A video of a father beating his daughters for posting a video of themselves ‘twerking’ spread throughout the internet this week and had everyone talking and chiming in on the morality of the issue. Some people pegged him as the concerned father who was doing his best to keep his daughters in line and not fall into the pitfalls of degrading and exposing themselves on the internet. Others felt like his punishment was way too harsh and completely immoral to beat your children in such a way. An interesting argument that was brought up on this issue was of us teaching our daughters to stay away from and leave any man who placed hands on them but then many people condone a father beating their daughter in this same way. Many of us gotten some “licks” or been hit by either of our parents as children or teens and have grown into being upstanding individuals, but that doesn’t make it okay. I’m not going to argue about the ethics of hitting or not hitting your child, but the hypocrisy for me in this specific case is the father’s outrage in seeing his girls displaying themselves for the world to watch (justified) but then deciding to beat them for this while taping and then apparently posting it for all eyes to see. What is the lesson learned here?
What do you think about this video? Did the father take it too far?
2 comments:
Ok, I believe in punishment but I don't agree with a "beating" - and having it videotaped!!! That was just too drastic..As far as I'm concerned, that father should sit back and take the backlash because that's what you get when you broadcast your business for the public!! You open Pandora's box - don't get vex with what comes out...smh
Well...for starters, I had to research what ‘twerking’ means and to be honest, my initial reaction to the videos I found was, ‘how come my body cya do dat?’ I didn’t look at the video of the father beating his daughters...or of his daughters dancing. I couldn’t bear to watch that, maybe because I would’ve been triggered around the ‘licks’ I had as a child but certainly because in my world, it is all kinds of wrong to hit someone (well, outside of self-defense reasons where one's life is threatened). To address the question ‘did the father take it too far’? I believe that he did. His behavior contributes to a very unhealthy norm. I say this even though I come from a culture where I constantly heard the words “if I didn’t beat you, you wouldn’t have turned out so good.” I still say many people who turn out ‘good’ turned out this way because their life experiences provided them with inner strength to ‘turn out good’ despite the beatings...not because of it. Hitting a child is abuse. Plain and simple. It perpetuates a cycle of abuse since the message is clear that this is the way to deal with something that you do not approve of. There are alternate solutions to disciplining children. Maybe taking away privileges for a bit around something they really care about such as phones, or TV’s, or Internet Access, or hanging out with friends (of course, this is applies mostly to the West..but globalization is rapidly making it a worldwide phenomenon). To me, this sends a clearer message because they have time to ponder (of course, while wallowing in self-pity) the consequences of their actions and it does not contribute to a climate of violence. I do not want to be a part of society that approves the physical violation of children. I cannot be sure what the father was trying to prove, but it translates in my world to him belittling his daughters so that he can feel important and ‘in charge.’ It is an abuse of power.
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