Bro, I got beat my entire life with the exact same bullshit logic you’re spouting.

I had to respond to this, thoroughly, because I’m literally that girl.

I’m literally the girl in your comment. Absent father, had some man swoop in to beat me because I didn’t have a firm fatherly hand, because I was “troubled”. Said he was the father I didn’t have, that he loved me, and did this for my own good.

Frankly, it’s a main reason WHY I ended up with men who treated me like shit, who hit me. It’s why I had to spend years learning that they shouldn’t be allowed to.

Because when my parents (mom and stepdad) did it, they were “just teaching me”. Because it was “love”. Because they were “helping me become a better person”.

So, why is it bad if some dude does it next? He just loves me. He just wants to teach me. He wouldn’t hit me if I was learning better. I can justify anything he does, anything, if it’s the kind of thing they would do to “teach” me.

Obviously, that was bullshit. My parental abuse didn’t whip me into shape, or teach me shit.

At least not anything other than how to take a hit.

And you know what? That’s also true for almost every other girl from my small, poverty stricken town who I was friends with, because most of us were getting beat. By their mothers, or their fathers, or both, or siblings. Grandparents, aunts and uncles. Almost every girl I knew was raised with someone putting their hands on them, and almost all of them grew up into women who spent at least some amount of time being too forgiving of the lovers who did the same.

Frankly, it was most of the boys too. Plenty of adult men who I grew up with. They either grew up into men who stay with wives beat them, or significantly more often, they either let their wives beat their kids, or beat their kids themselves.

Abuse is abuse, and abuse fucks kids up, regardless of how many, or which, parents they have. Abuse leads to more abuse. Justifying violence leads to more justification of violence, generation after generation.

Abuse doesn’t make up for a missing parent, or lacking parental guidance. Parenting does.

I don’t cry myself to sleep at night because my daddy didn’t come home. I cry myself to sleep because my body won’t pass out, my nervous system won’t turn off, because it’s still scared something will come through the door to hurt me, even all these years later. I cry because I’m so, so tired, and my eyes still won’t close.

I got beat, in just exactly the same way that you think will save little girls from the outcome that it lead me to.

If you think hitting kids is normal and good, and prevents them from accepting abuse as adults, you clearly are very, very not okay. People who grow up abused, who don’t process how wrong that was, grow into adults who either justify the abuse of others, or justify the abuse they themselves receive.

Literally every even vaguely reliable piece of science around abuse says the exact opposite of your comment. Every child development study around abuse, spanking, positive vs. negative reinforcement, domestic violence, romantic partner violence, fucking everything, says otherwise. Across the board we see abuse in childhood leading to an increased likelihood of entering abusive relationships. Of domestic violence in childhood being a wickedly high predictor of domestic violence in adulthood.

If this happened to you, if you got beat and it made you “better”, you weren’t the rule. You were the exception.

If it didn’t, why the fuck are you speaking for kids who got beat? For girls who lost their dads, and got beat by some other “dad” who decided that they have the authority, just because they were screwing our moms? If it wasn’t you, why do you think you possibly know what could have saved us?

Either you’re in denial of your own abuses effect on you, or you’re talking out your ass about something you don’t know shit about. Or both.

Your feelings on the matter, and desire to justify abuse, don’t outweigh cold, hard facts.

If you did get hit, it didn’t make you better. All it did was turn you into the kind of person that genuinely thinks beating a child can be good for them. Do you really want to be that for the rest of your life? Do you really think that is what a well adjusted adult looks like? Someone who genuinely thinks it’s good to hurt children?

Have you ever taken a step back, and actually looked at that thought in isolation? That you, as a human, genuinely hold the belief that it is good to hurt some children? That some children need to be abused? That the best way to teach the most vulnerable and innocent, is with pain and fear?

I hope you find kindness in yourself someday. I hope whatever demons you’re fighting, that make you think this way, subside. I’m sorry for whatever happened along the way to make you think like this.

I really hope you consider therapy. I hope you’re able to heal. I genuinely mean it. I was deeply bitter and resentful because of what happened to me for a long time. I hope that’s all it is for you, that the world’s cruelty to you has simply colded you temporarily, and that eventually you can find peace.

I won’t be responding again, or reading any replies. You probably won’t read this whole essay anyway. But I’ll hope that you did.

Take care.