That’s pretty obvious, in the case of parking lot or outlet. But the same
thing applies in the social realm, and that brings us to the fourth point
regarding excuses for physical punishment. The penalties for misbehavior (of
the sort that could have been effectively halted in childhood) become
increasingly severe as children get older—and it is disproportionately those
who remain unsocialized effectively by age four who end up punished
explicitly by society in their later youth and early adulthood. Those
unconstrained four-year-olds, in turn, are often those who were unduly
aggressive, by nature, at age two. They were statistically more likely than
their peers to kick, hit, bite and take away toys (later known as stealing).
They comprise about five per cent of boys, and a much smaller percentage of
girls.^106 To unthinkingly parrot the magic line “There is no excuse for
physical punishment” is also to foster the delusion that teenage devils
magically emerge from once-innocent little child-angels. You’re not doing
your child any favors by overlooking any misbehavior (particularly if he or
she is temperamentally more aggressive).
To hold the no excuse for physical punishment theory is also (fifth) to
assume that the word no can be effectively uttered to another person in the
absence of the threat of punishment. A woman can say no to a powerful,
narcissistic man only because she has social norms, the law and the state
backing her up. A parent can only say no to a child who wants a third piece
of cake because he or she is larger, stronger and more capable than the child
(and is additionally backed up in his authority by law and state). What no
means, in the final analysis, is always “If you continue to do that, something
you do not like will happen to you.” Otherwise it means nothing. Or, worse,
it means “another nonsensical nothing muttered by ignorable adults.” Or,
worse still, it means, “all adults are ineffectual and weak.” This is a
particularly bad lesson, when every child’s destiny is to become an adult, and
when most things that are learned without undue personal pain are modelled
or explicitly taught by adults). What does a child who ignores adults and
holds them in contempt have to look forward to? Why grow up at all? And
that’s the story of Peter Pan, who thinks all adults are variants of Captain
Hook, tyrannical and terrified of his own mortality (think hungry crocodile
with clock in his stomach). The only time no ever means no in the absence of
violence is when it is uttered by one civilized person to another.