Our “man in paradise” pat forwarded this article from the Chicago Sun Times about a woman, who is white, and a liberal, in Chicago who was recently awarded $600,000 in a civil suit. The woman, Cathleen Schandelmeier-Bartels, claimed in a federal lawsuit that she was discriminated against and that she was fired for reporting an incident where an African American boy was spanked by his aunt while at the Shore Cultural Center, a Chicago Park District facility, where Bartels was employed.

“”I feel sad that the public has to pay for someone’s mistake,” Schandelmeier-Bartels said during a telephone interview.

Schandelmeier-Bartels claimed that after she complained, an African-American program coordinator told her “It’s a black thing: We beat our children.”

Later, when she took the matter to Andrea Adams, her supervisor, she was again told: “This is how we discipline our children in our culture.”

She now feels vindicated.

“In my mind, this is the primary message: It is not a cultural prerogative to beat our children,” Schandelmeier-Bartels said in a message she sent posted on her Facebook page.”

The Chicago Park District claimed Bartels wasn’t discriminated against, that Bartels was fired for a “lack of administrative ability to run a summer camp”. Apparently that “lack” extended to the incident with the 6 yr-old boy who had already been written up five times for unruly behavior. After his aunt arrived on the scene and then took the boy into the bathroom and spanked the kid, Bartels reported the “incident” to her supervisors and then to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Service and the police. Bartels was then fired. According to the jury, Bartels was “discriminated” against for reporting the spanking and not for her lack of administrative abilities. Now the “fallout” reverberates over whether it’s a “cultural” thing among blacks to spank their kids.

Yet I noticed something interesting in the article itself, as the spanking was described, at times, as a “beating”, especially by Ms. Bartel, who is an international “advocate” against child abuse:

“Just because you don’t beat your child doesn’t mean she can’t beat hers,” Schandelmeier-Bartels said she was told. “Who are you to tell her how to raise her child?”

And just “who” is Bartel and what gives her the “green light” to tell others how to raise their children?

Bartels is a liberal, those who believe they “know better” in regards to just about anything on the planet, especially in regards as to how others should raise their kids.

There seems to be two separate issues within this story, of whether “spanking” is cultural and the difference between “spanking” and a “beating”.

Ms. Bartels claims it isn’t okay to “hit’ a child for any reason. She also described the Chicago boy’s spanking by his aunt as a “beating”. Any lawyer worth his salt would attempt to establish as to whether the child was beaten or spanked. Such as, were there any bruises, abrasions, or broken bones?

Ms. Bartels claimed that she heard the child say “ow” several times and that this was what caused her to report what she considered to be “abuse”. Yet there were no reports of Ms. Bartels checking the child for physical injuries after the alleged “beating”. And yet, I highly doubt that Ms. Bartels, who considers “hitting” a child, even a “swack” on the butt, physical abuse, and worth a report to authorities and supervisors, that a light spanking would fall in the range of “acceptable” non-reportable behavior.

What further complicated the incident was the attempt by her supervisors and coworkers to instruct Ms. Bartels that “It’s a black thing: We beat our children.”. What Ms. Bartels failed to differentiate was the fact that her supervisor used the word “beat” instead of “spanked”, which was what actually occurred. To Ms. Bartels’ ears, the word “beat” symbolized a cornucopia of child “abuse”. Even so, I doubt that if her supervisor had used the word, “spanked”, instead of “beat”, that Ms. Bartels would have changed her course of action. To Ms. Bartels, all “hitting” constitutes a “beating”, even the “whack” of a hand across an unruly child’s behind.

While Ms. Bartels feels that any “hitting” of a child is wrong, and Bartels is backed up by noted child psychologists, there are still many cultures, including those whose skin color is white,
that a simple smack, or several smacks on a child’s behind, is an effective means of behavior control.
While Ms. Bartels and the noted psychologists believe spanking is abuse, those who have spanked their kids have found that it is a rapid means of getting a child’s attention, especially that of a “terrible two” toddler intent on crossing a busy road or touching a hot stove.

Small children are known to be “immune” to incessant “lectures” about their wants and needs which may lead to danger, lectures such as “Syndey, you cannot cross the street because it is dangerous. Mommy says that you must wait until you are the appropriate age before you can cross the street. Until then you must play within the boundaries your father and I have established for you in the front yard. Once you are the appropriate age, then you will have the opportunity to cross the street where new opportunities await you.” Alas, any such attempts to provide a well thought out “verbal” alternative as to why a two-year-old shouldn’t cross a busy road always falls on tiny “deaf” ears. It’s then that the other alternative, of the “one-two” smack across the rear, which instantly gets the child’s attention, and thus alleviates any desire to set a small foot off the curb, and not the semi-lecture on the dangers of crossing a street.

Everyone should know that beating a child is wrong and is physical abuse yet spanking falls into a “gray” area. Spanking can reach the level of physical abuse but what I’m referring to is the several “smackings” of a kid’s behind and not the full out assault of bruises and maniacal behavior on the part of the spanker, which rises to the level of physical assault. The black supervisors of Bartels admitted spanking was part of their culture, and all I can say is, kudos to them for being truthful. It’s up to the rest of us, of different cultures, to truthfully admit that, we too, occasionally spank our kids, if the occasion calls for it.

While Bartels claimed that “it is not a cultural prerogative to beat our children” I believe she may have been unintentionally correct, it’s not a “cultural” prerogative but a “parental” prerogative.

Bartels and her ilk believe all “hitting” is wrong and abuse, we say, au contraire, it’s our opinion that light spanking is an effective means of parental behavior modification for young children. Apparently the Chicago police and child protective services agreed, as they didn’t arrest the boy’s aunt after she “spanked” the boy.

Yet Ms. Bartels failed in her duties in regards to the boy and his behavior. She failed to solve the boy’s unruliness with her “five” notices of bad behavior given to the six-year-old boy. Ms. Bartels didn’t attempt to dig deeper as to the cause of the boy’s distress, and his apparent “dysfunctional” family, which caused the boy to “act out”. (This is the established protocol for liberals and child care) Instead, it was the boy’s aunt that “solved” the problem of the unruly boy with a few smacks on the child’s behind. Go figure. A few sharp smacks on the boy’s behind versus months of therapy or family counseling to get the same “end” result.

Was it a “cultural” clash? I say no, it wasn’t, unless you count Ms. Bartels’ liberalism as a “culture”. It was a clash of liberal ideology against non-liberals on how other people should raise their children.

Is spanking a “black thing”? It is, but it’s also a “white”, “brown”, and other culture “thing” too. The “it’s not okay to hit a child under any circumstances” including spanking, is a liberal “thing”. Always has been, always will be, unless some noted child psychologist can effectively and persuasively claim that spanking a child has merits, which, at this juncture would be a “cold day in hell”.

While Ms. Bartels doesn’t believe in spanking, she does believe in calling in the authorities and using them as her “stick” in order to punish the spanking offenders, which is a highly established method employed as a liberal “thing”. If you can’t talk people into your ideology, get the authorities to back you up. While child protective agencies endeavor to help children faced with parents who beat, starve, torture, and murder their children, agencies faced with having to deal with complaints of “light” spankings, would merely leave less time for children who truly need help and overwhelm the system.

It’s up to us to “hold our ground” when faced with the onslaught of liberal “guidance” in regards to the raising of our own children. Contrary to popular belief, most parents do have the skills to raise their children as happy, productive citizens without the “assistance” of child care “experts” or those who have beliefs that are contrary to our own, such as Bartels’.

By LBG

Image – Spanking