My Commitment to Ending Family Violence

I Commit to End Family Violence in America

(and promote a culture of peaceful support in American families)

I was raised in a working class family in San Francisco. The Sunset district housed many parents buying their first homes after WWII, raising the earliest of the Baby Boomers. There was an appearance of propriety, kids were "well-behaved," civility between neighbors was the code.

A central problem, a fear, running silently through this generation of parents was: "What if my child becomes...SPOILED? Oh, my God! What if he's shivvering, and he says--right in front of 'company', 'I'm cold.' Then--I tell him to go to his room and put on a sweater, or the little ingrate would certainly say it again. He's living in MY house, by MY rules, he's not a BABY any more--he's four years old."

Children were to be seen and not heard. They were not to inconvenience parents any more than absolutely necessary. They HAD to be fed and clothed, they grew like WEEDS, it took TRAINING to keep them silent, well-mannered, never interrupting an adult, and keeping problems to themselves other than broken bones or spilled blood. The nature of that training was the problem.

"Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child," was the tenet. Everyone who followed that famous bromide had a belief that THEIR application of the spanking rod, regardless of ferocity, was the appropriate level of force. I was raised with this violence by a mother who herself had a soul-crushing childhood. Her life experience began long before my delivery. No parent is a clean slate.

I believe every parent starts with all the good intentions of raising a strong, capable, intelligent child. Then their history and their life gets in the way. Parents may calmly weigh their disciplinary options, but the sheer 24/7 aspect of demands by kids, by spouse, by circumstances will catch the mere mortals at their weakest moments.  People with harshness in their background then resort to spanking, hitting, slapping, punching, demeaning or spirit-breaking.

If, as a child, a parent was beaten into submission, told she was "worthless," "stupid," "ugly," "headed nowhere," she will have difficulty raising her child without bringing that self-image and those methods to bear. These battered adults often DEFEND violent upbringing, saying, "Dad only brought out the belt when I needed it." "Mom had a lot of buttons, and I used to push'em, I was a hard case."

Many counselors report that counseling begins with the statement that "I had a happy childhood, my folks were loving and fair." Examination then reveals there are grounds for sadness, bitterness, and anger. If there was violence, surprising feelings will come up. Reading and counseling in adulthood creates awareness that parents had alternatives to "the belt," or to heart-spearing words.

Even if a parent is conscious enough or angry enough to renounce violence, she will have difficulty erasing her history. Simply making the commitment to not hit, in my experience, provides no positive tools for disciplining a child, and can lead to ugly alternatives--shaking, pushing, yelling, controlling, demeaning comments that also scar the child.

Counseling, reading, coaching, transformative exercises, NLP, hypnosis and real communication plus learning tools for different situations are essential for a parent with a history of violence to raise a child without shouting or striking. These recommendations would also help a parent, with or without a history, who is considering flying by the seat of the pants through this child-rearing odyssey.