Discipline and Dignity

Pope Francis got himself into some hot water this month when he seemed to endorse some forms of physical punishment for children.

The Western media criticised the pope strongly for his perceived advocacy for what many commentators regarded as unacceptable parental discipline.

The discussion of whether any form of corporal punishment can be permissible is valid. It must go beyond the clichés of “spare the rod, spoil the child”, but also past the exaggeration that even the mildest act of corporal punishment is tantamount to criminal assault.

At a general audience, Pope Francis referred to a father who had said: “I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them.”

The pope commended the father for not hitting his children in the face and thereby respecting their “dignity”. “He knows the sense of dignity,” the pope said. “He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”

It is easy to see how in the liberal West such a comment could be read as an endorsement of corporal punishment, especially in absence of a qualifier which also might have urged non-physical means of enforcing discipline.

In most of the world, however, corporal punishment is still seen as socially acceptable, and the pope’s comment was consequently uncontroversial.

If anything, its effect might be to counsel parents to review their methods of punishment, placing the dignity of the child above that of the impulse to react without regard for the child’s emotional wellbeing. The pope’s admonishing words might therefore help to moderate the actions of parents who give corporal punishment.

The pope did not in fact advocate corporal punishment, as the Western media would have it, but proposed to reduce the effects of it in places where it exists—and that includes many Western homes.

Indeed, Pope Francis’ address at that general audience focused on fatherly love, saying that it must not control but be firm yet gentle. It must be patient, forgiving and merciful.

This is not the picture of a father who brutalises his children. Clearly the Holy Father — a man who berates mothers for not dressing their children in sufficiently warm clothes — rejects acts that cause physical injury.

The pope’s insistence that disciplinary punishment leave intact the child’s dignity suggests that he disapproves of any act which causes the child emotional harm. This is not limited only to corporal punishment. Non-physical forms of discipline can also cause grave emotional damage.

Is a light smack on the fingers more harmful than passive-aggressive punishment such as excluding a child from activity or withholding parental affection, never mind more sustained forms of emotional cruelty? Is a parent who screams at a child preferable to one who gives the child a smack on a clothed backside?

The pope’s remark is not about the forms of parental discipline (or, more often, reaction), but about the preservation of the child’s dignity.

Alas, the widely outraged response to the pope’s comment lost sight of that very important point, one which is at the centre of the commentators’ concern: the wellbeing of children.

How much more good the commentators might have accomplished had they framed their musings around the question of preserving the dignity of children, instead of projecting their Western bias on the Argentine pope speaking to the world, in most of which physical means of punishment are the norm.

How fruitful it might have been had those commentators, while stating their reasonable opposition to hitting children, also reflected on how aggressive verbal and passive-aggressive parental behaviours injure the dignity of the child.

The media have missed that golden opportunity. In our church communities, however, the pope’s words on good parenting — for what he said about fathers applies no less to mothers — must be taken to heart.

His wise words must reach the parents who beat their children, those who scream at them, marginalise them, or belittle them.

Pope Francis is saying there need not be a trade-off between the child’s dignity and discipline — and he is challenging parents to try to locate that balance.