with me, and I often learn a great deal when someone disagrees with me. But those discussions where someone says I can't have an opinion because I haven't had children, haven't had a bad marriage, haven't gone to war, etc. are truly frustrating. I'll admit, I have used that line myself (you don't know because you're not a woman), and I do think it can be legitimate (you don't know because you've never been sick), but I also think it's used most often used when someone is losing an argument. It's the equivalent of giving someone a raspberry and ending with, "So there!"

I know that reasonable people can disagree about reasonable things. But I don't think I'm wrong about this. I'm not saying that people who have hit their children are evil. (When my father learned better, he stopped.) One woman said that she did hit her children because she was out of control and she regretted it. I didn't have children for a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons was that I never wanted to pass on the violence I had learned, and I wasn't sure I could react peacefully if I was frustrated with my children. Some of the women were saying that their parents had hit them and it was the best thing for them, so they did it to their children. (These are all Progressive people, by the way.)

As we all know, just because everyone does something, doesn't make it right. (Let's all go jump off that proverbial cliffs our mothers always pointed out to us.) Just because our first reaction is to want to control, to suppress, doesn't make it the right thing to do. How about living consciously, how about living with our frustration and trying to figure out another way? How about not complaining about George Bush when we're perpetrating violence in our own households. No, it's not easy. I fail nearly every day, and I don't have children. But I'm trying.

Labels: sustainability, The Gathering

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.