One common thing you see in trials of serial killers...or just really bad killers that horrify people...is that "the defendant showed no emotion."
Right? The whole thing where someone does something violent and terrible and shows no emotion or remorse...that's something everyone will remark about and just be aghast about.
Well...
Watching, "The Homicide Hunter" he said something about one case in particular really "getting to him." And, he made a comment that hit me. He said, "I've been exposed to a lot of horrible things, but this got to me..." (not a direct quote)
That got me thinking...
It's true. We're all that way, right? We "get immune" to things.
Go watch an autopsy for the 1st time. It'd probably make ya puke. Right? Watch your 10,000th and you'll be like that one guy on that one TV show in the 80's that always had a sandwich in the room with him? What show was that!? You know what I mean?
Exposure to things over time lessens and lessens how it makes you react to the point that some things can just eventually be "no biggie."
"Yeah...I been there done that..."
So, what's more likely to help a person become immune to "violence" and "hurting others"...
a. hitting them the whole time they're growing up
b. never hitting them?
(Of course I'm talking about spanking/smacking)
My 4.5 year old has never been struck. She's the only one of my 8 kids who we have never hit/spanked/smacked.
Once when she was about 3 I got really mad at her. And, I got harsh with her. I can't remember what exactly I did with her but I handled her roughly and her reaction was like..."Wow." She was horrified. She was aghast and just could not stop crying.
No. It's not because I'm "Amish", or something, either. She's seen seen the Lord of the Rings and the TV is just about always on. So, she's seen violence on TV. She plays Minecraft ;) And, she plays other video games...
When my other kids were that age if I got mad at something they did...and actually took an object and hit them several times with it on the butt...they cried...but they weren't shocked or horrified at me. Sometimes, they'd even not "react" and I thought it was a sign that it was because they knew they'd done wrong and deserved it.
Once, just after turning 4 my never-been-hit (spanked/smacked) child was rough-housing with her dad and her fingernail hit his nose "just right" (or wrong) and musta' struck some vein and his nose just would not stop bleeding. Her reaction? She could not stop crying and hugging him.
And, she wasn't crying because she was afraid she was "in trouble." She was not afraid of "punishment" at all because we don't punish...She was crying unconsolably because she'd hurt someone. She was horrified that she'd hurt her dad and made him bleed.
So, when we see a person sitting in a courtroom who has been accused of some act of inflicting pain on another person and they show no emotion...ya have to wonder what they've been exposed to their whole life (especially in their younger years) to make them feel like, "eh...been there done that" about that...
If we wanna see a world where we don't have people doing heartless things to other people...it seems like a world where parents never strike their children for any reason would be a good place to start...
You can call spanking/smacking "discipline" all you want...and you can try to justify it all you want but the fact is that you can't exercise this "discipline" without hitting.
You can't spank/smack your child without hitting them. And, hitting...is violence. And, the more it's done to the child the less offensive the act of hitting another (smaller, weaker, defenseless) human will be to that child.
Something worth thinking about for sure...
In this world full of people who "like" posts on Facebook like the one below...ya sure have to wonder if people ever attempt to think farther than they can throw their computers...
Easy self-test on the use of the Biblical rod in your home
