Carl Green Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 I just thought of a sort of rebuttal to the "you don't have kids so you don't know" line that I'd like to share. It's simply to remind them that you're speaking as a former child. Doesn't the experience of childhood give me enough "credit" in the debate? I did a feeble attempt at best of a search in this forum about this so a thousand pardons if this has been posted already.
dsayers Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Yep. You used to be a child, everybody you speak with who is not a child used to be a child. "2+2=5" "Actually, 2+2=4" "You're not a calculator!" Being a parent means your sperm/egg met with somebody else's egg/sperm. That's it. Unless they've actually taken the time to study, being a parent doesn't actually change anything. In fact, if you've done the research and they haven't, you're more of a parent than they are whether either of you have children or not. It's an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy. 2+2=4 whether you have a degree or not.
MysterionMuffles Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Yeah I came up with a similar rebuttal. I dont have to have kids to know they dont like getting spanked or yelled at. Ive been a kid who had to experience that kind of treatment. Ask the defendant if they really liked being spanked and if they can openly say they did then usurge them to have more compassion for themselves.
alexqr1 Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 I've also bought and used and iPad but I have no idea how to make one. Whatever argument you can assemble using pure logic is valid regardless of you being a parent or not. 2+2=4 even if you are not a mathematician. BUT, a mathematician will likely have more knowledge in order to reasonably resolve more complex mathematical problems. A parent will likely have more knowledge to combine with reason in order to find solution to more complex parenthood problems. "you don't have kids so you don't know" is an incorrect statement but not because we have all been children but because it is an ad hominem proposition. I mean, If a statement is logically correct, then it doesn't matter who says it. As far as anecdotal evidence, I am a parent and at least in my personal experience, there are so many things I thought I knew that I did not know before being a parent. My personal experience as a parent has given me a lot more knowledge, as raw material of logical conclusions, to deal with parenthood problems. Again, that is not to say that someone who is not a parent can be right where I am wrong, it is all about logic. EDIT: after reading my post I thought it sounded ambiguous but I hope you get my point.
Xeeg Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 I wouldn't say that being a former kid is exactly a great answer to this statement. For one thing our childhood memories are often very skewed from reality. I have two sisters and we all have different memories about how our parents were like, specific past events and so on. One thinks that the other was always the favourite while the other thinks the first was always the favourite. They can't both be right. Another thing is that each child is a unique person on this world with their own set of genetic expressions that will change how they react to the world around them. A method of parenting that works for one might not work for another, so the idea of a universal way to raise children is frankly absurd. This is why people say "You don't have kids so what do you know!" What they are really trying to say is "You don't know my kid, so you don't know what she responds to; her temperament, her ability to understand, her mental ability to cope with stress.. and so on" Some kids simply respond better to the carrot than the stick and others vise-versa. When giving advice to other parents, just be mindful of this... There are 7 billion people on this planet and to assume that they are all born identical is very unrealistic. It is not nature vs nurture, it is nature AND nurture. And nurture doesn't always mean treating your kid like a porcelain doll. A healthy, proper use of discipline can go along way to mental stability and dealing with the real world. After all, in the real world there are deadly consequences for making certain mistakes, and part of parenting is preparing your child to face the real world on their own.
dsayers Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 People are fundamentally not different from one another. Maybe I like black and you like blue, but this doesn't change the objective claim that spanking is assault and has numerous negative effects. Oh and thanks to epigenetics, we understand that when it comes to personality and disposition, nurture has a lot more to do with it than nature.
Carl Green Posted January 23, 2014 Author Posted January 23, 2014 Thanks for all the responses guys. I probably should have been a little more specific in the OP. When I came up with the idea I was thinking of a previous "conversation" I had with a couple of friends on FB that are parents. The conversation was via comments on a meme that I posted in response to a meme that two of my friends "liked" (the "I was spanked as a child and as a result I suffer from a condition known as respect for others" horse shit). I then posted the meme that's similar with "others" crossed out and "child abusers" added in its place, with the following comment. This is for you "friend's name" and "friend's name" Children didn't choose to be born.Would you consider it a good thing to hit your wife until she listens to you?Children will gladly listen to a parent that they trust and respect and you don't earn trust and respect by spanking. That will only get you resentment, "terrible twos", and "rebellious teens". A different friend responded with the following "I don't listen to people tell me how to raise a child unless they have one of there own! And when they do they can raise they're child as they see fit...As will I! That is freedom that is what it's all about" So at the core of what I was thinking, it's that I don't have to be a parent to know that it's not good to hit your children because I was once a child (that was hit.) Throughout all the following comments to the meme I was always very clear that I wasn't trying to tell anyone that I was right and they should raise their kids this specific way, I was just trying to get information out there that if you spank your children they'll statistically be worse off than those that aren't spanked.
MysterionMuffles Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 Some kids simply respond better to the carrot than the stick and others vise-versa. Only if they've been conditioned to respond to the stick more. I appreciate the consideration you're trying to have for parents, but I can't help but feel you're just trying to justify a few unsavory parenting practices. I could be wrong, I'm just basing it off the way you came into the chatroom last night. Also, please define discipline
Dylan Lawrence Moore Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 "I don't listen to people tell me how to raise a child unless they have one of there own! And when they do they can raise they're child as they see fit...As will I! That is freedom that is what it's all about" Holy crap. Freedom is all about treating people however you want? So if I just start beating someone and they complain, I can just say, "Hey, I'm just expressing my freedom, right?" The argument that really makes sense to me the following line of questioning: 1. "Children are human beings, right?" If you get a "no" response from this, walking away may be a good option. 2. "It's wrong from one human being to simply hit another human being if he doesn't like the way the other is behaving, right?" Again, if a "no" response comes from this, walking away continues to sound like a good option. 3. "So... what's the discrepancy, here?" I'm sure your standard abusive parent would then go into some tirade which boils down to "end justifies the means", but it would at least make clear as day how irrational and insane their argumentation is. Also, please define discipline Just popping in on this one. I get really nervous when people use the word "discipline", as if torture and violence creates a virtue within a person. To be self-disciplined to sit still for an hour is quite a bit different from the threat of violence if you move for an hour. This word is a gaping black hole for the fallacy of equivocation to fall into, and the etymological roots of the word don't seem to help: discipline (n.) early 13c., "penitential chastisement; punishment," from Old French descepline (11c.) "discipline, physical punishment; teaching; suffering; martyrdom," and directly from Latin disciplina "instruction given, teaching, learning, knowledge," also "object of instruction, knowledge, science, military discipline," from discipulus (see disciple (n.)). Sense of "treatment that corrects or punishes" is from notion of "order necessary for instruction." The Latin word is glossed in Old English by þeodscipe. Meaning "branch of instruction or education" is first recorded late 14c. Meaning "military training" is from late 15c.; that of "orderly conduct as a result of training" is from c.1500. So "discipline" appears simultaneously to denote "learning" (from Latin) and "physical punishment" (from French). Nasty.
PatrickC Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 Sure parents might well have some experience above non parents.. But we're not talking about the nuances of child rearing that non parents may not be aware of. We are talking about hitting, shouting and humiliating children. It's a no brainer to those of the mind to empathize. Of course, the real problem isn't a lack of experience. It's just that almost every parent heard as a child in anger, "You have no idea what it's like to be a parent!". And so the beat goes on and on..... EDIT - Which BTW was just another form of child humiliation that was meant to render them helpless.
MysterionMuffles Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 UPB that and just say "you forgot what it was like to be a kid!"
dsayers Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 1. "Children are human beings, right?" If you get a "no" response from this, walking away may be a good option. I wonder if walking away is the right response. I say this as somebody who all too often (even a couple times on this board) give somebody way too much of my time because I just assume they're pursuing the truth. I think it might be interesting to identify the disconnect of somebody that doesn't see a young human as a human. Maybe it won't lead to anything productive. Maybe it will help them past it. If all we did was walk away though, we'd never learn how to help anybody past that hump. What do you guys think?
PatrickC Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 I wonder if walking away is the right response. I say this as somebody who all too often (even a couple times on this board) give somebody way too much of my time because I just assume they're pursuing the truth. I think it might be interesting to identify the disconnect of somebody that doesn't see a young human as a human. Maybe it won't lead to anything productive. Maybe it will help them past it. If all we did was walk away though, we'd never learn how to help anybody past that hump. What do you guys think? I agree, sometimes it's just too risky or otherwise problematic. Not just for you, but the child in question. One should always approach oneself in this situation with gravitas and empathy before engaging in a possible confrontation.. But that said, with great understanding you can effect (for good) the presupposed inevitability.
alexqr1 Posted January 24, 2014 Posted January 24, 2014 Sure parents might well have some experience above non parents.. But we're not talking about the nuances of child rearing that non parents may not be aware of. We are talking about hitting, shouting and humiliating children. It's a no brainer to those of the mind to empathize. Of course, the real problem isn't a lack of experience. It's just that almost every parent heard as a child in anger, "You have no idea what it's like to be a parent!". And so the beat goes on and on..... EDIT - Which BTW was just another form of child humiliation that was meant to render them helpless.Exactly. Lack of experience does not debunk logic. Experience will only likely give you more information to apply logic to and come up with logical conclusions.The argument against abuse is an easy one to make without the experience of being a parent.
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