Teen Parents/ Parenting

gph said:
That's not the point.

My point is you can plug just about anything into your logic of "if it were all that bad, we wouldn't have survived to dominate the planet". Rape, infanticide, you name it, we are dominating now therefore they mustn't be all that bad.
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You could plug in just about anything, but it wouldn't make sense to do so. Perhaps I was unclear about why I asserted that it couldn't have been all that bad.

My assertion is that anything that was considered normal, typical, behavior across a wide variety of human societies can't be all that bad. If darned near everyone has done it throughout history, it really is probably ok. It might even be beneficial. At the very least, those elements that have always been considered normal must not be horrible, because if they were, we wouldn't have been so successful as a species.

Corporal punishment is one of those things that has been considered normal, typical, behavior, practiced by darned near everyone. It really can't be all that bad.

Rape and infanticide have always been a part of every society, but they have not been considered normal behavior. Murder and theft have been always part of every society, but they've been discouraged and punished, unlike striking children, which has been encouraged in most cases and tolerated in all, at least until lately.
 
Not in and of itself, but with the demands of society and the extended adolescence that an advance civilization creates, it is. When adult responsibilities were much simpler, a younger person could handle the demands of adulthood. That is not true anymore. Now it takes more years of maturity to be in a position to manage one's life successfully in the working world. High school and college has extended adolescence, delaying adulthood out of necessity. So in today's world it is absolutely wrong to bestow such a responsibility on a teen.

Young girls absolutely need to be protected.
 
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Meadmaker said:
My assertion is that anything that was considered normal, typical, behavior across a wide variety of human societies can't be all that bad. If darned near everyone has done it throughout history, it really is probably ok. It might even be beneficial. At the very least, those elements that have always been considered normal must not be horrible, because if they were, we wouldn't have been so successful as a species.
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Like slavery? Or corporal punishment of adults for breaking laws? Or capital punishment? All these have been seen as normal and typical in human history, up until very recently. Are they not horrible? (I know some Americans will disagree on the capital punishment, but the rest of the civilized world has abandoned it.)

But as I asked earlier, if corporal punishment of children is a good thing, why not corporal punishment of adults? Why is it ok to beat children, but not adults?
 
bookitty said:
Are you really saying that 13 year-olds would be happier if they could work menial jobs and breed as early as possible? How would they be able to fulfill their goals if this was the case. (Unless of course, their goals included raising a houseful of kids on minimum wage?)
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I see other reasons than this to recommend teenagers to refrain from making babies.

But this reason presented by you is no reason at all, really, because you are not talking about something that people would avoid generally, if teenagers didn´t get pregnant. Low socioeconomical status is a fact of life (in non-Socialist countries), an unavoidable fate of a large part of the population. Minimum wage and menial jobs are the real fate of large masses of population, the way how the society is designed now. If there is something wrong with that, then you should adopt Socialism and make it illegal to pay low salaries to anyone. If you are not willing to do that, then this social stratification is acceptable for you, please be so honest as not to make a hand-picked cherry out of teenager moms.

And besides, pregnancy is not 9 months idle sitting, it is possible to remain in working life, not to speak of studying online courses on a laptop at home, for most of the pregnancy time. Then baby care centers are available to take care of the thing during office hours if the mom goes to school or to work. Pregnancy does not necessarily delay one´s studies as much as military service does, which is obligatory in many countries and nobody whines about the 1 year delay in the education of men.
 
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Meadmaker said:
You could plug in just about anything, but it wouldn't make sense to do so. Perhaps I was unclear about why I asserted that it couldn't have been all that bad.

My assertion is that anything that was considered normal, typical, behavior across a wide variety of human societies can't be all that bad. If darned near everyone has done it throughout history, it really is probably ok. It might even be beneficial. At the very least, those elements that have always been considered normal must not be horrible, because if they were, we wouldn't have been so successful as a species.

Corporal punishment is one of those things that has been considered normal, typical, behavior, practiced by darned near everyone. It really can't be all that bad.

Rape and infanticide have always been a part of every society, but they have not been considered normal behavior. Murder and theft have been always part of every society, but they've been discouraged and punished, unlike striking children, which has been encouraged in most cases and tolerated in all, at least until lately.
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Your expanded explanation makes more sense though I don't think "because it has always been done" is a valid reason to condone anything today. In the past people did lots of things we now consider stupid, harmful and/or immoral.

There's lots of well adjusted people walking the earth today that were never hit as a child and no doubt lots that were hit. The former flies in the face of the supposed virtues of corporal punishment.

Is it acceptable for one adult to hit another to achieve a goal? If not, why not?
 
gph said:
So you see them as possibly fit to parent in the future. Ok, but when they are hitting their kid they most certainly are not.
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Unnecessary cruelty is simply sad and idiotic, but children are no philosophers either, you cannot always talk them to do what must be done.

As an analogy we can think of taming a horse for equestrian purposes. Causing unnecessary suffering to a horse would be illegal, and that is not exactly what is happening either. Subtle and carefully restricted use of pain tames the horse to understand what is expected from it and bend to the will of the rider.
 
JJM 777 said:
Unnecessary cruelty is simply sad and idiotic, but children are no philosophers either, you cannot always talk them to do what must be done.

As an analogy we can think of taming a horse for equestrian purposes. Causing unnecessary suffering to a horse would be illegal, and that is not exactly what is happening either. Subtle and carefully restricted use of pain tames the horse to understand what is expected from it and bend to the will of the rider.
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By that logic all the people that were never hit as child are ill-adjusted adults.
 
JJM 777 said:
Unnecessary cruelty is simply sad and idiotic, but children are no philosophers either, you cannot always talk them to do what must be done.

As an analogy we can think of taming a horse for equestrian purposes. Causing unnecessary suffering to a horse would be illegal, and that is not exactly what is happening either. Subtle and carefully restricted use of pain tames the horse to understand what is expected from it and bend to the will of the rider.
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And if there was an alternative method of training horses that gave the same results, would you then condone pain for training? Especially if you knew that some horse trainers overused pain and created mentally imbalanced horses?

Do you think children from countries that forbid corporal punishment for children are more prone to be ill-adjusted than children from countries that allow it?

To help you answer, you can find a list of countries that have banned corporal punishment of children here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment_in_the_home
 
A report from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents be encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior.
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The more children are spanked, the more anger they report as adults, the more likely they are to spank their own children, the more likely they are to approve of hitting a spouse, and the more marital conflict they experience as adults. Spanking has been associated with higher rates of physical aggression, more substance abuse, and increased risk of crime and violence when used with older children and adolescents.
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Source here.
 
Meadmaker said:
I'm pretty sure that having sex with pre-pubescent children has always been considered abnornmal behavior. I'm willing to listen to evidence that any society has encouraged or tolerated it, but I don't think there will be any. As for having sex with post-pubescents, see the portion of the OP that refers to teen parenting.
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Jumping in real quick.

I've heard of an island somewhere in the South Pacific in which the "elders" of the community were expected to show and teach children about their sexual parts, the proceed to show them "how to use them."

I forget the name of the society, and the name of the island. I only remember it was in the South Pacific. Could probably Google it, but am too lazy to do so right now.
 
Meadmaker said:
To be fair, not much. I'm just guessing that since the records that we have indicate that corporal punishment is normal, that it has been that way ever since the development of modern humans.




Human life has been generally nasty. I don't encourage spanking or anything more harsh, but, as I said, I'm not willing to call someone a "bad parent" just because they do it. A lot of us who were spanked turned out ok, and that is true for more generations going back in time than we can remember. It really can't be all that bad.
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In my experience, my parents had five children. I have an older brother, an older sister, an identical twin brother, and a younger sister.

All 5 of us got a good whack once or twice in our lives. That was all that was needed. Anytime my parents told us to do something, we did it without question!

All four of the five of us are married (my younger sister is engaged,) we all have children, with the exception of my little sis, we all graduated from college with honors, and my older siblings each had a 4.0 GPA. We all have careers, or are starting real careers.

Anecdotal evidence: Yes.
Evidence that my parents were great parent: Yes.

In conclusion, my experience has been a rather positive one, "despite" the fact that we all were smacked a few times at a young age. Go figure. :)
 
what confuses me is if I can assault my child why can't I assault my wife?

any thoughts?
 
Nihilianth said:
Jumping in real quick.

I've heard of an island somewhere in the South Pacific in which the "elders" of the community were expected to show and teach children about their sexual parts, the proceed to show them "how to use them."

I forget the name of the society, and the name of the island. I only remember it was in the South Pacific. Could probably Google it, but am too lazy to do so right now.
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Are you thinking of the sexual abuse that occurred on Pitcairn Island?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004
 
gph said:
There's lots of well adjusted people walking the earth today that were never hit as a child and no doubt lots that were hit. The former flies in the face of the supposed virtues of corporal punishment.
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And the latter flies in the face of the supposed harm of corporal punishment.


Maybe, just maybe, any blanket statement saying that corporal punishment is "good parenting" or "bad parenting" would be overly broad.
 
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Ryokan said:
Like slavery? Or corporal punishment of adults for breaking laws? Or capital punishment? All these have been seen as normal and typical in human history, up until very recently. Are they not horrible? (I know some Americans will disagree on the capital punishment, but the rest of the civilized world has abandoned it.)

But as I asked earlier, if corporal punishment of children is a good thing, why not corporal punishment of adults? Why is it ok to beat children, but not adults?
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Of your examples, only slavery gives me any pause. I'm glad I live in a jurisdiction (Michigan) with no capital punishment, but, yes, I will say that capital punishment cannot be all that bad, or it would not have been the norm throughout history. As for corporal punishment of adults, I'm unconvinced that it is necessarily more cruel than incarceration for significant lengths of time. Therefore, I would say that it really can't be all that bad.

Slavery is somewhat more difficult to refute as a counterexample of something that appears to be normal in human history, but which I would condemn as immoral. I would note, however, that slavery is far less universal than your other examples. What has been universal is a highly stratified society, with those at the bottom having a very bad time of it. However, their condition was rarely comparable to what Africans experienced in the United States. When we think of "slavery" that's what Americans think of, but the experience of other people whose condition is translated into English as "slaves" was rarely that horrific.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Of your examples, only slavery gives me any pause. I'm glad I live in a jurisdiction (Michigan) with no capital punishment, but, yes, I will say that capital punishment cannot be all that bad, or it would not have been the norm throughout history. As for corporal punishment of adults, I'm unconvinced that it is necessarily more cruel than incarceration for significant lengths of time. Therefore, I would say that it really can't be all that bad.

Slavery is somewhat more difficult to refute as a counterexample of something that appears to be normal in human history, but which I would condemn as immoral. I would note, however, that slavery is far less universal than your other examples. What has been universal is a highly stratified society, with those at the bottom having a very bad time of it. However, their condition was rarely comparable to what Africans experienced in the United States. When we think of "slavery" that's what Americans think of, but the experience of other people whose condition is translated into English as "slaves" was rarely that horrific.
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I don't think this POV is going to get a lot of traction.

For one thing I believe your views on slavery are a bit sugar-coated. Yes, there were societies where the concept did not exactly take the form of the brutal, hopeless chattel slavery common in the Americas, but I don't know that those were particularly predominant. I suspect that might be a case of cherry picking.

Other examples are also easy to point out. War for the purpose of material profit has also been a norm in human history, and the institution of international efforts to discourage it is a very recent development which actually flies in the face of what was generally considered to be a righteous cause, at least by the victors. Remember "Manifest Destiny"? That wasn't very long ago, historically speaking, and was a rather mild interpretation of the 'might makes right' philosophy even for its time.

In and of itself, merely being an historical "norm" does not confer any sort of sanction or affirmation, or even any hint about utility. This is what social progress is all about. Religious intolerance has also been a norm for most of human history, but I doubt many people will try and justify it that way or argue that it must therefore some be beneficial or even harmless.
 
Yes, people used to get married and reproduce at much earlier ages than is currently the norm.

They also didn't move out of the family home, but lived with one of the couple's parents, siblings, and grandparents for their entire lives. It's far easier to have children early when you have a house full of relatives to help out raising, caring for them, and providing economic assistance.
 
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