Children and Pain

Some time ago, some fellows had a moral dilemma. They were talking about shouting at wives and I interrupted: why would you shout at your wife? Just be nice to her. They said you can’t be nice to your wife when she has patently annoyed you. I asked them to show more charity but they wondered where I was coming from. They asked me, “What’s wrong in shouting at wives, Don’t people beat children? Is it right or wrong?”


I now answer that it is wrong first to compare shouting at a wife that one does from their weakness and is not a tool like beating a child. To compare them both is to not understand the two different cases at all. I have other means with my child but I use beating (pain) as it is most effective (why such effectiveness is justified only in the case of children will be dealt with later). In the case of my wife I can’t use pain is because I am suppose to show love.


To shout is the absence of good. A patient person would show tolerance before breaking. To not possess the virtue of patience is not an excuse to yell or beat someone. A much more patient person would show a lot more patience before breaking. My point is, a person who makes a scathing remark instantly on his wife or yells at her at the drop of a hat, it shows, how much love has subjected him to obedience and virtue. Love makes us love our mothers. Love should make us love our wives and be understanding, respect their free will what they choose for themselves (until unless it undermines your marriage as a whole) Love makes a person increase in holiness (being patient, pure, generous, understanding).


And here is where I said that if a husband yells at a wife where he ought to show love, he is weak. This is fine, everyone is weak in different degrees. There is none who has escaped the fallen nature of Man. But some are weaker than others. Some try not to be weak and in that they show a lot of virtue because love disposes them to virtue. Some of them have by habit, created a vice. They are those of whom their wives say, “My husband, if my house is not in order, he gets wild” or “My husband, the minute he steps into the door, poor man, bad day at work, starts screaming at everyone” These men are more weak than others. They ought to try harder as the good men who love their wives and will never raise their voices much less fingers even under fire. Testimony to this fact is my father (so that no one says such men don’t exist. And Yes, I believe it is holiness that has made my father like this. Without holiness, he would be just like other men. )


Now I come to the crux of the topic of why such love may not be used with children.


You don't beat a woman because she is not a child. Somehow this line may seem to give the license to beat children. What is it about children that they can be beaten and what is it really about adults that they can't. There is something in adults (woman, adults, parents et all) that is missing in children due to which what is torture to woman is not so to children. What is ‘manhandle’ to woman is not so to children. What is ‘force’ to woman is not so to children. And that's why beating children, shouting at them is not the same and cannot be compared to beating and shouting at wives and women in general.


I am not trying to justify violence against children. Violence is to harm a person as its end. Beating children is violence when you beat children as an end. When you beat children because you are a father and you want to show them who is boss amounts to violence. I am not speaking of this form of beating. This form of beating uses 'they are my children I can do what I want' as a pretext to manhandle other beings. It makes objects of children such as tables and chairs we can fling in any corner of the house. This is downright wrong and is condemned by me too. But I am talking of beating in a much more philosophical sense


Beating causes pain. A child at his/her age cannot understand why a particular thing is good or bad. If he wants it, he wants it. It is not given to a child to reason or understand: may be my parents are not that wealthy. I think I am wrong in my demands. May be I will be a good boy and they, in their joy, give it to me


A child cannot reason like this. His will though, when he comes of age and that is why an adult (teen) is taken to psychologist to mend his ways and not to a policeman, to be threatened to mend them anyways. A psychologist will 'reason' with the teenager which if the teenager finds reasonable will amend his ways. Whereas a child will be threatened of being sent to military school or of the bogie man or of the devil snatching him away if he makes mischief. Fear of pain and pain itself plays a prominent role in a child's life because at such an age a child is more animal in his mind.


A child is full of passions (emotions). That is why when an adult who does not understand a mother's plight and demands for a bike is said to be acting childish. It is because such a behavior is uncalled for from him. He is supposed to allow reason to prevail. He is supposed to think: my mother is poor, how can I demand a bike from her, what if to make me happy she indulges in committing wrongs like shoplifting or sexual favors just to get me a bike?


A child will not 'reason' but only think through emotions. Emotions engulf a child. It is for the very same reason a child has to be bribed and deals have to be struck to aid him to excel. "Learn mathematics and mama will get you a chocolate" the child does not understand that mathematics is essential to his development to further advance into algebra or calculus like a teenager would. A child does not understand that mathematics is noble and much like an art that can be indulged in as a mathematician or a scientist understands it. Thus a mother uses bribe or fear (pain) to encourage him to believe in something he doesn't understand (why) only for the day that will come when he will understand goodness of mathematics in order to believe.


This is why mothers beat children. There are much tastier delicacies than ‘farex’ and baby food but a child can only understand baby food and liquids. There is still time for chicken, samosas, pulav and biryani. The child's age finally gives in to the 'real' delicacies when he is an adult. In the same way, a child cannot understand 'reason', he wouldn't understand if you speak to him on the nobility of science or the usefulness of geography to encourage him to study.


The child's turns into an adult gives in to reason not into pain and no more can this child-who-is-an-adult-now be beaten but has to be persuaded. Mothers usually complain to their friends, other agony aunts, "my son doesn't listen to me" this means she does not beat him but tries to reason and the ‘agony aunt friends’ don't say, "Why don't you cage him or beat him" they usually say, "Don’t worry, my son will speak to your son"


When a child is an adult and of 'reason' no more can you think of his good so much so to impose it on him of what he can't think for himself. You cannot force ‘good’ on him if he himself doesn't agree it is 'good'. This will be imposing your good on him. No one tells a mother who has a child of 6 years that she is imposing her idea of good on the kid for a child doesn't know what is good. Left to himself, he would think spending all year in Disney land and having all the toys in the world qualifies as ‘good’.


Now I will admit not all kids need to be beaten and rightly aren’t. Some are really disposed to obey. They have been brought up into thinking that only in obedience is their good. This is because they have faith in their parents. This is not a bad thing as people make of ‘faith’ today saying it is blinding and foolish and better not to trust anyone. No parents usually deceive their children. The trouble begins when the parents, in charge of guiding their children look to directing them towards their gain than that of the one's they are supposed to serve (children). We have faith in the law and hence we approach them. The trouble begins when the officers in charge of dispensing law look to their own gain than that of the one's they are supposed to serve (citizens)


Hence you can't beat a woman for your own requirement if she doesn't do or think as you say. She has been endowed with 'reason' as you are, to think for herself, as you think for yourself. Our love is first in respecting this freedom of will they have. We do not respect the freedom of will of a child not because he hasn't any but because his will is distorted and he doesn't know what is good. How do you respect a child's will who is ready to cry and break everything in the shop until the batman figure is his to take home? The same action if committed by a man we would say he is mentally ill. It is simply because the man has not let 'reason' prevail. We talk to the child in the language he understands-pain. Only till pain gives in to reason and no more does pain need to be used. For if it is used on a man who can reason, it is torture.

N.B: I am only writing on why people beat children and not why children ought to be beaten.