Why We Spank Our Kids

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In this age of gentle parenting, I’m going to publicly disclose something that will create visceral judgment among nearly all my readers. We spank our kids.

Some of you will stop reading right here. Others will have the morbid curiosity to keep reading, if only because glimpsing someone else’s parenting is a unique high of voyeurism. Yes, this post is about how and why we made that decision, and it’s also about the parenting trends affecting the youngest generation.

Whether you have children or not, it’s highly likely that you have neighbors or might manage someone younger in your workplace. I think it’s important to grapple with how kids are growing up these days since it affects us all.

Big picture: our society is increasingly fragmented, to the point that groups of people possess entirely different facts about the basics. Who is the rightful president? Depends on who you ask. We cannot agree, and it’s not getting easier. Small picture: what I see in Austin is that we are unintentionally raising children to be conflict avoidant. Both pictures: The way we raise our children will determine our future society, and that feels like an enormous burden to bear when society sucks so much right now.

For those of you who don’t know me personally, here’s the rundown on why I feel qualified to proclaim my opinions on parenting:

1. All humans are worthy of dignity and respect, and every story matters, including mine.

2. Stereotypically, I meet the moment. Elder millennial child of divorce, raising two young children with my husband, consumer of parenting advice on Instagram.

3. I’ve spent nearly 20 years around children, beginning with my teaching career in 2006. Back in ye olden days, I actually taught students how to do research in a library. Along the way, I had a student turn in an essay typed on a Blackberry, observed teachers during the pandemic, and now have a child in our neighborhood public school using iPads daily.

4. It’s the internet, and what is the internet for if not to make yourself feel self-important?

The People Pleasers Had Babies

My fellow millennials, I believe we are a generation of anxious people pleasers. We strive for perfection, aren’t sure how to handle failure, and believe that working harder will fix it. I’m painting in broad strokes here, and describing a mostly white, college-educated, suburban slice of our generation since that’s who I hang out with. We are earnest, value-driven, and the last analog kids who are now fully digitized. Fittingly, I’m going to frame part of this post with an internet thinkpiece, The Rise of the Accidentally Permissive Parent.

"The gentle-parenting movement has taken a valid idea — respecting our children’s emotions — and pushed it to the point where the power dynamic is flipped, and kids are running the show.”

I’ve touched on attachment and how it drives us. The need to please others affects nearly every area of our life, including parenting. We don’t see ourselves as people pleasers when we give in to a tantrum or avoid giving consequences, but that is the message. Our actions signal to children that if they ignore, cry, or scream, that we will give up, meaning the power is theirs.

I once posted on social media that I was frustrated with Maya (then age 3) because she kept coming out of her room during quiet time, which woke up Ki Jae from his nap. One of my graduate school professors, a longtime educator, wrote back simply. “What is the consequence?”

Whoa. Wait a minute. My frustration was not a consequence? It’s only a consequence if you’ve been conditioned to be a people pleaser. Giving irritated vibes to a 3 year old (or really, any age kid) only makes them either dismissive of you or self-flagellating. Both terrible options.

For those of you who are wondering how we solved it, I told her that if she came out, I’d lock her door in the future. It worked. Ki Jae got his full nap, I enjoyed a quiet hour, and Maya learned how to stretch her ability to play independently.

Another form of people pleasing in parenting is smoothing the path. Children frustrated by long wait time? Give them a phone. You’re trying to talk to a grown-up, but your child pulls you away? Go with them. We are so eager to please in the short-term that we lose sight of the long-term. Our motives are rooted in deep love and care, but the result is our children’s’ weakened ability to cultivate patience, self-control, and compromise.

So, let’s say we condition our children to become who we are. They feel that frustration is in fact a consequence because they have a deep need for our approval. I see early signs of this in Maya, now 5. She was afraid to tell one of her friends no, even as her friend was yelling at her and being unkind. She lacks belief in her ability to stand up for herself. If we let this pattern continue and don’t actively correct it, I can see her in 30 years, coming over to my house. “Mom, he doesn’t help at all with the baby. I sigh and stomp and huff around, and he just watches TV. I even slam the dishwasher shut, and it’s like he doesn’t hear it.” Yikes.

At 3, she didn’t care about my irritation. At 5, she is already overanalyzing how to get her friend to stop yelling but without hurting said friend’s feelings. Life comes at you fast. I never intended to turn her into me, but it’s what happens when you have kids. They imitate your patterns, whether the patterns are healthy or not. I am trying to break a lifetime of people pleasing, and it’s hard. I can see my progress and also see that I fall back into it daily. Gentle parents, I see you because I am you. I prefer to avoid conflict, give in, smooth the edges, and worry about paying those debts later. So how did I turn into someone who spanks my kids?

I married the right person.

Freedom in Obedience

I am breaking so many generational curses: adoption and my abandonment, not knowing my heritage, not seeing a lot of healthy marriages as a child. The best decision and biggest step I made to break those curses was to marry James. He is a product of generational blessings. Shout out to my in-laws, who modeled strong parenting and healthy family dynamics, and to their parents, who showed it to them. Your future generations are still reaping these benefits, which are the most powerful form of generational wealth.

There is a lot of discussion around Biblical roles for men and women, and I’m not tryna go there. I also don’t feel the need to show my feminism card here either. So I’ll leave this sentence here at face value and not as a virtue signal in any direction. Our family is who we are because James is our emotional leader.

There is so much to admire and respect about the way James shows up as a father. One example is Saturday mornings. He gives me that time to sleep or be alone, and he takes the kids to Whataburger. They walk on their little legs, more than a mile each way. He brings surprise snacks, showers them with affection and jokes, and encourages them to make the trek. He refuses to carry them though. We used to preach all this “high expectations” rhetoric in my charter school days, and now I live it out in my home. My kids are stronger, more resilient, and prouder of themselves because their dad believes in them.

We lead an intentional, value-driven life. That includes correcting our children when they wander away from our values. With Maya, discussions are more appropriate. Ki Jae is a toddler, developmentally incapable of long conversations. His offenses are more dangerous and severe: hitting, hurting, screaming about how he won’t obey. If you give a warning, he promptly offends again to see if you’re serious. His primary communication is physical: hugging, and also jumping, wrestling, tackling. Spanking is the most effective way to communicate the severity of his offenses right now.

See, James is not a people pleaser. He’s playing the long game of shaping our children into people who respect and hold clear boundaries, because that’s who he was raised to be. He knows that while we claim we want autonomy, as humans we also crave accountability. We seek to be seen and known, and we want someone to care enough to save us from ourselves when we go too far.

About a year ago, we attended a Christian marriage retreat. There was a dog trainer there. He demonstrated how his dogs could fetch from 400 yards, how they were all off-leash, how they responded instantly to commands. I’ll never forget his words. “There is freedom in obedience. You say you love your dog, but you keep it on a 6-foot leash.”

Partially as a result of our discipline, our children are obedient. They receive a lot of freedom uncommon in today’s helicopter parenting age. I often leave them unattended in the cul de sac for an hour while I make dinner. I don’t feel the need to hover over them in public, trusting them to make good choices. I’d have no hesitation asking any grown-up to babysit them. We are all freer because of their obedience.

Hear me. I’m not saying you have to spank your kids. I am saying it’s worth examining your own dynamics with your children and what patterns you pass on to them. I am saying that kids crave structure, boundaries, and clear lines on what is right and wrong. I am asking: what if we had the fortitude, patience, and consistency to train our children so that they were released from their 6-foot leashes?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments. What are your reactions to my claims? What are you seeing from the youngest generation? What feelings did this post bring up for you, about your own raising or parenting?

Please refrain from praising or scolding my individual parenting choices unless you’ve spent several hours with my kids. I willingly invite all parenting feedback from people who do life with us regularly - you know us, see us, and understand us. For everyone else, I ask you to withhold judgment (positive or negative!) until you see us for yourselves.