Abuse?

This is currently a meditations post. I will reorganize it more logically to make sense at a later date.

I have been abused. I think. Mildly. Emotionally. Physically, only by spanking. My dad is a jerk. But is he an abuser? I think so. I mean, he always made me feel like I wasn't worth it. His time. His effort. He got mad when I couldn't do things right. He taunted me when I failed. He let me chose things only to call my choices stupid.

I used to get to pick where to eat. That was one of the common events. And every time, I managed to pick wrong. He'd tell me I could pick anywhere I wanted, then, as soon as I did "well except there! What kind of idiot would pick there to eat in the first place?!" The same was true of picking out toys when there were different types, such as electronics. I remember wanting a pink and blue handheld CD player when I was maybe 7, and he called me every name in the book, and my choice a ridiculous waste of money, because there was one that would play better quality and hold up better that was plain grey and black. I should've gotten that one.

But so many of those things, he was right about. It was a bad idea to get a CD player for aesthetics. It's more the way he went about it. The red in the face, vein popping yelling he did about these things. I was a child and I wanted pretty things. And that made him so mad. It's not that he told me mcdonalds wasn't a good meal every night, or that I should get something that works rather than something that's pretty, it's that he yelled at me, implicitly called me stupid and an idiot, and that he made me feel like I wasn't worthwhile.

I was spanked. It was pretty hard, but it wasn't common. It was usually for particularly dangerous things, like the time I crossed a road with only a 7 year old when I was 6. It made me feel pretty miserable, but I generally accepted it as a fact of life.

I don't know. I don't think these things are bad enough to count as abuse. They instilled in me a sense of helplessness, and a reluctance to make choices. They made me second guess my every decision in a relationship, and made me feel like one wrong move can change me from just being Brittany to being some total idiot who can't say anything worth listening to.

What About the Violence?

From what I can tell, most peaceful parents are against all violence in life. So am I. But, as I've mentioned, Joey and I play a lot of video games. And, from what I can see, people in the peaceful parenting sphere would die if their children played games like these. I can't really understand why. I feel it's perfectly safe, acceptable, and even helpful to play games with a bit of violence.

Sure, people say exposing kids to violence normalizes it. You know what? I agree, and violence is normal. It's something that happens every day on this planet. Someone is killed, robbed, beaten, or raped every day, at the very least. That's not okay. And I don't think exposing kids to a violent T.V. show or video game okays violence. I think it's the surrounding parents and caregivers that make the violence okay or not. If you use video games as a babysitter, instead of talking and playing, or express approval for everything the character does, then yeah, your kids might think violence is okay. But the strongest tool you have for child raising is communication. I discuss with Joey what he's seeing. I've told him "I know you have fun playing with the game and killing the enemies with your sword, but in real life, violence is not okay" many different times in many different words. And guess what? Joey isn't a violent child. He's peacable, easygoing, even, and I've never seen him hit another person.

And violence in games, I think, can help diffuse violence in real life.  I know that when I feel angry and want to hurt someone, I feel a whole lot better when I can vent the frustration into killing things that are just pixels on a screen. I think it can be a useful tool in preventing violence, rather than an enabler of violence. And, whether you choose to allow your children to play violent games or not, you can relax about what they see. Children can know right from wrong and they don't think everything they see a lot is okay. Ask a child of a non-peaceful parent about spanking. I can almost guaruntee you they will say that this thing they see everyday, as normal, is wrong.