Focus on the Patriarchy has always favored punishing children to teach them right from wrong, so I can’t imagine them being too upset at this news: a fellow’s 4-year-old daughter was having trouble memorizing her ABC’s, suggesting that she needed some extra incentives to excel. So Dad waterboarded her. How sweet that Daddy cared so much about the importance of her education.
I’m going back to teaching in the fall. Will this be considered a reasonable educational technique? I’m thinking of putting a rack in the lecture hall and carrying around some thumbscrews just to help my students learn better.
Is there a reliable source for this story? i.e., not the Daily Mail?
This would be one of those “enhanced learning techniques” and “vigorous instructional procedures” that the New York Times talks about, right?
At least it’s not torture…
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
I’ll bet you can get Michele Bachmann to endorse your new teaching technique.
Not believable. That the source is the “Daily Mail” makes it doubly doubtful.
And once again, the US falls flat on its face when it comes to actual support of troops once they’re back from a combat environment. Rates of domestic abuse in military families are many times higher than in the general population. It’s so shameful how vets are (not) treated that I can barely even muster the words to express it. From all the stories I’ve read from vets trying to get mental health and even physical health assistance, the main goal is to spend as little money as possible and deny as many claims as they can, not to actually help the people who have actually risked their lives. The military needs to really crack down on admitting people with sketchy psychological profiles in the first place, and then needs to actually assist them after what they go through.
The local children’s aid society seems to find that a very interesting teaching methodology, fortunately for the daughter, now no longer in Daddy’s “loving” care.
From a local source:
Anger over alphabet ends in arrest
Charged: Man accused of dunking 4-year-old
http://www.thenewstribune.com/1196/story/1054799.html?storylink=omni_popular
Is there a reliable source for this story? i.e., not the Daily Mail?
Google News gives a number of outlets carrying the story. It’s not entirely clear to me whether any of them are terribly reliable since they included a number of questionable UK papers and Fox News, but at least it’s not only the Daily Mail reporting this.
This sounds much more like a PTSD or mental illness horror story than anything that merits comparison to Dobson, odious as he is.
Yeah, because Dobson does it out of stupidity and intent, not because he is traumatized and damaged.
OK, how about Fox News for a source?
Never mind.
For anyone here not familiar with what Dobson says about violence toward children:
And Dobson again, on using dog-beating as an example of why he advocates violence to discipline children:
What amazed me was that the Mail called waterboarding torture.
Given that it seems to have been inflicted by the CIA on Muslims, and alleged terrorists at that, I am surprised they are not in favour.
PZ, just take a 12 foot whip to class in the fall. Just think about all the possibilities to accessorize with it.
If we don’t stop terrorism at home, one day soon we will have to face it abroad!
No, it’s “Enhanced Parenting”
Exactly, PZ – Dobson knows what he’s doing. A guy who is caught roaming the neighborhood in a helmet and threatening to break windows sounds like something worse than an archaic, patriarchal belief system is at work.
Even if we assume that Tabor is suffering from PTSD, what about the judge who granted him custody, the superior officer who ordered him to waterboard, the instructor who taught him how and the country that sent him into not one but two aggressive wars?
I’ll look for Dobson’s revised volume on parenting: Dare to Waterboard
Better a little torture, er discipline, than a lifetime of rebellion!
I don’t think Dobson would have wanted to get all that water on the kitchen floor, he would probably prefer something easier and faster, like a cattle prod.
@Jam – While you are correct to seek a source better than the Daily Mail, the only thing unbelievable about this story is that it was called water boarding. This sort of child abuse is all too common, and it is particularly sad that in this case it may also be related to post-traumatic stress. The Mail did its usual sensationalism bit and called it water boarding and used that term in the headline, when it was really simply an abusive father dunking his daughter’s head under water. That’s probably no better than water boarding, but it’s not the same thing and the irresponsible act on the Mail’s part was trying to link the two without evidence that they are related. I understand that to anyone with any reasonable concern for and understanding of children, or human beings for that matter, this story is so terrible that the mind doesn’t want to believe it, but it is sadly the sort of thing that happens all the time.
He’s not an archaeologist.
He should be keeping a giant squid in his lecture hall.
should be keeping a giant squid in his lecture hall.
A giant mutant squid with telepathic powers…
Gus @22 is correct. I’m absolutely not defending this guy, who certainly does sound like an abuser with serious problems. But he dunked her head in a bowl of water (because he knew she was afraid of water). Calling that “waterboarding” is like the reverse of the neo-cons who were defending it by saying actual waterboarding was just dunking someone’s head in water, which is isn’t.
If this story is true, I’m appalled. Of course, I shouldn’t be, because as the Bush administration explained, water boarding is not torture but is a legitimate method of extracting information and compliance.
And I thought the only fall out would be that other nations would feel justified in torturing our soldiers.
PZ, I pray(sic) you think again before installing your rack and thumbscrews.
I suspect your classes include healthy 18-20 year old males. If you have been successful in leading them towards independent thought, you may have a hard time applying educational aids of this sort.
Dobson’s dog’s behavior sounds like a description of a dog who has been beaten. Had he tried other methods his dog would likely have been more obedient, and the incident he describes would never have happened.
“I’m thinking of putting a rack in the lecture hall and carrying around some thumbscrews just to help my students learn better.”
Just threaten to cut off their alcohol. Much more traumatic.
I think ever since they stopped whipping children educational standards have dropped.
Mind you, that might be because I enjoyed the whippings. :-)
Louis
Well at least he wasn’t “GAY”!
Louis (@30):
Aww, and here I’d been virtuously resisting the temptation to do a FTFY number on Dobson’s little spanking kink!
@ Bill #32,
Virtue? Resisting?
I know not of these things!
I think you should do your FTFY number immeidately, if not sooner.
Louis
PZ Myers:
Cue O’Reilly claiming that the father obtained actionable intelligence from the little girl, preventing a major terrorist attack and saving thousands of lives in spite of objections from libbruls who hate America and want the terrorists to win.
Immeidately? I know what I meant, dammit. Update the dictionaries immeidately, this is the new spelling!
Louis
PZ, my apologies for sending you a news item from a sensationalist trashy tabloid. I should have double checked the site!
Louis:
You asked for it… and inspired a slight modification of what I’d previously planned:
I spent 3 years in the infantry during the Vietnam war. Even though I was lucky enough to spend my overseas time in Germany I nearly went insane just from the military environment. I saw quite a few soldiers who transfered in directly from Vietnam. Quite a few were damaged, but some were damaged before the war and some would have been poor parents regardless. This article does not provide sufficient information to evaluate that aspect of the father. That said, The childs welfare is paramount. It trumps all else.
Sgt Robert Estrada
This is a little unfair don’t you think, PZ? From the article it would seem that Dad is suffering from some sort of mental breakdown, possibly related to his miltary service. I don’t really think it’s appropriate to make hay with it.
It takes a certain type of person to boast about how he threw down with a little bitty dog named Siggie.
@Robert Estrada – You nailed it. This is a horrible story about child abuse that may also be a horrible story about post-traumatic stress, but we don’t know enough to say for sure.
I’ve read enough to say this guy belongs in prison – a Turkish prison.
“This is a little unfair don’t you think, PZ? From the article it would seem that Dad is suffering from some sort of mental breakdown, possibly related to his miltary service. I don’t really think it’s appropriate to make hay with it. (Lumpy)”
Alas, Lumpy, this isn’t the first time for it on this ‘blog…
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/department_of_redundancy_depar.php
I consider PZ an absolute treasure when it comes to the advocacy of science and secularism. Many of his pieces here are atom bombs in the battles against Creationist foolishness and weasel-tongued apologia.
That said, there seems to be another side to PZ and his writing – that of a crude, reckless polemicist happy to disregard his own standards for an opportunity to take a shot at the religious.
This post is one such exhibit. Even leaving the mental illness angle aside, what on Earth do James Dobson and his stupid lobby group have to do with this?
I cannot believe I am defending the loathsome Dobson in any way, shape or form but…
Does PZ think advocacy of “punishing children to teach them right from wrong” is somehow extremist – or even distinctive of religious people, for that matter? Did PZ never “punish” his own kids as part of the disciplinarian role that all parents must sometimes play?
Does PZ think Dobson advocating spanking – along with millions of other parents, including atheists, btw – means he would endorse what this father did?
I read this sort of thing and I cannot believe this is the same man who penned the grand “Courtier’s Reply.”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php
I’m sure that this jackass was going to abuse his daughter, one way or another.
I think he chose simulated drowning because the talking heads have downplayed the seriousness of it, as though there were no long term effects, and because he’s a sadistic psycho of one brand or another.
Doesn’t it make you wonder why she is afraid of water?
ABC News (who at least used to be reliable, people in the USA now can comment on whether or not they still are reliable) is also reporting this story, with the caveat:
(Admittedly, in the title of the story they call it “waterboarding”.) In any case, whether or not what the guy allegedly did to his daughter meets the technical definition for that particular torture, it seems clear something serious and uncalled-for happened, and that it isn’t the first time the child has apparently been abused.
And I must resist… resist… resist the irony of an ABC report about reciting ABCs.
What on Earth did mom do that a court granted this guy custody? I’m mystified.
Hell fucking yes he does. Dobson and his ilks at FoF believe in the supremacy of the Biblical patriarchal system. So if a child doesn’t meet the father’s standards, he can use abuse. Anything is acceptable so as long as the system of power is maintained.
GeorgeFromNY (@43):
I can’t speak for PZ, but speaking for myself, I think promoting the idea that physical violence for the purpose of inflicting nontrivial pain — no matter how allegedly “loving” and “measured” — is an acceptable way to discipline a child contributes to a social context in which stories like this can happen.
Again, speaking for myself, I never once used any form of corporal punishment in raising my child, who is now a sophomore at Yale. I suppose there are things about her life that would give prissy fundagelicals the vapors, but I’m incredibly proud of how she turned out; I can’t think of anything that I should’ve beaten into her.
No, ordinary spanking doesn’t always ruin a child — I was spanked, and I turned out OK (no jokes from the peanut gallery!) — but social acceptance of any form of violence against children is not as big a step as you seem to think from the kind of abuse described in this story, because the former establishes the predicate for the latter: Remember, this was done under the guise of correcting the child. And regardless of whether this guy is a victim of war or mental illness, or if he’s just a bad guy, he was more likely to commit this particular act in a society that countenances spanking than he would have been in one that didn’t.
According to the ABC News article, he did not have exclusive custody:
PS to me@48: Spanking between consenting adults is, of course, a whole ‘nother kettle of horses of another color.
Is there something you wish to tell us Bill? A desire to be “punished” perhaps?
XD
Gyeong Hwa:
Just a nod to a pervasive Pharyngulan trope! ;^)
Actually, I’ve confessed an interest in that area here before, but to date (and AFAIK this is not likely to change), it’s purely theoretical/voyeuristic. My actual life is boringly plain vanilla.
GeorgeFromNY,
Do you/did you/would you hit your children?
When I was at boarding school we used to get spanked if we were especially bad that week. Usually it was the headmaster with his cane, but if he was absent then Matron used to do it with her tennis shoe. So if you were naughty the right week, you used to get smacked on your bare arse by a middle aged woman wielding a tennis shoe and telling you you were a ver naughty boy and how this hurt her more than it hurt you.*
I have to pay upwards of £150 for that sort of thing nowadays.**
Louis
* This is all true.
** This….not so true. More “truthy” ;-)
What do you mean? Vanilla is quite delicious if the ice cream is made right.
Oh, I never said the vanilla wasn’t delicious, did I? ;^)
You can probably expect Focus On The Patriarchy to line up dutifully on the side arguing that this was a clear and unacceptable case of child abuse.
Now, if a father were to be caught waterboarding his twelve-year-old to get her to confess to being a lesbian or an atheist… that might be a different story.
#43 ConcernedFromNY:
Fixed that for ya.
1 Of course, this assumes you actually are a parent, and not just chuntering on about something you have no experience of, but think of these as hypothetical children.
It’s also interesting how ConcernedFromNY puts punish in scarequotes – it almost makes me wonder if he has some even more nefarious justification for spanking of children.
Ah… you guys did hear about the 16-y-o girl buried alive in Turkey for talking to boys? If she’d been frightened enough by being half-drowned at age 4 it might not have been “necessary.” Girls are drowned in Saudi Arabia for similar offences or for being uppity. Welcome to biblical childrearing, the teen years!
BillD,
While I’m all for minding the slippery slope, I think stating
“— but social acceptance of any form of violence against children is not as big a step as you seem to think from the kind of abuse described in this story,”
is more like jumping off a cliff. That’s my point about PZ’s original comment; claiming ‘this (religious) guy approves of spanking, therefore he’d approve of what Tabot did’ is absurd.
I think this is implicitly acknowledged if we resort to catch-all terms like “violence against children” to describe spanking. As “violence against children” would perforce cover everything from a swat on the butt to knocking a child clear across a room, the very extensibility of the term argues against its utility.
the very extensibility of the term argues against its utility.
but only if you apply binary thinking to it, right?
it’s utility is restored nicely if you apply a gradient scale.
Sounds a bit like the old sage ‘You have to be cruel to be kind’, which is the usual biblical bullshit.
Kinda trying to explain why yahweh is described as a psychopathic, murderous, vengeful asshole, but he loves you?
Was at the receiving end of physical punishment as a kid, but that was like water off a duck’s back. As soon as the bum had cooled down, the pain was forgotten.
My younger brother screamed the house down, so he got off very lightly, the bastard, because he really had deserved it.
Now, of course, here in Scandinavia corporal punishment of children is unlawful.
But it still happens, and an 8 year old boy was bashed to death after a long period of abuse by his step-father, and the step-father only got 8 years imprisonment.
GFNY (@61):
I strongly disagree that it’s a slippery slope argument; instead, it’s an argument about where we build our social foundation. There’s an old joke about a man who approaches an attractive woman at a cocktail party:
Man: Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?
Woman: Sure, I guess.
Man: Well, in that case, would you do me for $50?
Man: What do you think I am? Some kind of whore???
Man: We’ve already established that; we’re just dickering over the price.
In a very real sense, once you’ve accepted any sort of physical battery of a child, no matter how mild and careful, as legitimate punishment, everything else is just “dickering over the price.” I’m not suggesting that in a world that rejected spanking, there would be no child abuse; I am suggesting that in such a world, no child abuser would be able to justify abuse — not to him/herself nor to others — as “punishment.”
I remain convinced that, short of actual self-defense, there is never any legitimate reason for a parent to hit a child… and I’m pretty sure we’d have a better, saner society if we gave up all the excuses we make for parents who do so. Let’s obviate the need to “dicker over the price” by not being “whores” in the first place.¹
shonny (@63):
Yah, that was my experience, too (except when my Dad lost his temper and went beyond spanking, into things like throwing full glasses of iced tea at my head or literally kicking my ass). My concern is not so much that ordinary spanking does much harm to kids, but that social acceptance of spanking harms society.
¹ My choice of metaphor here should in no way be taken as condemnation of actual sex workers, whom I generally accept as either (depending on their particular circumstances) victims themselves or people engaged in honest work.
Ooops… cut-and-paste error in my jokescript @64; I think y’all can figure out what it was supposed to be.
BillD,
“In a very real sense, once you’ve accepted any sort of physical battery of a child, no matter how mild and careful, as legitimate punishment, everything else is just “dickering over the price.”
But this elides the central point, which is that HOW and WHY you do something can be as important, if not more than, WHETHER you do it.
And… ‘physical battery of a child?’ Do you mean battery in the legal sense or the common-usage sense? Because if we extend it to include something like spanking then again, as with the previously used ‘violence against children’ phrase, I think we’re stretching terms to absurd lengths.
“I’m not suggesting that in a world that rejected spanking, there would be no child abuse; I am suggesting that in such a world, no child abuser would be able to justify abuse — not to him/herself nor to others — as “punishment.”
Fine, but to what effect? The Joshua Tabors among us already live in a world (Movie Trailer Voice: “In a world…”) where his conduct is overwhelmingly viewed as monstrous and not any kind of acceptable parental discipline. Social mores clearly hold no restraining power over such people, even those not as unhinged as Tabor apparently is.
GFNY:
Er… um… whuh?
I mean hitting, dammit, and similar methods of inflicting pain; don’t be obtuse.
Inflicting pain is inflicting pain; my whole point is that the existence of socially acceptable forms of violence creates the risk of people conflating them with unacceptable forms. Hence…
…I disagree. He justified his actions to himself by characterizing them as punishment. That’s crazy, of course, but it’s a species craziness that’s potentially enabled by the fact that we allow people who aren’t officially either crazy or criminal to hit their children.
Bill, sorry for the late reply, but I was busy with WoW. :)
Ok, I wrote:
“But this elides the central point, which is that HOW and WHY you do something can be as important, if not more than, WHETHER you do it.”
To which you responded:
“Er… um… whuh?”
Which part of what I wrote is not clear, Bill? I was merely restating the old apothegm that a difference of degree can be greater than one of kind.
I was, in fact, echoing Ichthyic’s point (see above) about binary vs gradient thinking.
You wrote:
“I mean hitting, dammit, and similar methods of inflicting pain; don’t be obtuse.”
I am NOT being obtuse; I being precise – hence my refusal to lump the specific act of spanking into broader categories like “violence against children” or “hitting kids.”
You seem rather stuck on this, as you reply
“Inflicting pain is inflicting pain;”
but my whole point is that the very argument we’re having here demonstrates the problem with such absolutist, reductionist notions.
If we draw a giant, bright line between “inflicting pain” versus not “inflicting pain,” everything from the mildest swat on the rump to savage, crippling injury will be on the same side of that line. This strikes me as absurd and useless as either moral or practical parental guidance.
As for your concern:
“the existence of socially acceptable forms of violence creates the risk of people conflating them with unacceptable forms.”
Yes, it does. But isn’t this true anyway? You’ve identified what I would call an existential problem of human living, not an argument against spanking.
There are many socially acceptable forms of violence, right up to lethal force in self-defense. Shall we abjure all of them, lest we unwittingly provide the fevered mind of some psychopath with justification for his rampage?
You end with:
“That’s crazy, of course, but it’s a species craziness that’s potentially enabled by the fact that we allow people who aren’t officially either crazy or criminal to hit their children.”
We also allow people who aren’t officially either crazy or criminal to confine their children against their will – sending them to their rooms, grounding them, enforcing curfews and the like.
Does this potentially enable those who think it appropriate to chain their kids up in basements and attics, as some have infamously done?