A little about the history of spanking in Sweden…

In the Wikipedia article about House spanking you can read (in my amateur-translation):

“House spanking was earlier a punishing method that meant that the master, housefather and housemother had the right to corporally punish (spank) children and servants. The wife was also subordinated to her husband [or if she wasn’t married she was subordinated to her father her whole life if I remember right? So talk about oppression].

The house spanking reflected the pre-industrial society where accessible sanction methods principally consisted of corporal punishment and death penalty [death penalty is forbidden in Sweden]. Since the nineteenth century this has become replaced with paying money and incarceration in Western societies.

Some Swedish county laws from the Middle Age said that the master (housefather) had the right to spank his wife, his children and servants ‘with moderation’ [and what was ‘moderate’?].

However, in the 1734 year law there were no regulations about the man’s right to spank his wife. Different soldier’s regulations came the years 1664-1833 and there the right for the housefather and housemother to spank their servants were regulated [they were allowed to spank their servants].

1858 the right to use house spanking was reduced to spanking employed boys under 18 years and employed girls under 16 years. This was abolished entirely in Sweden 1920.”

According to the Wikipedia-article on “Spanking” you can read about Sweden that

“Parents’ right to spank their children was abolished 1966 in Sweden. An explicit ban is valid since March 15, 1979.”

This means that the penalty directions about assault and battery in the Criminal Code in Sweden even includes child spanking. School spanking was banned 1958 when the new Volksschule was introduced.

House spanking was definitely forbidden 1920, when the housefather’s right to corporally spank juvenile employees was abolished. Ship’s officers’ right to spank ceased 1922.

Investigations have shown that the attitude towards spanking has changed powerfully during the twentieth century in Sweden. For instance 53 % of the adults were positive to corporal spanking of children 1965 compared to 11 % 1994.

I have used these sources: “House spanking” (or husaga), “The old Farmer society” (or det gam la bondesamhället), “Spanking” in English and “Aga” in Swedish, “The Criminal Code” and about the Swedish “Volksschule.”

All sorts of spanking should become banned wherever they occur in this world. No matter what society, religion etc. that allows or uses it.

See Miller on what happens around the world in for instance Rwanda, former Yugoslavia (Serbia), Afghanistan etc.hits on her site about spanking.

And I want to add that I don't think all people here in Sweden spanked their kids, wives, servants even if they were allowed during history. But unfortunately a lot did I guess. Because it was societally approved of. And it was the same all over the world in ancient times?

How do we deal with societies, religions etc. still allowing these things today? And on how many places in this world do such things still exist and are seen as natural?

By pointing out and showing how harmful these things are? By referring to recent findings in research and science? And not least by expressing our outrage when we hear about such things? By trying to use arguments against it? Not with showing more of the same to them (how tempting this would even be)? But no, I don't say that this is easy!

If I had more time now I would search for research showing how harmful spanking is (for instance for the brain). But here are links concerning child abuse and brain damage on Alice Miller's site. For instance see this letter by a Norwegian man. He for instance mentions "the CIC-study" or "The Children in Community Study" from New York.

My maternal grandmother grew up in a strictly religious family, they were Laestadians, and I think they used corporal punishment. And other forms of abuse to. Hypocritically talking about love and for the children's best and such things.

And all those examples, no matter how big or small the religion, society, culture, tradition, party or group supporting or using these methods or what sort of society,group, tradition, culture, should be pulled into light and condemned. Even single individuals using it, not belonging to any particular group.

Not just some of them should become brought to light, but as many as possible. And many people have also started doing this. Writing about cases occurring even in our civilized world. Yes, we should continue talking about those things and bring them up. And maybe do it even more than we do!?

And see Jonathan H. Pincus on societal approval in "Hitler and Hatred." I want to add that I think it's possible to recover! But it probably demands a lot of work (a work that COULD have been avoided and years of our lives that shouldn't have become wasted!).

Addition after lunch:see links about childhood abuse and its consequences for the latter health (not least the somatic)

• ACE-study
• CDC-site
• Child abuse and brain damage - letter to Alice Miller
• Child abuse hurts the brain
• Different articles
• Experts discuss lifelong impact of early childhood adversity
• Interview with Jack Shonkoff
• Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in February 2008
• Powerpoint and diagrams
• Professor Martin Teicher in an article in which he states 4 abnormalities that result from abuse in the first 4 years of a child’s life
• Verbal abuse hurts as much as sexual abuse

A menace to the health of children – Memphis Academy of Health Science…

Two videos etc. about the Memphis case you can find here.

Read about “Memphis Academy of Health Sciences is a Menace to the Health of Children.”
And see about this school here.

Paula Flowe writes:

“Girls are whipped on their hands with a leather strap wielded by Principal Curtis Weathers -- a 6' 6" former football player. The girls to be whipped await their turn while the audience watches in anticipation. As he swings his belt, Mr. Weathers counts off 10 strokes. If the victim, out of fear or pain, retracts her hand, the count starts over again. If she cannot make it through ten strokes, she is suspended and must try again the following Friday. She is not allowed to resume classes until she successfully completes the hand-beating ritual. The psychological effects on a child undergoing such an experience -- or witnessing it -- can only be guessed, and the high risk to the delicate anatomy of the hand cannot be over-stated.

Girls are also beaten on their buttocks. When Ms. Biles, President of Middle School, does the honors, the paddle is her weapon of choice. The victim moves to the center of the floor, grasps the back of a chair and assumes a rump-presentation posture, whereupon Ms. Biles, delivers five swift blows to the buttocks.

It should be noted that the human buttock area is an erogenous zone, and research scientists have long recognized that abuse to that region can cause sexual confusion, low self-esteem and a host of other long-term issues. When done to a non-consenting adult, it constitutes sexual battery.

The paddling of boys, done by Mr. Weathers, has a few added features. He first looks down into the boy's pants to be sure he hasn't padded his seat with extra clothing. Anything that might cushion the blows is removed. Then, he typically grabs the waistband or belt of the boy's pants and jerks him into position for the paddling. This upward hoisting of the garment, causes child's genitals to be jambed against the body. This is a form of sexual bullying commonly referred to in youth culture jargon as a ‘wedgie.’ The effect of a ‘wedgie’ on a male's genitals is similar to that of being grabbed. When the student is in position, Mr. Weathers whacks him repeatedly with the paddle. Mr. Weathers has two paddles which he has affectionately dubbed, ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Mr. Wood.’"

How horrible!

Astrid Lindgren about becoming spanked as a child…

Astrid Lindgren 16 years.

[Updated August 31, and slightly edited in the first part]. I have been on a course in the parts of Sweden where Astrid Lindgren was born, and found a book containing Astrid’s description of her childhood home, and thus also childhood, written to her nieces.

Astrid and her one year older brother Gunnar (dead already 1974 only 68 years) bought their childhood home together, and 1987 Astrid gave her part to her brother’s daughters Gunvor, Barbro and Eivor (of whom Barbro is mother to the author Karin Alvtegen, her home site).

Astrid and Gunnar also had two younger sisters, all siblings were married, but one sister never got any children I think. So Astrid had one heir and one heiress (a son and a daughter) but gave her part of the childhood home to her nieces nevertheless, of some reason.

I will try to translate what Lindgren writes later, so this posting will become updated this weekend hopefully.

I just want to remind eventual readers about Lindgren’s speech 1978 “Never violence.”

Earlier postings under the label “Astrid Lindgren.”

Addition August 31: In the book referred to above Astrid described how her childhood home at Näs looked like, and how it was furnished and she also describes some scenes from back then.

In the second part of the book she comes to the sofa in the living-room (what we called “sal”), a sofa which stands at the same place as it did when she was a child. On this sofa she and her brother got spanked the first time she writes.

The reason for this spanking was that she and her brother Gunnar had gone to “the murmuring ditch” (porlande dike) where Gunnar quickly climbed the stones, and Astrid of course followed him, with the result that she fell down between two stones in it. Gunnar ran home and told their maid Signe who went to the parsonage (prästård), where their mother was, something Astrid always thought was very stupid. Because their mother came fetching her two kids.

First she spanked Gunnar with the birch (riset), which Astrid thought was very funny to watch she writes, and then Astrid, something she didn’t think was fun at all,

“…when I for the first time in my life got spanked”

as she writes.

She didn’t become spanked again until she turned five or six when she had decided to move to the loo, from home (so at the first occasion described above she must have been smaller!!), because she had been unfairly treated of some reason (for what and how she had forgotten by then? She only rememered that she had been unfairly treated).

She was convinced that all should come running asking her to move home for God’s sake, but, no, they didn’t.

She bore being at the loo for five minutes, she thinks, and during this time her mom had taken the opportunity to offer sweets to the other people or kids. This was more than Astrid could stand, so when her mom came passing Astrid kicked with her foot, of course so she didn’t kick her mom, she only kicked at her mom as a sort of demonstration. But she shouldn’t have done that, because then she got spanked for the second time in her life as she writes.

The third and last time was when she and her younger sister Stina had been invited to a Mia (cousin?) in a nearby village. They had gone there on foot. Mom had said that they should be home by 7 that evening.

However, it was “unnaturally fun” at Mia’s. And Astrid had albuminuria (äggvita) and felt that she hadn’t the strength walking home. Their aunt Hardine (mother's younger sister) then said:

“I think you can stay, I take that on me!”

She took the responsibility on her. At this time there was no phone in this village, and they trusted aunt Hardine and stayed. But at 9 o’clock in the evening "their Pelle" (the farm-hand?) came and fetched them, and when they came home their mother met them at the yard saying:

“Is it seven o’clock?”

and walked further and fetched a birch with which Stina and Astrid got spanked, not on the sofa, but on their room one stair up. Astrid recalls this because

“…the birch laid frayed (trasigt) on the fireplace the next morning, where it was discovered by Signe (the maid) who said: ‘I think you are too big to get spanked!’”

The girls thought so too as Astrid writes. Astrid continues that

“That spanking I apprehend as abuse, although it probably was scarcely perceptible [wasn’t it??] because the birch was of such a bad quality that it got broken immediately [did it actually?? Or was the spanking so severe? So Astrid had to deny what she had been exposed to, including how extremely humiliating it had been?].”

So how rosy was this childhood actually? But Astrid and her siblings had witnesses around them? And the strictness wasn’t total?

A frustrated therapist...

who went to monasteries - and why?

Read Alice Miller's conversation with a frustrated therapist here and here, about a small boy the therapist has as client/patient, beaten by his parents; thrashed so there are big red welts on his buttocks:

"...when he goes to other people, men, women teachers, parents, therapists, to try and get some help, some information, something of the truth to help him clear his confusion, the message he gets is that its his fault if his beatings upset him, its his fault because of the way he took his beatings, his parents are not to be blamed, its no-ones' fault, it was not wrong of them to beat him because the law allowed it. So he doesn't go to therapists any more. They just abuse him.

AM: Why don't you tell him that nobody has the right to hit and mistreat him and that you will talk to his parents and tell them that what they are doing is a crime. It is your duty to protect this boy from the lies he has been taught and to tell him the truth. Otherwise a so-called therapy is a farce.

JR: Oh, I tried that, believe me. They have full support in their abusive behaviour from his headmaster, his headmistress, all his teachers, the police, the vicar, the priest, the imam, the counsellor, and the doctor. They all assure his parents that their son is evil, it is a kindness to correct him. And then, there are all my professionalist colleagues who will insist, to his parents and to everyone else that it is not their job to say what is right or wrong, that people are entitled to their opinions, it is an issue of difference and that it might well be the way he has taken his beatings that is causing his problems. His parents feel very strongly that I am a commie beatnik and they did in fact threaten to call the police if I didn't quit their premises immediately."

Nanny-programs and children in Africa...

About Nanny-programs, and how children are treated in schools in Africa.