Regrets, I\u2019ve Had a Few<\/em><\/a>\u201d and introduced it by saying that whenever Elna talks about her parents he is impressed by the \u201chappy originality of some of their parenting moves, the ingenuity that her dad brought to tasks that no parent enjoys\u201d. But then Elna went on to recount what can only be described as the emotional abuse of children. The podcast is 13 minutes long, but if you don\u2019t have time to listen to it yourself, here are the highlights \u2013 or should I say low-lights:<\/p>\nIf Elna\u2019s dad thought one of his kids was lying to him, here\u2019s how he\u2019d coerce a confession: he\u2019d take a butter knife and hold it over a match or a lighter and threaten to touch it to their tongue. If they were lying, he\u2019d explain, the knife would burn their tongue. If they were telling the truth no harm would come to them. He\u2019d get his confession, all right, but also five crying, fearful children. Ira\u2019s comment? \u201cElna\u2019s dad tried to do the right thing as a parent, but he didn\u2019t mind entertaining himself in the process.\u201d I\u2019m fairly certain that Ira wouldn\u2019t find spanking or other types of corporal punishment \u201centertaining\u201d. Why was mock torture something to laugh about?<\/p>\n
One day Elna deliberately hit her younger sister with a broom, drawing blood. When she said it was an accident, her father staged a mock trial hoping she\u2019d confess. When she didn\u2019t, her dad decided to let her go scot free. He decided that forcing Elna to live \u201cfor the rest of her life\u201d knowing that she\u2019d hit her sister and lied about it would be the best punishment. Here\u2019s how Elna described the impact that had on her: \u201cI carried the guilt of this for most of my childhood. Like in church, when they would talk about lying or sin, this is the thing I would hold onto and relive because it was the worst thing I\u2019d ever done. And then also feeling so much worse because I then lied about it and gotten away with it. I thought a part of me was evil because I was capable of doing it and I was afraid of that part of me because I got away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the trial, Elna never hit Julia again but she continued to be mean and cruel to her. Julia filled in the blanks on some wondering questions in a Girl Scout notebook this way: \u201cI wonder why<\/em>\u2026 Elna is so mean to me. I wonder if\u2026anyone likes me. I wonder whether\u2026 my sister loves me. I wonder how come\u2026 Elna doesn\u2019t like me. I wonder where\u2026 I could be happy.\u201d Ira\u2019s comment to Elna after hearing this is to accuse her by saying, \u201cYou were awful!\u201d and Elna agrees with him and says \u201cI still feel really bad about it.\u201d<\/p>\nHere are some wondering questions of my own:<\/p>\n
I wonder why Ira failed to see that the damage done to Elna and Julia was not Elna\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n
I wonder why Ira didn\u2019t tell Elna that she wasn\u2019t awful, her parents were.<\/p>\n
I wonder why Elna\u2019s father was so focused on finding culprits and meeting out punishments instead of healing the broken sibling relationship between these two vulnerable sisters.<\/p>\n
I wonder how the parenting practices that caused so much emotional pain and suffering could be offered up as funny and praised as creative.<\/p>\n
In this season in which we focus so much on bringing joy to our children, let\u2019s examine the ways in which we may be modelling the worst kinds of behavior. Remember that we are responsible for creating environments of love or abuse, environments that will shape our children\u2019s behavior and sense of themselves as good or wicked people. So let\u2019s resolve not punish, threaten, or play cruel mind games with our children \u2013 behaviors which we certainly don\u2019t want them to imitate and adopt as their own. One simple thing we can all do this Christmas is to not use the threat of Santa\u2019s naughty and nice list to coerce good behavior out of our children. It\u2019s no different than a hot knife to the tongue. And if your children fight or are mean to one another, please remember that punishment or manipulative parenting techniques cannot cure sibling rivalry; only love can do that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you think you can tell the difference between good parenting and child abuse? It shouldn\u2019t be that hard, right? Well, it was an impossible task for Ira Glass this week, the National Public Radio star of the award winning and extremely popular program, This American Life. Each week, Ira treats his listeners to his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1659,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[426,214,535,534],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-child-abuse","tag-parenting","tag-siblings","tag-torture"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Do you think you can tell the difference between good parenting and child abuse? It shouldn\u2019t be that hard, right? Well, it was an impossible task for Ira Glass<\/a> this week, the National Public Radio star of the award winning and extremely popular program, This American Life<\/em><\/a>. Each week, Ira treats his listeners to his wry and ironic take on the stories his guests tell him about their life\u2019s ups and down. He can be inspiring and creative, almost always funny, so when I tuned in this week I was shocked to hear mock torture and punitive justice celebrated as good parenting.<\/p>\n