These Last Days News - September 22, 2014

Spanking is a Disciplinary Measure, Not Child Abuse. Get a Grip, People...

"All parents must set a strong example of faith in the home. Your children are being subject to much error and much soul destruction outside your home. Discipline and truth must be brought to the children. The greatest responsibility for these children will be given to the parents. Guard their souls well.” - Our Lady of the Roses, July 1, 1973

The Matt Walsh Blog reported on September 18, 2014:

As I’m sure you’re aware, the topic of spanking has been widely discussed this week, after Adrian Peterson, running back for the Minnesota Vikings, was arrested and ultimately suspended for child abuse.

Prosecutors alleges that Peterson beat his four-year-old son with a tree branch. The football star reportedly thrashed his son so severely that it caused injuries to the child’s back, legs, ankle, scrotum, and buttocks, along with defensive wounds to his hands. The scars were visible days afterwards.

It’s an awful story, without question, but is it a story about “spanking,” or a story about an angry and violent man brutalizing a child? The media certainly wants us to answer “both,” which is why they’ve done everything they can to insist that Peterson’s attack on a four-year-old has “reopened” or “sparked” or “ignited” or “stirred” the debate over spanking (personally, I prefer my debates to be rekindled, provoked, or triggered). We are informed in articles like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, that AP’s vicious assault of a small child ought to, for some reason, bring to mind questions about the appropriateness of swatting your kid on the behind from time to time.

OK then. I have asked myself these questions, as instructed, but still I come back to the same answer: spanking is not abuse, and abuse, no matter what else you call it, is not spanking. The two things are completely separate and distinct.

Now, since everyone is adding their two cents, let me submit my own. I’m feeling pretty lazy today, so I’m going to resort to the trusty listicle format. Here is every thought I have about this subject, in no particular order:

1) If all physical discipline is abuse, and no distinction can be drawn between spanking and whipping a child until he’s bruised, bloodied, and terrified, then it stands to reason that all verbal reprimands constitute verbal abuse, and no distinction can be drawn between a stern talking-to and berating your kid with vulgar insults and threats.

The spanking = abuse formulation can only be understood if you erase from your mind any sense of nuance. But if we’re basing our conclusions on the “Y involves X so therefore all things that involve X are automatically identical to Y” calculation, then why don’t we apply it to other things parents do to their kids?

For example, in my household growing up, it wasn’t uncommon to hear my parents say, in a commanding and unequivocal tone, things like “Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking” and “Watch your attitude.” In contrast, I knew kids who lived in homes where it wasn’t uncommon to hear the parents say, in a somewhat harsher tone, things like “Shut the f**k up” and “I can’t f**king stand you.” Both involve words spoken at an elevated volume, but one is clearly not abusive and the other clearly is. If we can do this math with verbal discipline, why do we act like it’s so difficult on the physical side?

2) Maybe you respond by saying that there’s nothing inherently wrong with speaking, but there is something inherently wrong with physically touching your kid in a disciplinary and corrective manner. Fine. If that’s your argument then, I ask you, WHAT precisely makes it inherently wrong? You can’t answer “violence,” because that only restates your original premise.

Besides, to call spanking “violence” is intentionally misleading. Even deceitful. It prejudices the jury in the court of public opinion by using a term that Webster defines as “exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse” to describe smacking a child’s posterior a few times. Spanking — as opposed to beating or assaulting — doesn’t injure and it isn’t intended to abuse.

So if you oppose violence against children, I agree. But if you oppose, on principle, the exertion of any physical force on a child, you’re going to have to explain WHY. And then you’re going to have to figure out a way to maintain that absolute principle while not precluding yourself from grabbing your kid before he runs into the street, or picking him up and carrying him out of the store when he’s having a tantrum, or forcing him to hold your hand when you cross the road. All of these things are physical exertions imposed on a child against his will. All of them, including spanking, are meant to help a child avoid harm, not cause it.

3) If your dad often became enraged and cursed while he whipped you mercilessly with a belt until you were bruised and bloody, marks all over your body and emotional scars that cut even deeper than the lacerations on your skin, I am sorry that you suffered such heinous abuse. But please understand that, although your dad may have called that “spanking,” it was not. It was assault. There is, I assure you, another version — the real one — where a parent acts in love. The discipline is measured and controlled. It’s administered to help correct a child’s behavior, not to hurt them or make them afraid. In this scenario, the parent calmly explains why it is happening and talks to the child about how she can correct her behavior in the future.

Spanking can be quick and effective. I hear people say that, rather than spank, parents should use time outs or take away privileges. But time outs don’t always make an impression on a kid, especially if he’s like I was (and still am) and can sit staring off into space for hours, entertaining himself in his own head. “Go sit in a corner and day dream for half an hour? No problem, Mom!”

Taking away privileges might get through to him, but after a while you’ve made him into a little mercenary. He only behaves because he wants his toys and his TV time, not because he respects you. Not to mention, this strategy requires you to first shower him with lots of useless junk so that you have things to hold hostage when you want to coerce him into acting properly.

See? Any form of discipline can be described in a way that makes it seem absurd. If spanking is violence then sending him to his room is imprisonment, removing privileges is blackmail, and telling him to do chores is slave labor.

4) Don’t take this post as evangelization for spanking. Frankly, I don’t care if you spank your kids or not, and I can’t tell you whether or not you ought to. It depends on YOUR kid and what works for YOUR family.

Maybe your child responds to corporal punishment, or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe the time out shtick works, or maybe taking away privileges, or maybe telling her to write “I will respect my parents and do as I’m told” 100 times on a piece of loose leaf will really do the trick. Maybe all of these things. Maybe none. I don’t know. It’s your call, but if you choose spanking as part of your disciplinary arsenal, you certainly won’t find any negative judgments coming from my direction.

5) One tip I’ll give to the anti-spanking advocates (and by that I mean people who think no parent should do it, not people who merely choose not to do it themselves): you will not convince anyone if you keep using the ridiculous “how can you tell your kids not to hit others if you spank them?” logic.

This is possibly one of the worst arguments ever formulated to defend any position, because, if applied consistently, it makes parenting virtually impossible. After all, your kid can’t force other people to do chores, he can’t send other people to their rooms, and he can’t impose time outs. I guess that means you can’t do any of that to him.

If your kid takes his friend’s toy, you’ll scold him and tell him to give it back. I guess that means you can’t takeaway his toys, either

If your kid bosses an adult around and tries to tell them what to do, hopefully you’ll inform him that his behavior is completely unacceptable. I guess that means you can’t tell him what to do, either.

If your kid says ‘no’ when you give instructions (which, by your philosophy, you really shouldn’t be doing in the first place), you’ll probably correct him. I guess that means you can’t ever say no to him, either.

Any halfway decent parent is constantly doing things that their children would not be allowed or able to do. Why? Because that’s how the parent-child relationship works. If it doesn’t work that way, you’ll end up with an insufferable brat who terrorizes everyone around him and feels entitled to act exactly as he pleases, because his parents never instilled in him even a modicum of discipline and obedience.

On second thought, I guess I understand why this argument is so prevalent nowadays.

6) I can’t resist pointing this out. It’s too blatant to ignore:

Anti-spanking is predominately a liberal position. So is pro-abortion.

Let’s look at this dichotomy for a moment. Often, a liberal will claim that parents should not spank — or even that they should be legally prohibited — because it equates to violence against a child. Meanwhile, they also believe that, in the name of women’s rights, a parent may pay to have their child dismembered, decapitated, or poisoned.

Think about that. Let it sink in. Meditate on it. Really reflect upon it.

We are living in a country inhabited by millions of people who think it immoral to swat a child’s butt for misbehaving, but moral to murder a child for existing.

Anti-spanking. Pro-abortion. This is lunacy. There is no other word to describe it.

7) I don’t know much about Adrian Peterson. I know he’s good at football. I know he allegedly abused at least one of his kids on at least one occasion. I also know that he has out-of-wedlock children by several different women.

If we are now in the business of criticizing Peterson’s life choices, I think that third point is probably the most urgent.

It’s important to speak out against physical abuse, but it’s also easy. There isn’t any political risk in condemning a man for hitting his wife or his kids. But abandonment and illegitimacy are prevalent across America — particularly in professional sports and particularly in the black community — yet we generally ignore it.

To speak out against the scourge of fatherless homes or the epidemic of out-of-wedlock births or the plague of divorce is to challenge people to excersise control and discipline in matters of love and sex. This is the one thing which, these days, you simply cannot do. In the end we get nowhere with our discussions about serious problems in the home. There are a few issues here and there that we are willing to address — and often address in the most theatrical and self-congratulatory ways possible — but the underlying sickness is not mentioned.

We are hypocrites. If we’re sincere about our concerns, we wouldn’t just say “don’t hit your spouse or your kid” and leave it at that. Instead, we’d start using words like love, fidelity, loyalty, and responsibility. We’d raise the bar higher and give people something real to shoot for.

This is the reason why progressivism has no solutions for anything. It can identify some things that people shouldn’t do, but at the bottom of everything, it has no idea what people should do. It knows that families shouldn’t be violent, sure, but it doesn’t understand that families first have to be families — single, solid, intact units, bound together by marriage and committed to one another in love and sacrifice.

If your anti-domestic abuse message isn’t rooted in a deep understanding of the nature and importance of family, your crusade will have little impact. It can only tell people what not to do, but it can’t tell them why they shouldn’t do it, or what they ought to be doing instead.

So spank your kids if that works for you. Don’t if it doesn’t. But no matter what, we must love them and stand by them, and keep our families together for their sake, for ours, and for God.

That’s most important thing that we can lesson from all of this.

The Holy Bible on child discipline...

"He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end, and not grope after the doors of his neighbors." (Ecclesiasticus 30:1)

"A horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong." (Ecclesiasticus 30:8)

"Give him not liberty in his youth, and wink not at his devices. Bow down his neck while he is young, and beat his sides while he is a child, lest he grow stubborn, and regard thee not, and so be a sorrow of heart to thee." (Ecclesiasticus 30:11-12)

"He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes." (Proverbs 13:24)

"Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou striketh him with a rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs 23:13-14)

Note: The failure of a parent to correct a child for serious wrongs is objectively a mortal sin. In Examination of Conscience for Adults: A Guide to Spiritual Progress, Fr. Donald F. Miller lists as a mortal sin, "Have I failed to correct and punish my children for serious wrongs, or to forbid them to enter serious occasions of sin?" (p. 77, +Imprimatur: Archbishop Moses E. Kiley, May 12, 1942). As Fr. Louis Colin emphasizes, "Who loves much, chastises much." (Love One Another, p. 189)

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Wars are a punishment for man's sins. Abortion, homosexuality, and the changes in the Catholic Church cry out to Heaven for just punishment.
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"Humanism in your world has been created by satan. You will bring back the adages of old of 'Spare the rod, and you will spoil the child.' Discipline must be returned to the homes.” - St. Joachim, July 25, 1973

Our Lady of the Roses' Awesome Bayside Prophecies... https://www.tldm.org/Bayside/
These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995:

DO NOT FALL DOWN
“Do not fall down in your job as a parent, for you will also be held responsible for the condition of your children’s souls when they are brought to Us.” - Our Lady, February 11, 1971

LACK OF DISCIPLINE AND TRUE DIRECTION
St. Anne - "Oh, how sad to look upon the homes of earth! Whatever has become of motherhood? Bad example, such poor example I see in many homes. You must return to the simple life. The love of riches will destroy your souls.
"Involvement of the parents in worldly pursuits and living take them farther from the graces of Heaven. The greatest offenses to the Father is the lack of discipline and true direction of many parents on earth today. My children--"
Veronica - And Saint Anne is placing her hand out, like this.
St. Anne - "You still have time to make restitution and atonement, and to save your children. You must bring them back to the Sacraments. You must be an example of modesty and true faith to them. Children will learn much by your example." - July 25, 1973

SPARE THE ROD, SPOIL THE CHILD
Veronica - Now Saint Joachim is walking over; he's standing now between Saint Anne and Our Lady. Now Saint Joachim is standing there. He has a long--it looks like a rod in his hand. And he's standing there holding the rod up, and he's saying:
St. Joachim - "In one hand you will hold the Book of life, and the other, discipline."
Veronica - And he's brandishing the stick, like this.
St. Joachim - "Humanism in your world has been created by satan. You will bring back the adages of old of 'Spare the rod, and you will spoil the child.' Discipline must be returned to the homes.”- July 25, 1973

DISCIPLINE AND TRUTH
"All parents must set a strong example of faith in the home. Your children are being subject to much error and much soul destruction outside your home. Discipline and truth must be brought to the children. The greatest responsibility for these children will be given to the parents. Guard their souls well.” - Our Lady July 1, 1973

A HARD PRICE
"Your children must be protected against the world, your world of evil. Better that they starve their bodies than to starve their souls. The seeking of worldly gain has sent many souls into hell. The example being shown in many homes is abominable. Many parents will pay a hard price in the loss of the Kingdom for their lack of discipline and proper direction of the souls entrusted to them.” - Our Lady, May 10, 1973

BE FIRM
"Man has lost his purity. All parents must guard the children's souls. Be firm with your children. The fashions grieve all Heaven.
     "The time is short, so you must make reparation now, and learn to recognize the signs. You must be guided by the light. The Holy Spirit will always be with you. Remain close to My Son. So many will be lost.” - Our Lady, August 5, 1970

ALL ABOUT YOU
"All about you, you see the disobedience of children. In your schools, your government, your churches--where is the respect, the honor to your God?
     "O you blind, foolish parents who do not recognize the products of your laxity! The blow, it will be visited upon you; for as you sow, so shall you reap. Yes, you parents are filling the bodies and minds with luxuries, but you have chosen to starve the souls of your children. Your children are being led farther into the darkness. We do not see the light ahead for them.” - Our Lady, July 25, 1971

GROW MORE DISOBEDIENT AND ARROGANT
“Children grow more disobedient and arrogant to parents. Man has lost the true meaning of love and charity of neighbor.
     "I counsel you all to take your Book of life, Bible, and become knowledgeable of these latter days. The plan for the days ahead is covered quite thoroughly in this Book of life.
     "Man would find his way to the Kingdom if he would cast aside the soul destroyers that he now has in his home, which destroy not only his soul but the souls of innocent children. For the love of money, these soul destroyers flood your earth.
     "The time will come, without your prayers and actions, when you will no longer recognize sin as sin. You will become accustomed to sin as a way of life. The numbers to be saved in the final count will be in the few.” - Our Lady, July 15, 1973

FIRMNESS IS NEEDED
"I wish that all fathers of households stand forth and practice their role. They will use the rod and not permit their children to go astray. Firmness is needed in your world that is filled with laxity, permissiveness, and degradation.
     "Your children have been misled by many who shall answer to the Father. As teachers they have failed in their role. Therefore, as parents you must succeed in yours.” - St. Joseph, March 18, 1973

STRONG DISCIPLINE AND LOVE
"I have asked you, I have directed you, as your Mother, to retire--retire from your world that has been given to satan. You must earn your daily bread by living in the world, but you must not become of the world. Your children must be guided with a strong discipline and love. But this love must be coming from the light, My children, for so few cry love, and they have lost the true meaning of love. For love is your God the Father in Heaven.” - Our Lady, September 7, 1976

ONLY PATH
"Man has set himself into the web of satan by straying from the path given by the Father. Discipline, self-discipline, and obedience to the rules of God are the only path." - Our Lady, November 24, 1973

Directives from Heaven... https://www.tldm.org/directives/directives.htm

D16 - Role of Parents PDF
D17 - Fall of Education PDF
D65 - The Home (Part1) PDF
D166 - Drugs PDF
D167 - The Family - Part 1 PDF
D168 - The Family - Part 2 PDF
D183 - Sex Education PDF
D235 - Disciplining Children PDF
D305 - The Home (Part 2) PDF

EDITOR'S COMMENT: Evil is accelerating and the Anti-Christ forces are gaining power in the world. When the persecution starts, all Christian web sites on the internet will be forced to close. Be sure to have in your possession all the following items: the Bayside Prophecy books, Bayside Medals, Douay-Rheims Bibles, the Protection Packets, Candles, Sacramentals, and Religious Books. Purchase these items now while they are still available! You will urgently need them in the days ahead. Also, you can print out all PDF files for the Directives from Heaven and all of the Bayside Prophecies. Copy Our Lady's messages and the Directives from Heaven now while they are still available! Pray to the Holy Spirit for wisdom and guidance on how to prepare now and for the days ahead when the Antichrist is revealed. Viva Cristo Rey!

Articles...

Spare the rod, spoil the child
https://www.tldm.org/news6/child.discipline.htm

Dr. Laura advises parents to use "swift and terrible" correction for defiant children
https://www.tldm.org/news7/DrLaura2.htm

Helping your children grow in maturity through discipline
https://www.tldm.org/news7/ChildDiscipline2.htm

St. Alphonsus Liguori's advice to parents
https://www.tldm.org/News8/AdviceToParents.htm

Are you an "escapist" parent?
https://www.tldm.org/news6/parents1.htm

A major source of today's parenting problems is the psychologizing of our culture
https://www.tldm.org/news6/children2.htm

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