I have been banned from commenting on a blog. This is the first time anything like this has happened to me. Let me catch you all up. So there is a little controversy going on in the Homeschooling Carnival this week. It is not a new issue. It is all over spanking and child abuse. There is a couple, the Pearls, who wrote a child training book, To Train Up A Child. In the book they propose some practices that I consider child abuse. A woman (whom I do not know) was supposedly following them when she basically tied her kid into bed with blankets and he suffocated. The Old Schoolhouse, and their blog site HomeSchoolBlogger, accept advertising money from the Pearls Ministry, No Greater Joy. Well, this has appeared to have caused a Christian vs non-Christian throw down. HSB (and all who blog upon it) is now being boycotted by some and the arguement has now gone from just child abuse (the Pearls propose hitting your child with plumbing hose starting with a set of 10 hits) to just spanking. Some believe that it is all child abuse while others of us believe in corporal punishment (within bounds, of course). One of the posts in yesterday’s carnival was on the Strong Willed Child. Within that post was one phrase, “the occasional infliction of pain”, and that sent everything into a frenzy. Questions like, why was this included, were asked and conversations on another blog abounded. I posted a comment to clarify a point (specifically, when is it ok to “beat” a child) that someone else was making. Don’t take my word for it, here is is:

The post in question didn’t say beat. There is a large difference between a swat on the bottom for doing something dangerous (one of my little ones tunred his 4 foot hamper upside down, climbed on top of it and was trying to shimmy up his 7 foot dresser, he is 4 logic doesn’t always work) and beating them. I thought that the boycott was good because the Pearls were puporting abuse but be careful with that wide brush. Just because it isn’t abuse doesn’t mean you have to do that. I believe that is where energyanalyst was going with it.

I am now banned from commenting ever again, she will delete my comments (and she replied with a cuss word).

So now you all are caught up. NerdDad says that he is shocked it has taken this long in my bloggin career. No big deal, right? She was unreasonable in her views, isn’t it expected for her to respond unreasonably to me. Sure, only it isn’t that easy. It has been driving me crazy since it happened yesterday. I love discussing things with others who don’t agree with me but have the same real goal. I have friends, whom I respect, who don’t spank. This statement make shock some who see me but don’t really know me but here it goes…I hate it when people don’t like me or think poorly of me. I want to cry (and I am not a crier). I have an urge to go back to this blog from which I am banned, and justify, pander or otherwise convince this person that I am a good person. But should I? NerdDad says no. I know that I was correct in my statement and my intentions were good. I just need to walk away. It does make me afraid to deal with other that don’t hold to all my beliefs. While I can look past a lot (the blog owner is gay but that doesn’t effect our discussions on good homeschooling resources) but I don’t want to be attacked. I have always had some non-Christian friends and study partners in school. We always learned a lot and respected each other. My liberal professors even respected me because we could talk about isses without attacks. As I enter into educating my kids it grieves me that those opportunities may be gone from my life forever.

Oh, by the way, I spank….I hope to be done by the time they are 6 (ish) and I am open to other approaches but if they don’t (and person or property are at risk) I spank. Book is over, back to our normal nerdy blogging.