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#353 - smack
05.20.04 @ 8:24 pm

I've had something on my mind lately that's been bothering me, a kind of entrenched sexism in our society: the fact that women can hit men, and men aren't supposed to hit women.

How on earth did it come about that it's socially acceptable for a woman to "smack" a man? You see it on TV, in the movies, at the mall, in your own home. In my home.

One of the first problems in my relationship with my husband was that I hit him. I've never punched or slapped or kicked another human being in my life. But I have "smacked" my husband on almost every available surface of his body. Except his face and his genitals. Why? Why??? Despite my best efforts not to, I continue to smack him when I'm excited, surprised, upset, angry, or just surprised. Why?

My husband has never hit me. Ever. He even has a problem treating me roughly in the bedroom. Which makes me wonder, is it our upbringings? Were our families so very different?

Our families are amazingly different. But aside from the common verbal and psychological abuse and sporadic physical abuse, my siblings and are were "spanked". But our parents, our grandparents, and the occasional aunt or uncle. On both sides of the family.

Spanking can be a hot topic when parenting comes up. I see how well adjusted my husband and his siblings are, knowing they were never spanked (well, my husband was spanked once), and there's no debate for me: I never want to spank my child.

I hope this doesn't offend any parents here, but having a new kitten in the house really drives this home. I see how different our treatment of Kyra is than our treatment of Kitty was in the past. Despite obvious signs that Kitty was abused and traumatized before he came to us, we used to scream at him constantly, lock him in a room when he was "bad", and occasionally I would hit him. I always felt horrible after hitting or locking him away. I would tell myself that there was no way to rationalise with him to get him to change his habits, so we had to resort to hitting.

But Kyra has changed all of that. For both of us, I think. We yell at Kyra, yes, and Kitty too. But we don't hit her or lock her away. In fact, she gets away with bloody murder. Because it's so obvious that she's a baby, learning new things, getting into trouble because it's fun. And this has made us treat Kitty better too. Actually, he could probably get away with more than Kyra, because we sense he feels jealous of all the attention she gets.

So this has gone off on a tangent. But it's a good one. Because I've been afraid for years that despite my best efforts and greatest fears that I would abuse my own children. Or at the very least lash out in the heat of the moment and "spank" them. I think I have a better chance of avoiding this now, because of my experiences with Kyra.

So, does spanking lead to "smacking" as an adult? I need to take a survey. Knowing my husband doesn't hit me is not exactly proof. But I've never seen his sister hit her husband or her brothers. Maybe I will take an informal survey of friends. Because I'm pretty sure there are women out there who don't "smack". I need to find them and find out what makes them different.

Because socially acceptable hitting and spanking shouldn't be socially acceptable. And if the two are linked, then we could kill two birds with one stone, right?

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