what would you have done if you saw this in a subway?

[Cairber]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... g-a-child/

I was standing against the door of a No. 1 train one recent evening around 7 as it moved downtown from 79th Street. A young woman, maybe 18, was standing against the opposite door. She slapped her daughter, who looked to be about 4. I looked away. Then she hit the child again. And again, and again.

Are these beatings? Are they discipline? What’s the difference?

She had a friend with her, perhaps 16. And when the child cried, the friend hit her, too. Five smacks now and counting — from two people.

This was all very public. People were watching them and I was watching the people while also watching the hitting. Someone, please, say something.

Hits 6, 7, 8. Harder. Now is this abuse? One more.

“Stop hitting that child!”

Who said that? Stepping toward her, I took a dive off a sky-high cliff — and there was no way back.

“Who are you to tell me not to hit my kid? She’s my kid!”

“Don’t hit that child again or I will call the police!”

“I will hit my child if I want. I know how to hit my child. Go ahead and call the police!”

She stopped hitting the child because she was now directing her anger at me. The girl stopped crying. She watched and listened. I moved back to my side of the subway car.

A woman sitting nearest to the young mother started a quieter conversation with her. I could not hear the entire thing, but it was clear that this woman, in her 50s, was counseling her on how to handle an unruly child without hitting.

“You don’t know me,” the younger woman said to the older one. “You don’t know my child.”

The car doors opened at the next stop. The entire car seemed to be watching the young mother, the older woman and me. Two young guys patted me on the back as they exited and said, “Good work, man.”

I exited the car. The mother maintained eye contact with me as the doors closed — with fury and threat in her gaze.

I had publicly shamed her and that was the point. Would she think twice before striking the child again? Or would she be even angrier?

It was a lonely act. Out of 30 or so people in the subway car, only two of us got involved, and only two others offered any measure of support. What does it say that so many can sit silently as a child is repeatedly struck? I could not help wondering, too, if race and class played into the awkward dynamics.

Here I was, a 54-year-old white Jewish guy — and a social worker no less — confronting a young African-American kid with a kid, someone who was in way over her head. Was there some kind of cultural misunderstanding on my part?

The older woman who quietly tried to counsel the hitter was African-American, too — and the two guys who congratulated me were white. Further evidence of a racial divide? At the time, the silent witnesses seemed mainly black because I was looking to them for help. But now, in a moment of calm reflection, I actually think there were many more whites.

I told this story to a good friend, a 30-something Arab-Canadian, saying I wished I had received more support from some of the black people in the subway car. My friend said he was proud of me for speaking up for the child, but added, “I don’t get the white and black in this.”

“Why would you want the black people to jump in and give you support?” he asked. “Are the black people her people and the white people yours? Did her people have to show their support as a form of saying she is our people but we don’t agree with what she did?”

I keep running through the story in my mind, including my friend’s response, which I see as a “post-racial” analysis. He was saying to me, his older friend: “Times have changed. The old racial paradigms don’t apply.” I hope he is right.

What do you think? Who handled the situation best? what would you have done?

[Themightytom]

I see why the person did what he did, and I probably would have plowed into that debacle as well. I have intervened in a professional capacity lso being in social work but this was a casual "off the clock" situation. Morevoer my involvmenet is usually a referral to parenting classes through DCYF (Which also lets THEM asess the situation)


He wasn't wearing a badge that explained his interest so he probably didn't help anyone by confronting the woman. he SHOULD have called the police. if the woman could pull it together to explain to a cop she was just disciplining, its doubtful the cop could have done anything unless there was other eviddence on the child, brusing on the arms, flinching etc.

I'D rather be safe than sorry because it seems odd that a parent would be willing to let OTHER people discipline their child, even if its the child's sibling. I would ahve been unsettled by the experience, but I don't have kids, so I am able to go home and not deal with them when I don't want to, as opposed to the parent who is at their last wits end. I might ahve tried a more conversational approach, that STARTED with "Wow it must be difficult to be a parent.."

[fgalkin]

Reacting purely emotionally, I would have probably intervened when she kept hitting the child. There is a line between punishment and abuse, and that line has been crossed, IMHO, when the second girl started and kept hitting her. Of course, it would likely have been pointless, or worse, since the she might have punished her daughter for "humiliating" her in public when they got out of sight- even though it was her own actions that did that. This is something that the writer missed- he's likely to have made matters WORSE, not better.

From what I read of the article, the mother does not seem to have the maturity necessary to raise a child, so the problem goes far deeper than the incident on the subway. In a perfect world, the best thing to do would be to find out the woman's details and report her to child services, to make sure she is evaluated as a parent, but in the real world, that would probably fuck up the little girl's life even worse.

As for which approach is better, the woman's actions would have been better, had her advice been accepted (and the odds of that were low). Moreover, that entire approach depends on establishing one's authority as a parent- an older woman is a credible source of parenting advice to a (most likely) young single mother- a middle-aged white man is not, even if he identified himself as a social worker.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Jeremy]

it seems odd that a parent would be willing to let OTHER people discipline their child, even if its the child's sibling.

Within the boundary of beating and abuse, why? Everyone has a stake in the future, most especially when we will be feeble and the current children will be providing for us. An adult's duty is to instruct, provide discipline, and admonish all children for the child's good and the good of society.

"It takes a village"?

[Vympel]

I would've probably minded my own business. It was less than ten smacks. They'd have to be some serious wallops, king hits, way in excess of what's necessary to bring a kid to heel, for me to do anything.

Frankly, parents' habits of letting their kids run hog wild in public places whilst they don't even watch - never mind discipline their excesses - drives me much crazier - try going to the Krispy Kreme's near Sydney's airport once in a while - it's a nightmare zone, swarms of kids run around with no supervision on a tile floor in a crowded room, bursting in and out of the bathrooms playing chasing (not to mention jumping on and off the step where you look through the glass to see the doughnuts being made) and it's all fun and games until one of the kids falls over and starts wailing because he/she has been kicked in the head by another kid, or gotten their fingers caught in the bathroom door, or the dozen other things that could (and do) go wrong in that environment.

The sweetest moment of having a coffee and doughnut there is watching an old-school, my-parents-style-parent (increasingly rare) grab their kid and give them a good smack or three to get them to sit down, shut up, and stop embarassing them by acting like a fucking brat.

[Darth Wong]

I would've probably minded my own business. It was less than ten smacks. They'd have to be some serious wallops, king hits, way in excess of what's necessary to bring a kid to heel, for me to do anything.

Frankly, parents' habits of letting their kids run hog wild in public places whilst they don't even watch - never mind discipline their excesses - drives me much crazier - try going to the Krispy Kreme's near Sydney's airport once in a while - it's a nightmare zone, swarms of kids run around with no supervision on a tile floor in a crowded room, bursting in and out of the bathrooms playing chasing (not to mention jumping on and off the step where you look through the glass to see the doughnuts being made) and it's all fun and games until one of the kids falls over and starts wailing because he/she has been kicked in the head by another kid, or gotten their fingers caught in the bathroom door, or the dozen other things that could (and do) go wrong in that environment.

The sweetest moment of having a coffee and doughnut there is watching an old-school, my-parents-style-parent (increasingly rare) grab their kid and give them a good smack or three to get them to sit down, shut up, and stop embarassing them by acting like a fucking brat.

Parents who rely on physical abuse to raise their kids still raise brats. Don't kid yourself. There's not a shred of evidence that an increased use of physical violence in child-rearing has a beneficial long-term effect, and actually, there are plenty of studies indicating precisely the opposite: that kids raised with physical violence are more likely to have socially problematic behaviour as they get older, such as aggression and drug abuse.

In short, you can praise people you see hitting their kids in public if you like. Wait ten years, and those kids will be bogans. Congratulations.

[Vympel]

Parents who rely on physical abuse to raise their kids still raise brats. Don't kid yourself. There's not a shred of evidence that an increased use of physical violence in child-rearing has a beneficial long-term effect, and actually, there are plenty of studies indicating precisely the opposite: that kids raised with physical violence are more likely to have socially problematic behaviour as they get older, such as aggression and drug abuse.

In short, you can praise people you see hitting their kids in public if you like. Wait ten years, and those kids will be bogans. Congratulations.

I would've probably minded my own business. It was less than ten smacks. They'd have to be some serious wallops, king hits, way in excess of what's necessary to bring a kid to heel, for me to do anything.

Frankly, parents' habits of letting their kids run hog wild in public places whilst they don't even watch - never mind discipline their excesses - drives me much crazier - try going to the Krispy Kreme's near Sydney's airport once in a while - it's a nightmare zone, swarms of kids run around with no supervision on a tile floor in a crowded room, bursting in and out of the bathrooms playing chasing (not to mention jumping on and off the step where you look through the glass to see the doughnuts being made) and it's all fun and games until one of the kids falls over and starts wailing because he/she has been kicked in the head by another kid, or gotten their fingers caught in the bathroom door, or the dozen other things that could (and do) go wrong in that environment.

The sweetest moment of having a coffee and doughnut there is watching an old-school, my-parents-style-parent (increasingly rare) grab their kid and give them a good smack or three to get them to sit down, shut up, and stop embarassing them by acting like a fucking brat.

Parents who rely on physical abuse to raise their kids still raise brats. Don't kid yourself. There's not a shred of evidence that an increased use of physical violence in child-rearing has a beneficial long-term effect, and actually, there are plenty of studies indicating precisely the opposite: that kids raised with physical violence are more likely to have socially problematic behaviour as they get older, such as aggression and drug abuse.

In short, you can praise people you see hitting their kids in public if you like. Wait ten years, and those kids will be bogans. Congratulations.

Are the studies anywhere online? How does it define 'physical violence'? I'm not saying parents should smack their kids around as a matter of course (never mind reliance on it exclusively), I just don't see anything wrong with the occasional smack on the ass if they're playing up, of course because that's the way my brother and I were raised.

[Darth Wong]

Are the studies anywhere online? How does it define 'physical violence'? I'm not saying parents should smack their kids around as a matter of course (never mind reliance on it exclusively), I just don't see anything wrong with the occasional smack on the ass if they're playing up, of course because that's the way my brother and I were raised.

Dude, this is one of the most controversial subjects in all of sociology. References to such studies are all over the place. Did you not bother checking?

As for judging parenting techniques by their use on yourself, that's extremely unscientific and you know it.

[fgalkin]

However, the situation here is clearly different- the little girl was hit by two people, several times. I don't see why a "friend" was involved at all, assuming what the author is saying is correct- that it wasn't say, her sister or something.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[TheKwas]

How does two people make it fundamentally different?

Frankly, parents' habits of letting their kids run hog wild in public places whilst they don't even watch - never mind discipline their excesses - drives me much crazier - try going to the Krispy Kreme's near Sydney's airport once in a while - it's a nightmare zone, swarms of kids run around with no supervision on a tile floor in a crowded room, bursting in and out of the bathrooms playing chasing (not to mention jumping on and off the step where you look through the glass to see the doughnuts being made) and it's all fun and games until one of the kids falls over and starts wailing because he/she has been kicked in the head by another kid, or gotten their fingers caught in the bathroom door, or the dozen other things that could (and do) go wrong in that environment.

The sweetest moment of having a coffee and doughnut there is watching an old-school, my-parents-style-parent (increasingly rare) grab their kid and give them a good smack or three to get them to sit down, shut up, and stop embarassing them by acting like a fucking brat.

This doesn't sound like a problem of parents letting their kids go hog-wild, this sounds more like you just not liking kids. That's perfectly fine, but has little to do with the OT.

[Vympel]

This doesn't sound like a problem of parents letting their kids go hog-wild, this sounds more like you just not liking kids. That's perfectly fine, but has little to do with the OT.

Right, I have a problem with parents ignoring their kids as they fuck around in a dangerous and inappropropriate-for-play environment and have seen them get hurt in same, so I must not like them.

[Vympel]

Dude, this is one of the most controversial subjects in all of sociology. References to such studies are all over the place. Did you not bother checking?

No, not at all. It's not something I think about much, obviously because I don't have kids (at least, responsible parents should think about this sort of thing, I admit).

As for judging parenting techniques by their use on yourself, that's extremely unscientific and you know it.

It is - it's a natural knee-jerk frame of reference to proceed from, especially given what you observe in every day life, like the situation above.

[ArmorPierce]

I probably wouldn't say anything cause I know how she would react and she reacted just like I would expect. I agree that kids sometimes need a smack or two when they are misbehaving and it needs to be immediately corrected. An example I could think of is me finding my friend's son stealing my room mate's money when he was 4. I told his mother and she told him to put it back but he refused. She gave him a smack and he gave back the money. Situation like that I am totally for physical punishment.

[Stark]

Did you just assess the validity of physical punishment based on immediate compliance? That's fucking stupid. If you locked the kid in the basement he'd give it back too, is that a good idea?

[ArmorPierce]

I don't see why it's stupid. If a young child is doing something so over top that it needs to stop immediately (stealing, hurting others) and too young for anything else to get through to him or her immediately, why is it a bad idea? Of course if someone is going to smack their kid it needs to be done properly (not as a anger release as it was for my mother, and probably the girl in the article) and needs to phase out as the child grows older (again my mother didn't stop until I was old enough to make her stop which is too old). Those are the two reasons that physical punishment may cause dysfunctional kids.

[Stark]

I'm not talking about the idea; I'm talking about YOU. YOU'RE stupid. You just assessed the efficacy of a parenting tool based on the ten seconds after the abuse was delivered and declared it effective and good because the victim did as they were told, with nary a thought for what other consequences it might have for the family.

The idea that you think you need to 'phase out' violence as children get older is fascinating. You actually think that parents continuing to beat their children when their children could kick the shit out of them is a TACTICAL ERROR! If you think violence causes dysfunctional kids just because they can fight back or their parents are angry you're an idiot. I hear teaching children from an early age that violence is the solution to disagreements and the ultimate arbiter of authority might have some kind of maybe negative effect maybe? I hear abused children are massively more likely to abuse their own children? I hear the psychological damage can express itself decades later in destructive ways?

It's one of the biggest indicators that I'm smarter than everyone else that my parents beat me as a child and I CAN HONESTLY RECOGNISE WHY IT WAS WRONG, INEFFECTIVE AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. Every other moron just says 'roffle it happened to me but because I repressed it and don't think about it obviously it was a good idea'. Stunning. 'My friends kid didn't do as it was told until they slugged it one, that'll teach it!'

[PeZook]

You know, smacking and slaps are two very different things. Even a single slap (especially in public) is extremely degrading and humiltating, and that bitch slapped her child several times.

Most importantly, though, it makes the parent into an enemy, and ruins your authority.

[Covenant]

I've done stuff like this before, but the social dynamics on the Chicago trains can be goofy at times, and there's usually rail police you can get ahold of--so the threat of getting the police is a much more real one. I've never seen a kid repeatedly slapped, but I'd at least tell her to knock it off. The way this kind of stuff usually works is that everyone is uncomfortable but nobody wants to step in, so saying something isn't a big deal and it's not going to get you in trouble. You're not physically intervening, but you're free to speak your mind, especially in defense of a child being whacked over and over. I wouldn't get in someone's face over lousy parenting, but if this person needs to blow off some steam I'd rather they do it at me than their kid.

It's possible that saying something would get the kid hurt more later on as punishment, but that's not a sure thing, and it's not a reason for me not to speak up.

I also don't believe it's good or 'post-racial' to be colorblind to this either, and it's kinda silly for the good friend to act as if there couldn't have been a racial component there. You can be post-racial if you want, but you're living in a racially tense world, especially with regards to proper parenting. I remember the Bill Cosby hubub about that. It's not race though, it's culture--but that culture emerged as part of the racial divide (even if other poverty-cultures are nearly identical) and while this man had no reason to be ashamed for speaking up to a young woman of dark skin tone, to say she may not have been extra offended because of his color is just goofy. It's a real response. It's a stupid response, but it's real.

[Stark]

No no no. If they do what you say in the seconds after the beating, it's all good. There coudln't possibly be any psychological damage, simmering resentment or other consequence that may manifest alter, and it CERTAINLY doesn't say anything about how the child is treated behind closed doors.

[ArmorPierce]

I'm not talking about the idea; I'm talking about YOU. YOU'RE stupid. You just assessed the efficacy of a parenting tool based on the ten seconds after the abuse was delivered and declared it effective and good because the victim did as they were told, with nary a thought for what other consequences it might have for the family.

The idea that you think you need to 'phase out' violence as children get older is fascinating. You actually think that parents continuing to beat their children when their children could kick the shit out of them is a TACTICAL ERROR! If you think violence causes dysfunctional kids just because they can fight back or their parents are angry you're an idiot.

Alright now you're just putting words in my mouth and you're being dishonest to try to prove your point. I stated that it's too old to emphasize how ridiculous it was and way past the point it should have been phased out. Please point out where I stated that it was a tactical error or that I think violence causes dysfunctional kids just because they can fight back. I based that in a combination of reasoning and personal experience.

I hear teaching children from an early age that violence is the solution to disagreements and the ultimate arbiter of authority might have some kind of maybe negative effect maybe? I hear abused children are massively more likely to abuse their own children? I hear the psychological damage can express itself decades later in destructive ways?

It's one of the biggest indicators that I'm smarter than everyone else that my parents beat me as a child and I CAN HONESTLY RECOGNISE WHY IT WAS WRONG, INEFFECTIVE AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. Every other moron just says 'roffle it happened to me but because I repressed it and don't think about it obviously it was a good idea'. Stunning. 'My friends kid didn't do as it was told until they slugged it one, that'll teach it!'

[/quote]

LoL, are you honestly trying to so slyly accuse me of me being psychologically damaged and that I'm going to abuse my children? I was not beat as a kid, most I got was a belt.

Because the studies include everyone that does it as a way to vent their anger and/or continues to do it as the child matures or just plainly goes into child abuse territory? Such studies you also encounter figuring out whether it's a causation or correlation. As this article states http://www.nospank.net/nytimes2.htm

The studies cited by opponents of corporal punishment, Dr. Baumrind contended, often do not adequately distinguish the effects of spanking, as practiced by nonabusive parents, from the impact of severe physical punishment and abuse. Nor do they consider other factors that might account for problems later in life, like whether parents are rejecting or whether defiant or aggressive children might be more likely to be spanked in the first place.

Dr. Baumrind described findings from her own research, an analysis of data from a long-term study of more than 100 families, indicating that mild to moderate spanking had no detrimental effects when such confounding influences were separated out. When the parents who delivered severe punishment — for example, frequently spanking with a paddle or striking a child in the face — were removed from the analysis, Dr. Baumrind and her colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Owens, found that few harmful effects linked with spanking were left. And the few that remained could be explained by other aspects of the parent-child relationship.

[Stark]

Alright now you're just putting words in my mouth and you're being dishonest to try to prove your point. I stated that it's too old to emphasize how ridiculous it was and way past the point it should have been phased out. Please point out where I stated that it was a tactical error or that I think violence causes dysfunctional kids just because they can fight back. I based that in a combination of reasoning and personal experience.

Dude, you said that your mum should have stopped before you were strong enough to fight back, which seems to suggest you think the POWER ENFORCEMENT of violence would have worked better once it was clear you could have just punched your mum out. How did it feel to be beaten by a member of your family whom you loved but knew you could kick the shit out of, but knew you couldn't emotionally? How did this affect you afterwards? Hmmm, bit more complex now isn't it?

LoL, are you honestly trying to so slyly accuse me of me being psychologically damaged and that I'm going to abuse my children? I was not beat as a kid, most I got was a belt.

I'm going to put aside how stupid you just sounded, and just reiterate that those who are abused are far more likely to go on to abuse themselves. You're CLEARLY psychologically damaged; you just said you weren't beaten - but got a belt. Do you see the dissonance here? Do you see how your way of thinking has been influenced by the abuse you suffered as a child? Self-awareness is important, you know.

Because the studies include everyone that does it as a way to vent their anger and/or continues to do it as the child matures or just plainly goes into child abuse territory? Such studies you also encounter figuring out whether it's a causation or correlation. As this article states http://www.nospank.net/nytimes2.htm

The studies cited by opponents of corporal punishment, Dr. Baumrind contended, often do not adequately distinguish the effects of spanking, as practiced by nonabusive parents, from the impact of severe physical punishment and abuse. Nor do they consider other factors that might account for problems later in life, like whether parents are rejecting or whether defiant or aggressive children might be more likely to be spanked in the first place.

Dr. Baumrind described findings from her own research, an analysis of data from a long-term study of more than 100 families, indicating that mild to moderate spanking had no detrimental effects when such confounding influences were separated out. When the parents who delivered severe punishment — for example, frequently spanking with a paddle or striking a child in the face — were removed from the analysis, Dr. Baumrind and her colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Owens, found that few harmful effects linked with spanking were left. And the few that remained could be explained by other aspects of the parent-child relationship.

Not sure what you're trying to do with quote tags here, so I won't fix them.

As relevant to this discussion, if someone is beating their kid in public, what does that say about what happens when people aren't around? You have no idea. I have no interest in a single study that says it's totally fine to spank your kids if you filter the data to make it ok. Of course, the behaviour in the OP isn't anything of the sort that study says is OK so it's irrelevant. The final line is hilarious; OTHER ELEMENTS OF THE PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP. Even that study says that beating your kids messes up the relationship!

[Lagmonster]

Leaving aside the rest of the argument, I would have intervened, but as much as possible in a way that doesn't make the mother feel threatened or shamed. I know it sounds like the pansy thing to do, but I don't feel that it's wise to bully or shame people who are violent, lest they just project everything you throw at them down the chain to the victim the moment that you're out of sight and no longer able to influence them. A moment's public humiliation for the parent could translate into a worse beating for the child once the family gets home.

[PeZook]

Oh, yeah: getting back on topic, we live in the age of camera phones. If there's serious evidence of abuse, there's a possibility something will actually get done after calling the cops to help the child, rather than just endangering her because her parent is an idiot who will project her anger onto the innocent victim.

So I guess I'd have made a short video of the entire matter, actually called the cops and presented them with the video. Fuck threatening the mother - she'll just unload it all on her kid later on.

[Coyote]

Is any and all physical punishment bad? And where is the line drawn? A swat on the rump will probably have more force behind it than a face-slap, but usually a rump-swat is not seen as "abuse" whereas face-slapping is.

I'm all for laws that protect against child abuse, but why is a rump swat seen as the same thing as a Rodney King-style beatdown?

[Ziggy Stardust]

I was going to post this in a Venting thread, but it is vaguely related to this issue, so I will bring it up here for discussion.

Yesterday, I was walking through a parking lot when I noticed a baby asleep in a carseat, alone in the back of a car. It was a bright, sunny 80+ degree day, around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. There were no covers over the windows and the car was not in the shade. I also noticed that the doors were unlocked (it was the type of car where you can see the little stubs at the base of the window, and they were all the way up). There was no adult (in fact, there was NOBODY) within probably 200 feet of the car.

Needless to say, I was pretty incensed by this shocking display of neglect. The parking lot was in a city park, where a soccer game was taking place. I walked over and very loudly asked who was the owner of the white Ford with license plate number XXX. A Guatemalan man and woman (they had those very distinguishable Mayan features) walked up. I showed them to their vehicle and asked again if it was theirs, and if that was their child. They just nodded, and I calmly explained why it was such an awful idea to leave their child unattended in an unlocked car in extreme heat. The man just stared blankly at me, and the woman sneered that the air conditioning was on, and so it was okay.

I tried explaining that it didn't make a difference, but it was obvious they weren't intending to listen to or heed me, so I eventually just stormed off. In retrospect I wish I had called the cops, or social services, but I'm not sure whether or not they would have responded to that.