Today's child abuse intervention: Just speaking the truth.

[MysterionMuffles]

Oh I see thanks for the clarification. I was so focussed on the log that I forgot about fire safety lol.

Joesito, what I mean by ad hominem is that you're attacking tasmlab's character more than his arguments. Telling people not to respond to him and claiming that he is illogical, when he is trying to make his case with his personal reason and evidence--I find that unfair. If you found his posts snarky and offensive due to the sarcasm, then fine, be offended. I would be too if I opened a topic and expected it to go a certain way, but didn't. Are you sure you aren't just upset because it seemed like he disagreed about the intervention you enacted in the story you started the topic with? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about protecting the rights of children. Don't believe me? Check out this topic I had a few months ago about protecting my neice from her abusive parents. All I'm saying is, no need to get too worked up about the disagreement and see if you guys can meet somewhere in the middle.

Your position is that some parents want to dominate even when it comes to things as safety, for tasmlab his position is on preventing danger in a child's life, even if it requires force. Even Stef has said that it was unfortunate he had to force Isbella only a couple of times to change her diaper, and even sleep training, but it's something that needed to be done so that she doesn't grow up with a rash in her nether regions or insomnia when she grows up.  It's just tiny discomfort and inconvenience that she won't remember, but will be thankful for in the future because it turned out to be for the best.

[Jose Perez]

 

Joesito, what I mean by ad hominem is that you're attacking tasmlab's character more than his arguments. Telling people not to respond to him and claiming that he is illogical, when he is trying to make his case with his personal reason and evidence--I find that unfair.

 

That is not an ad hominem and I'm attacking his arguments; all you have to do to prove I am unfair is tell me where I am wrong, i.e disprove my arguments; that's all I'm asking, but you haven't done it. Telling people not to respond to someone who is intellectually dishonest helps those people save time – and it also helped to present more evidence of his dishonesty and invalidity of his arguments.

 

If you found his posts snarky and offensive due to the sarcasm, then fine, be offended. I would be too if I opened a topic and expected it to go a certain way, but didn't. Are you sure you aren't just upset because it seemed like he disagreed about the intervention you enacted in the story you started the topic with? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about protecting the rights of children. Don't believe me? Check out this topic I had a few months ago about protecting my neice from her abusive parents. All I'm saying is, no need to get too worked up about the disagreement and see if you guys can meet somewhere in the middle.

 

Yes, I don't believe you are for the rights of children precisely because I am familiar with that topic and your not addressing or wanting to understand my arguments there either. The morality of parenting is not about scales of grey just like the morality of the state isn't either, but I can understand you regard it as such since you have chosen not to stand up to your own family.

 

Your position is that some parents want to dominate even when it comes to things as safety, for tasmlab his position is on preventing danger in a child's life, even if it requires force.

 

Yes, and the arguments are there to prove who has an invalid and dishonest position. This is a philosophy forum, not a parliament.

 

Even Stef has said that it was unfortunate he had to force Isbella only a couple of times to change her diaper, and even sleep training, but it's something that needed to be done so that she doesn't grow up with a rash in her nether regions or insomnia when she grows up.  It's just tiny discomfort and inconvenience that she won't remember, but will be thankful for in the future because it turned out to be for the best.

 

Well, for a start, I don't think Stef is anywhere close to being a good parent, although closer than most. Sleep training is an abomination and a complete disregard of the child's genuine body signals; human beings are the only animals that don't sleep with their babies...

When Stef talks about these things he shows no ambivalence but a complete certainty that he has researched the issues with Isabella, that he knows the answer is "for her own good" and that the measure is indeed exceptional and contrary to the general rule that there is something wrong with the parent and his behaviour. He does not participate in conversations such as this that shed light on what's really happening with parents, and he does not submit his parenting to this kind of scrutiny by people, his listeners, who he claims to "love and respect", just like he does not submit his listener's parenting to the kind of scrutiny that his own philosophical arguments and condemnations warrant. Anyway, I could write a whole book here... 

[Jose Perez]

 

Well, for a start, I don't think Stef is anywhere close to being a good parent, although closer than most. Sleep training is an abomination and a complete disregard of the child's genuine body signals; human beings are the only animals that don't sleep with their babies...

 

Sorry, writing fast... meant to say human beings are the only land mammals that don't sleep with their babies (not that our ancestors didn't still follow this natural practice; referring to modern humans of course). There are tons of resources on this (http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/12/21/cosleeping-and-biological-imperatives-why-human-babies-do-not-and-should-not-sleep-alone/)

It is not surprising that children in modern society have become more irritable and likely to throw temper tantrums, to the point that for instance chimps are better behaved in infancy. The baby's heart stress has been shown to be up to 3 times higher when sleeping in a cot...

Anyway, not really hard nowadays to come up with the evidence if one is really open to philosophical arguments and self knowledge.

[emilia]

Tasmlab, you are here defending the use of force against your children and saying that it's necessary that they cry. You are then provided an opportunity to find information that could teach you not to use force and not make your children cry. Your reply is "I am looking forward to hearing it", but still don't listen, meanwhile your children keep crying while you listen to podcasts in order...

[MysterionMuffles]

 

Yes, I don't believe you are for the rights of children precisely because I am familiar with that topic and your not addressing or wanting to understand my arguments there either. The morality of parenting is not about scales of grey just like the morality of the state isn't either, but I can understand you regard it as such since you have chosen not to stand up to your own family.

 

If I didn't take the time to understand your arguments there I would not have started making the argument from morality with my family like I said at the end of topic. And if I didn't take the time to understand your arguments I wouldn't have continued our private conversation to which you've chosen to ignore, which I find pretty shitty because I was genuinely curious as to what input you had to my questions.

Nevermind tasmlab and whatever argument you have with him, I'm feeling deeply offended by this statement you made about me. The only basis you have on whether or not I've stood up to my family is what has been publicly written about it thus far. How could you safely assume I've done nothing since the time around that thread was still active? If you were truly philosophical, you would not be making assumptions rather simply asking the question if I have stood up to my family since that thread. And yes I have, using the argument from morality as you suggested. I had a talk with my neice's father, for the first time having a REAL conversation with the guy, about whether or not it's moral to use physical violence to modify someone's behaviour. He started off by saying no and getting really angry at his father for what he did to him as a kid (HORRIBLE shit and I am grateful he opened up to me about it), but like most indoctrinated people, he fell into the trap of defending the way certain cultures are and that "at the end of the day, he was still my father." I don't want to give away too much about his life, but it was absolutely wretched. 

I have no evidence if my talk with him has had any effect, but just like my last update in that thread, he has been the most peaceful with my neice that I have seen. She likes to play with my drum kit, and he has her on his lap as they sit on the drum stool, and she has the tendancy to swing the drumsticks so carelessly that she sometimes ends up hitting him in the face. Normally he would get angry, yell at her and eventually spank her, but now he just laughs it off. I then reassure him that she's fine on her own on the stool and that he just needs to help her get down when she's done, and he's fine with that and thankful because drumsticks hurt! lol Maybe that's some evidence, but not sufficient enough as of yet. I still don't know what happens at home.

I haven't stood up to my family...I opened up to my mother about the beatings my father gave me. At first she wanted to play it off like she didn't remember what happened, but that didn't matter when she saw all the sorrow in me as I expressed how neglected I feel for her not doing anything while my dad beat me and my brother with the buckles of his belt! I had a 3 hour long conversation with her about the child abuse history in our family and how she is starting to see how ugly it is with the way my cousin gets upset too quickly with my neice. Sometimes even physically aggressive when she's doing something just not to her liking, and my mom has started standing up for my neice even after that one hand slap. Go ahead and assert that she was evil for doing it for that ONE time, but the evidence points to the contrary. Despite of the discrepancy between my mom and I when it comes to me accepting Atheism, she is at least on board with protecting my neice. I asked my mom the same question if it was moral to use physical violence to modify behaviour, and up until then she was allowing my cousin's aggression go uninterrupted. But once I asked her to universalize it like if she would use violence to modify a co-worker's work habits or a friend's, she started to understand where I've been coming from. 

I haven't stood up to my family...yet every time my cousin loses her temper on my neice, I respond to my neice peacefully which makes her feel stupid and uncomfortable. She knows this type of response is not only possible, but optimal. My neice screams while I'm watching a TV show, and everybody in the room has already been in a loud conversation before that, and my cousin yells "be quiet, uncle is trying to watch TV." I just say, "it's fine, there's closed captions and I've seen this episode already." My neice starts placing cards in a book, my cousin comes around with the fear that she might rip the pages, was just about to yell at her, I say "it's fine, she's not ripping any of the pages out." It looked like my cousin was going to continue yelling, but she took in a breath and just walked away to mind her own business. Anyways, I have too many examples of my own interventions and I think that's what this topic was really meant for, discussions of interventions when child abuse is present, and I'll be more than happy to provide some more of my own examples. As for my cousin, I've yet to have the talk with her, but I will simply ask her why she spanks my neice. If I can have a calm and rational discussion with her scumbag husband and actually be listened to, I'm pretty sure she can listen to me because there was a point in time I actually genuinely liked her company. So I have that to go on in letting her know that I'm not out to humiliate her with this conversation, just curious. My hope is that I stay objective as possible and as rational as possible, and if the talk doesn't change anything (you never know what may happen, whether I set her further in her ways or actually turn her around), then holy hell. As much as I love my neice, I will tell my cousin that neither of them are welcomed back at my house until she and her husband start treating her as well as they did in her first few months of existence. They will inevitably come to my family gatherings and they can all they want, but I will ostracize them and convince my whole family to do the same. 

So Joesito, before you go on the business about making random assumptions about people's beliefs and calling them illogical or anti-philosophical...try asking some questions first. And not in some passive aggressive way where they are pretty much forced to answer in the way you prefer them to answer to fuel the fire further...but real curious, honest and genuine questions about why they believe what they believe. Get a better understanding of what they really mean first before you even strike the match and start a flame war.

[Jose Perez]

Morse, the fact that you are offended and so invested in disproving a statement about you, while you still disregard my arguments – which represent in themselves the process of philosophically standing up to a parent – only comes to confirm that statement.

Like tasmlab, you can say you do whatever you want; your behaviour is what gives you away. I sincerely hope you learn to find your true feelings regarding your family instead of following some code of action you're learning from FDR. I'm happy to help you with that as I have done before.

[MysterionMuffles]

Not my fault in making it personal, how else will I respond? The moment you made a claim about my beliefs based on assumptions duebto a lack of information, my defense for tasmlab became irrelevant. He's a grown man he'll speak for himself. You even disregarded the fact that I took your advice and became curious for more of your input, which would have been fine if you had not made blind assertions about my beliefs and my personal life.This to me communicates that you yourself are more interested in intellectual and moral dominance than you are in simple curiousity and philosophical reasoning.

tasmlab's line of reasoning gave me some pause but did I start making claims about his being or how his kids are learning to hate him? No, I asked to understand his position because he wasn't blatantly advocating physical violence on children. Physical force isnacceptable if it isn't used to scare a person or modify their behaviour. Much like how it would be acceptable to forcefully pull a blind man from walking into traffice; I wouldnt find it violent to place a child in a buggy before heading into a parking lot unless the parent does so aggressively through threats and impatience without calm explanation--whether the child is capable of understanding dialogue or not. They do respond to calm speech however despite if its understood.

but Joesito, I can understand where you are coming from and I may be wrong about your intentions, but I feel hostility coming from your responses so Im just going to choose not to engage with you anymore.

 

[Jose Perez]

 

but Joesito, I can understand where you are coming from and I may be wrong about your intentions, but I feel hostility coming from your responses so Im just going to choose not to engage with you anymore.

 

The hostility you feel coming from me on a message board is enough for you to make a definite decision to not engage with me, but the hostility you see in your family is not enough to do likewise...  Clearly, and as the evidence repeatedly shows around here, one can be a false self and a hypocrite and still be "pro peaceful parenting". Sure I'm hostile to you.

And I will repeat to you and anyone who cares to notice: the child in my case could walk to the car and there were over 100m with no cars around. Stripping a person into a buggy against his will is abusive. 

 

[Jose Perez]

What happens, you see, is that abusive parents lose authority in public places because they become self aware, because there are people watching, you see? And so the child, who perceives this weakened authority, challenges them more than he can do at home and this makes them veeeeery uncomfortable. It happens aaaaall the time if you look around; the child, as an UPB machine, is doing to them in public what they do to him in private because now he is in a situation where he is empowered.

So what the assholes do, is try to prevent these situations by keeping the children well tied up and putting a face like it's really "necessary" that they do so. What happens, you see, is that their relationship to their children is already broken quite possibly beyond recovery, that they have no authority over the child, because they should have never had children in the first place... because the woman blackmailed the man into having them and things like that... you know, the usual sad reality about couples that they will never admit, and that stems from the very same abuse they suffered in the hands of their parents, which they seek to normalise with their children...