The source advocating for any specific parenting style matters deeply to me:
- If someone is just unintelligent or driven purely by emotion—and they persist in a certain type of parenting despite the fallout—they’ll be too stubborn to admit they messed up. They can't face the fact that they failed the most important little beings in the world. When people feel their ego is on the line, they tend to double down on their existing biases rather than listen to reason.
- A second unreliable source I refuse to listen to is anyone who grew up with emotionally unstable or abusive parents. I’ll volunteer myself here: my punishments depended entirely on whether my parents were having a bad day or not. It took me years to realize that. One kid was the favorite and could do no wrong, while the others were constantly under pressure. If they were angry, everything was my fault and I'd get punished multiple times a day. If they weren't (which was rare), they'd let things slide that I expected would hurt. To be honest, the psychological abuse I experienced left much deeper scars; it took years of therapy to deal with the aftermath.
The problem is that since I came from a home like that, I have no idea how healthy parents actually make decisions. I don't know what the impact would have been if there had been actual structure and love instead of chaos. I don't know if discipline would have felt earned rather than arbitrary. Neither I nor anyone else raised by unstable parents is capable of judging whether physical discipline is acceptable or not.
Worst of all, most people who dealt with parents who weren't outright monsters aren't even aware of what happened to them until much later in life when they wonder why their lives are falling apart. They stay stuck in their ways because they can't see their own bias. They write about how "logical" their views are... These people usually talk about bad "parenting methods," when they are actually describing abuse because they didn't have a name for it. Or they describe abuse and claim it's "normal" and that everyone else is "overreacting," simply because they didn't know any better.
- A third source I won't touch is any study based on a tiny sample size or a handful of participants. Likewise, I avoid any study rooted in a specific ideology or philosophy. Whether it's religious, hyper-traditionalist, neoliberal, feminist, or any other nonsense—if they hide an agenda behind psychological or sociological research, it's straight in the trash for me.
Now, since I want children and have no clue if physical discipline is ever a smart move, please take what I've said into account. Help me find a mentally sound, neutral person or study that can help me form a real opinion.
Thanks