[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PEOPLE ARE NOT FOR HITTING

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                        HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 25, 1996

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, the Menninger Clinic published a book awhile 
back entitled ``People are Not for Hitting''.
  I have rarely seen a little boy hit another child without mumbling, 
you are a bad boy. As people grow older, they become more subtle about 
explaining their violence. But as the parent's creed says, ``The child 
who lives with violence, learns to do violence.''
  The old saying is, spare the rod, spoil the child. Since there are 
innumerable ways to discipline and even punish children, the saying 
should be, spare the discipline, spoil the child. In fact, spoiling is 
one of the worst things you can do to a child. I call it the gentle 
brutality.
  Here is what George Bernard Shaw said: ``If you strike a child, take 
care that you do so in anger. * * * A blow struck in cold blood neither 
can nor ever should be forgiven.''
  The following statement by Meadow D'Arcy was published in Parade on 
September 15, 1996. It is excellent.
       I feel that hitting children is a disgrace--something we 
     will hang our heads in shame about in the future, as we do 
     now with racism and sexism. We will be forced to tell our 
     children how we were ignorant and simply did not know any 
     better.
       I know some one who hits her kids, and you can see the hurt 
     and anger in their faces. Their mother believes that her 
     older boy is a just plain bad kid and that hitting him is the 
     only way to get him to stop doing things. He does do bad 
     things. You can tell him something 20 times and he still 
     won't listen. But I believe she created him. I believe that 
     the badness is a result of the whippings, not the other way 
     around.
       We tell our children not to hit--by hitting them. But when 
     we strike a child, we create a child full of fear, hatred and 
     anger. Every time a child is hit, she gets a lesson in how to 
     deal with her emotions. When faced with frustrations, she 
     will hit too.
       Image if you broke something at work and your boss slapped 
     you. How would you feel? Humiliated, of course. We see our 
     spankings as different. Why? We all agree that it is wrong 
     for a man to hit a woman. But when it comes to children, we 
     just shrug and say that it is part of growing up.
       Children are becoming more and more violent with each other 
     and with you and me. We blame this on so many sources but 
     refuse to face the facts.

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