The Evolution of Punishing Children
Jan 24, 2017 • Tim Henares
1950’s: Lumuhod sa mongo/asin
While our timelines might be a bit skewed, and there will always be an overlap in eras, most of our grandparents claimed this was the punishment of choice.
1960’s: Grounding
In the ‘60s, when people discovered so many new things to do, and by things, we mean drugs, it was commonplace to use grounding as a way to make kids fall in line, because withholding their ability to do anything is much easier than laying a righteous beatdown, man. You can’t beat your kids to a pulp when you’re stoned.
1970’s: Boys Town
Threats of sending a kid here would always yield compliance. After all, it’s Boys Town. Who knows what goes on there, especially during the Martial Law era, right? Or 2006, for that matter, where wards cried about “physical and sexual abuse?” Yeah, we’d behave, too.
1980’s: Removing Phone Privileges
Always more effective for teens, but in a time when people call each other up to go out and play, this was a catastrophe for the average child.
1990’s: Spanking
In the ‘90s, people were all about new-age parenting, so a small movement to going back to the basics came in, and so did the spanking. “Spare the rod, spoil the child?” Hah! They never spared the rod in any era, and almost glorified it in this decade.
2000’s: Online shaming
Via CBC.ca
In an age where the internet started spreading its wings, we discovered to our horror that our parents found a new, permanent way to embarrass us even more. It started in this decade, and only escalated ever since.
2010’s: Changing the wi-fi password
Perhaps the cruelest punishment of all listed here, except for #1. Imagine that, the kids now have to, gasp, go outside to have fun!
2019 (Maybe): The death penalty
Via Afn.org
With so much momentum behind the reinstatement of the death penalty and lowering the age of criminal liability to nine, we are now entering the realm of possibility for a child to receive the death penalty for committing a crime they don’t even understand at all.
For a bunch of people who insist that abortion is wrong, we seem to have little problem with killing them once they’re out of the womb.
What will we come up with next?
