I love studies. Studies of human behavior especially. And I've come to the conclusion that 99% of the results of these studies are bullshit.
The latest one - out of the University of Manitoba in Canada - claims that children who are spanked (yes, spanked, not beaten to a bloody pulp) are 2 to 7% more likely to suffer from mental illness later on in life.
WTF?
A spanking can lead to mental illness?
WTF?
What ARE they snorting up there in Manitoba? Moose shit?
Perhaps, since I was brought up by a succession of British nannies, you should make a study of my posts. In fact, it would probably be a beneficial sort of thing to do anyway.
Having spent 6 weeks in Manitoba, with a cousin who used to lecture at U of M.....
'Friendly' Manitoba is what it says on the licence plates, and it really is. Manitoba parents are relatively strict, but loving, and the vast majority never use physical punishment. I can well believe that the parents who do are very odd, and the likelihood of their kids ending up with mental consequences is not surprising. Spanking is unlikely to be the only problem. Spanking parent frequently also off their head abusing prescription drugs is likely to be a fuller picture. There's a reason Winnipeg is the 'murder capital' of Canada. Though Winnipeg generally feels very safe; it's just certain areas. It's a bit like 'St Kitts is the murder capital of the World'. I've been there too. I'd happily go back to both. The bad guys tend to kill other bad guys in their own area, everybody knows and will tell you where those areas are, and they are always very nice to visitors.
I am not sure the results would apply outside Manitoba, except in other areas where parents rarely use corporal punishment; Sweden? Switzerland?
Mooses have many uses....but smoking their shit is not one of them.
Location: South of the North Pole, north of the South Pole...
Posts: 303
Quote:
A spanking can lead to mental illness?
Perhaps depends on who gets spanked and under what circumstances and by whom...?!
Or perhaps a mere dependence on alcohol in later life, an ineptitude to develop inter-personal relationships (not just with the opposite sex) perhaps?
I was about 7 or 8 years old. Every night more or less (or so it seemed), I would wake up to hear my drunken parents arguing and sometimes coming to blows, just across the flimsy plywood partition which separated their bedroom from mine at the Pantai Motel which dad owned. I remember sometimes putting myself between my mum and dad and crying out to please stop at both of them.
When I was about 14 years old, I finally brandished my "Jim Bowie" knife at my dad. "I'm not afraid of you anymore. And if you hurt mummy ever again (so far as I recall, dad had already stopped his / their joint abuse 4-5 years before that), you're going to die". It was a turning point I believe. Until his eventual demise in 2007, he was the perfect husband, to the best of his abilities.
rgbrock1, you should be happy to know Uncle Sam never did me no wrong. Russia, the Syrians, the Pakistanis etc. would not want me as an enemy either. Just don't push me, as Rambo often expressed...
airship, thank you for posting that. Among the levity on JB (which all too often I take part in) we sometimes need reminding of the harsher realities of life. It must have been hard on you, but you did right. And you are so right about alcohol.
Having been 'educated' at a fairly rough South London Boys' school, where a a bloody good caning was the norm, for just about any minor infringement of the rules, I have a quiet chuckle at this sort of crap. Far from causing me mental illness, it taught me a bloody good lesson...don't ever get caught! As an aside, my old man was a Master-At-Arms RN. He didn't mess about either when it came to adminstering a bit of discipline.
Had something similar myself. Aged 10, he had confided in me that he would leave my Mum when we were older. I was the oldest of three.
One morning there was another violent argument and to this day I remember shouting "Why don't you leave now?"
He didn't.
And yes he used a cane on me occasionally. Did it damage me? Possibly. My sisters? Yes, one of them.
On the positive side it has probably made me a better parent. Ex and I dealt with biting babies by biting back. That worked, and carefully chosen words seem to have worked thereafter.
He did leave her when we had grown up.
I bottled it all up, so it was hard to tell my sisters that I would not be reading a eulogy at his funeral.
You've only got to search the internet or look at the rather quaint ads in London pay phones to see the spanking world is huge.
Why this is I don't know, but vast amounts of money are changing hands daily. Seems like a tax cash cow
Mental illness has a number of roots from inherited genes to the drug induced paranoia some smack heads develop.
I saw someone under extreme pressure at work (and unable to ask for help) start to hear voices and then tell people it was God and that we should change our ways.
As corporal punishment was widespread both before, during and just after the 2nd WW why are there not more loonies?
