Though it’s not like you needed a reason to begin with.
spanking ain’t the same as hitting fuck you shouldn’t need a moral twitter post to know not to abuse your child
It very much is, actually.
There’s the literal definition to consider, of course - spanking = striking a child with the intent to cause fear and/or pain. And that’s…. hitting….
But here’s the important part: If a child is old enough to understand the distinction between “spanking as a deserved punishment” and “unacceptable physical assault,” they’re old enough to respond to other methods of discipline, so you’re hitting them because you want to hit them. If they’re not old enough to understand that distinction, there’s no point in spanking them and you’re just hitting them because you want to hit them.
Kids aren’t great at understanding cause and effect, especially if it’s displaced over time. A child literally does not consciously understand that cause and effect is even a thing until they’re around 18 months old. Once they develop it, it’s still a pretty limited/immediate understanding until they’re much older. For example, they can understand that if they spit food out, the food isn’t in their mouth anymore, or that if they make grabby hands towards something, somebody will give it to them. But they don’t understand that, say, taking off their clothes will make them uncomfortably cold.
This is because children aren’t really capable of future planning until they’re older. A 2 year old might be able to plan his actions out a few steps in advance (eg, if I climb onto the chair, I can reach my sippy cup that’s on the table and then climb back down), but that’s about it. Kids can conceive of the idea of the future in a more distant sense once they’re about 3 (eg, “when I grow up” and “can I go to grandma’s house tomorrow?”), but the ability to consciously take or not take actions to affect future outcomes doesn’t really develop until they’re about 4 or 5. For example: A child’s ability to delay a small treat now in exchange for a larger treat later improves significantly between the ages of 3 and 5. And delayed gratification tests are testing a good thing vs. a better thing. A good thing vs. the absence of a bad thing later is very different. The first is more concrete and material - do I want one sticker now or two stickers later? The second is more abstract, and plenty of adults struggle with that kind of reasoning. (For example - do I want to go to a party now, or do I want to not have COVID later?)
And then there’s the issue of moral development. Kids don’t even start to understand the idea of “acceptable/unacceptable” behavior in any real sense until they’re about 18 months old. They don’t develop emotions like shame and guilt (which suggest an ability to reflect on their own behavior) until they’re about 3. And most kids don’t internalize any real kind of moral code until they’re about 4 or 5.
So, at what age should a child be considered old enough to understand the purpose of a spanking and distinguish it from unacceptable physical assault? It depends on the kid, of course, but I’d say no younger than about 4.
And guess what? All those things that make them able to understand the purpose of a spanking also make them able to understand things like time-out and losing privileges. You can explain things to a 4 year old. They have the ability to engage in logical and moral reasoning. Which means you have options for punishment beyond hitting them. Which means, if you choose to hit them, it’s about you, not the child. You’re either too lazy to discuss a child’s behavior with them, too lazy to enforce other kinds of consequences/use a continuum of consequences, or you’re spanking them for your own emotional catharsis - spanking out of anger, frustration, and vengeance, which changes the spanking from “punishment” to “abuse.”
And all of this is kind of a moot point because spanking doesn’t even work. It really, actually doesn’t work. It does nothing to cause long-term changes in behavior. This research has been done over, and over, and over again. Spanking can cause immediate changes in behavior, but does nothing to cause long-term changes in behavior, promote moral and ethical development, or improve self-regulation skills. It actually has the opposite effect on self-regulation skills! Children who were spanked are also usually more aggressive, more defiant, commit more anti-social behaviors, and are more likely to develop mental health problems in adulthood. And I promise, whatever “gotcha” you think you have about these results has already been accounted for in the literature (eg, “but what if aggressive, defiant, anti-social kids just get spanked more!”).
Tl;Dr - Spanking is exactly the same thing as hitting your children, because it is completely ineffective as a disciplinary technique. And when it’s not a disciplinary technique, it’s just hitting.
By the way, in case you feel like arguing this with me: I have a bachelor’s degree in child development. I’ve actually read this research. I do kinda know what I’m talking about here.
what did we do to deserve portal 2. that shit was so good and for what
we got to have this! we got to have a valve game set in the half life universe, and its an enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-again sci fi comedy story about a homicidal ai created to run tests forever and the test subject she catches feelings for!! how is this game real!!!
I’ve said “I hate this” so many times on this website, and never actually meant it, because “I hate this” is just shorthand for ‘this is an example of a meme given a twist I wasn’t expecting with intent to surprise’. Which is, in of itself, a meme on this site. God damn it.
But this… This is something else.
The rapidity of a meme’s introduction to its zenith to its decline is so rapid that in ten years, you’ll need a damn twenty-page manual to explain this. It’ll be as unfunny and hard to explain as jokes in Shakespeare plays, except even more inexplicable because fuck, at least Shakespeare’s jokes are usually about anal or fucking your mother, good wholesome sex jokes we can all get behind.
For the love of fuck, how do you explain loss.jpg? How do you explain gun?
….I THOUGHT THIS WAS A YMCA REFERENCE
it is a YMCA reference - that’s one of the 6 memes being represented here
ok let me see if i can break this down easily. YMCA is the easiest place to start - the song itself has become a meme over time with people changing the lyrics to reference other pop cultural events. so YMCA is meme one (1)
this first lyric replacement (”take the breadsticks and run”) is a reference to the tumblr meme ‘stuffing breadsticks into my purse’. i think everyone remembers that one so i wont bother to explain it. that’s meme two (2)
“man door hand hook car door” is a meme of its own, a creepypasta from i dont remember when. it was a terrible stupid retelling of the generic ‘stuck in a car while hook handed man tries to kill us’ story so the stupid title caught on for memorability. that in and of itself is meme three (3)
‘gun’ is… yeah i dont know how to explain gun. long story short you add gun to the end of a phrase instead of what you expect the last word to be. its shock funny. its everywhere but its popular to add to “man door hand hook car door” for.. some reason? gun is meme four (4)
and the thing is, this four meme combo is something thats gone around before. meme combos are, itself, a meme. which means taking this meme combo and mixing in another meme actually becomes meme five (5)
which leaves us at loss.jpg. loss.jpg was a terrible bad comic supposed to be about some tragic event, but it was presented so poorly literally no one takes it seriously, and for some reason recreating the four-panel setup has become popular. so thats meme six (6)
(but i need to add that this is the greatest version of loss.jpg i think i’ve ever seen. the initial ‘young man’ lines up with the guy bursting through the door, and the shock meme ‘gun’ matches the shock scene of the woman in the hospital and idk if OP even thought about that but it makes this just so much better)
I wasn’t going to reblog this, but @pagesofkenna‘s comprehensive meme-by-meme annotation is a thing of beauty and should be shared.
average tumblr post contains one meme, this post, which contains six, is an outlier and should not be counted
it might also just be a coincidence due to loss.jpg’s format but the whole white minimalist four-panel setup is also suspiciously reminiscent of those early 2000’s rage comics
I was getting a political compass vibe too
tag urself im man door hand hook car gun
This works better than I thought it would.
This was in my senior project
I’m not sorry.
EIGHT MEME COMBO
FATALITY
We have officially created a new language
I just had to do it to em
THIS FUCKING THREAD I’M GONNA CRY
I LOST IT AND MAN DOOR HAND HOOK CAR GUN AND DIDN’T EXPECT MORE I’M SOBBING
M E M E T E N
OwO?
W o w
You know I had to
I hope you know this is the most cursed addition to my post, and I love it
THIRTEEN!?
SOMEONE EDIT THIS FROM THE ORIGINAL PHOTO SAYING “this one does not spark joy” TO THIS VERSION SAYING “this one sparks joy”
well i added my contribution : )
why—
IM SCREAMING
This is the most elaborate meme I have ever seen and damn am I concerned by how it makes sense.
“You’re in your 30s, but you still understand all this meme stuff?” “Oh yeah, sure.” “Can you explain it to me?” “I absolutely fucking cannot.”
One does not simply explain this
Edit:
Another freaking layer!!!
16 motherfucking layers
In the future someone’s going to ask me to explain this and I’m going to be at a loss.jpg for words
I’m not reblogging this because I want to. I’m reblogging this because sometimes you’re a witness to history whether you want to be or not, and you have to embrace that.
GUYS STOP!! IF WE CONTINUE ON THIS ROAD, THE MEME WILL BECOME TOO POWERFUL!
No keep going, let’s see if we can brake tumblr. If we do let’s use it to brake fb and twitter
You’re chaotic neutral I love it
What he said
Struck by inspiriation twice lads
My humble contribution
I love going through the notes of this and seeing my 16 layer version and 24 layer version circulating.
i was gonna add something with a screenshot of the heart, but i think tumblr ate everything available
truly the terminal meme
it’s back and i am afraid
This abomination is going to Superhell for meme crimes.
I don’t wanna assume it’s sexuality, tho…
Oprahousebookworm’s contribution to this was the latest I had seen. Imagine my sheer terror and pure joy at seeing all the additions to this post! Its beautiful and horrid all at once!
It’s time to shout into the void again
HELLO!!!
Does anyone still use this? I’m thinking about jumping on here more often, but only if people are still here…
In high school…in my little world I was the 5th VH member. I wore Eddie’s guitar pick around my neck. My room was covered wall to ceiling with VH posters and magazine cut outs. My mom drove me and a few friends to the 1984 concert. She waited for us in the parking lot while she read a romance novel. I remember waiting up all night for the video premiere of Jump. My teen years just would not have been the same without EVH + VH. I hope the afterlife is a 1980s Van Halen concert.
