Adventures in Peaceful Anarchoparenting, Volume 1

What is the definition of anarchism? Everyone's definition is different. Some use the word the way early Europeans described it in a socialist manner, others think it's bricks flying through windows and yelling "Muthaf#ck da police". I break down the word to its core. The absence of authority or rulership. When considering myself an anarchist, I often ask myself, "Do I practice what I preach"?

Being a single guy raising a child in this world, my interactions with my child come to mind regularly. "Should I spank her?", "Should I give her a time out?" and "How can I instill values into my daughter without being an authoritarian?". All of these questions have been able to be answered slowly through fact finding, interactive revelation and just sticking to the principles of what constitutes me as an anarchist.

This episode covers:

SHOULD I SPANK HER?

Seems like a controversial topic for most nowadays, with Adrian Peterson in the news for whipping the crap out of his toddler with a stick and debates on freedomainradio.com and the occasional Alfie Cohn article. It became simple to me after thought, discussion and analysis that by spanking my child, I am setting her up for more failure than success, and damaging a transparency bond that should be built on love and respect, not fear and intimidation.

Imagine if you grew up with your closest confidant telling you "If you don't do what I say, I'm going to beat the crap out of you!". Now for a second, imagine that person isn't your parent, but instead is your classmate, boss, or significant other. Would this foster a good school learning environment? A positive workplace full of productivity and idea sharing? A healthy marriage? Of course not. Now my only question for you based on this is WHY THE HELL WOULD IT WORK WITH RAISING CHILDREN!

Well, for all of you skeptics out there, here are some studies on spanking and the results they came up with:

1. Tulane University researchers polled 2,500 mothers and found that 54% of them have spanked their children at least once. Out of these mothers polled, two years later, it was found that the children who were spanked were more aggressive, prone to violence and would fight and threaten others frequently... You don't say.. Kids don't learn this stuff on their own.

2.  Elizabeth Gershoff, PhD, who researches physical punishment at the University of Texas at Austin, made the claim that spanking has no positive outcomes.  Why? When parents see that spanking doesn't have any effect on calming  their children, they increase the violence. Does that change anything?  No. children do not learn discipline lessons  from spanking, but instead begin to fear the parent and develop  aggression. Starting to sound more and more like the examples I listed above yet?

3.  Whites, on average, are 11 percent less likely to spank their children than African-Americans.  Non-whites and non-blacks (classified as Asians, Native Americans,  etc.) are 5 percent less likely than whites to approve of spanking. Remember folks, statistics cannot be racist. However, they can help us explain aggression within culture that may explain inequalities in our lives. Not color, culture.

4.   Spanked kids are more likely to lie. When researchers  and study authors polled 3- and 4-year-old students from both punitive  and non-punitive schools, they found a significant increase in how they  reported information. Turns out, children who are spanked are more likely to lie than those who are not.  This further proves the lack of transparency in a relationship between a parent inciting fear and a child trying to find any means necessary to avoid physical aggression.

These are just a few of the gems I picked up that has led me to believe that I cannot raise a freedom-loving child with liberty in her heart by having her raised by an authoritarian dictator from the time she is out of the womb. 

Perhaps the cruelest trick the devil ever really pulled was convincing ourselves we weren't doing his will by not admitting our own ignorance. More to come.