Broken Windows, Broken Souls

Cris Carter, Hall Of Fame wide receiver who played mostly for the Minnesota Vikings, gave an impassioned plea against beating children, in the darkness of Adrian Peterson's arrest for beating one of his children. Let's go to the videotape.

http://deadspin.com/emotional-cris-carter-on-child-abuse-my-mom-was-wrong-1634570468?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_facebook&utm_source=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Peterson is alleged to have beaten his 4 year old son with a "switch" a small tree branch, to you city folk. "Alleged" is a relative term here because, well, he did it. This was the way he was raised as a child and, as former NBA player Charles Barkley explained, it's what all blacks do in the south. For some reason Charles was interviewed on the matter on Sunday morning's NFL Today program. Ferrerman note here: the NFL leads all the leagues in news panel-like pre-game, halftime, and post game chit-chat with panels of experts. Ex-players and coaches sit down and prognosticate about the games while wondering what prognosticate means. The show's are the NFL's version of The Five on Fox or Meet The Press. I guess they chose Barkley because he is black, southern and was near the studio at show time.

I like Charles. He's affable and amusing. His take was rather matter-a-fact, noting that it's a southern black thing, and that you'd have to arrest the whole black south if beating your yunguns was a crime. This really must have pricked up some GOP ears!

But, Barkley had seen the pics and they brought back childhood memories that didn't haunt him like they did Cris Carter. At the end of the video, by the way, Mike Ditka goes on to proclaim that childhood beatings made him the blowhard, fucking jerk he is today. I guess that was why they cut off the video where they did.

The only thing I got out of childhood beatings was that I would never raise my hand to a child- ever. It is weakness. It's not parenting, nor is it effective discipline. It is vengeance. That old saw about this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, is Hollywood bullshit. A whupping/spanking at best teaches a child that violence solves problems. It doesn't. And, in the absence of  physical scars, there are mental scars. See the men above. But worse, kids have been killed by the people who were supposed to love them unconditionally. Anger is just one letter away from danger.

I have never in my life heard someone I respect defend child abuse. Kids become good people not because of beating but, in spite of beatings. If mom and dad had never laid a hand, belt or wooden spoon on me I would still be the Ferrerman I am today. And, I would still not be beating my kids because I never would have learned that at home. I never even hit my brothers. We rough-housed but, no fist fights. Years ago a boss of mine who despised his brother met one of mine and asked what the meanest thing I had ever done to him was. He couldn't recall anything. Instead he remembered the time I brought him a cheese sandwich when he had been sent to bed without dinner. I don't remember that. It meant a lot to him. That means a lot to me.

Working on paint crews in the south, I heard the defense of this southern strategy. Guys were damn near proud to have been beaten. As with Ditka, I even heard..."It made me the man I am today..."
I'd look down the line at these guys...drunk...drug addict....prison...drug addict...jail....

Not all of them. It was the guys you didn't think much of anyway and now you had an insight into why. It's the same with the imaginary people on Topix. The emotional scars of childhood live on for so many people, unseen in the moment when mom or dad is teaching you a lesson you'll never forget. How often was that the same lesson you didn't learn the day before? Being a kid isn't easy. Being a parent isn't either. My folks were not experts and probably winged it, using their own childhoods as a primer. I suspect that was the norm at the time. It's not an excuse so much as it is an explanation. You can mock parents who give time outs as "weak" and "ineffective" and even "gutless" but, there's no blood-no foul with that approach. Yes, children and life are more complicated than that but, a little kindness goes along way. Violence goes the extra hard road.

I'm proud I never raised my hand nor my voice to my son. He turned out well. I did give him a perfunctory smack on the butt when he broke his first window but honestly I was delighted just to have been there for it. That's divorced Dad stuff. You cherish every moment as they grow up so fast two weekends a month. And the window, of course, was an accident. He was throwing rocks at a tree with another kid. There are no six year old phenoms in the big league for a reason. Stuff happens. It's better to err on the side of love for your children, isn't it? Better for you, for them, and better for the world.