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Alicorn comments on Absolute denial for atheists - Less Wrong
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I'd been operating under the assumption that when you phrased the original claim in the second person, you meant to make a statement about the readers of Less Wrong, who are not from the Middle Ages and most of whom are from developed Western countries, as opposed to the crosscultural, broadly historical swath of parenting strategies mentioned in your link. Even if I go by that (profoundly, deeply disturbing, gee thanks) article, the background common to most visitors to this site marks most of us as recipients of a "socializing" parenting style, and it's not obvious to me that that includes unambiguous abuse by the parents, although apparently it's supposed to involve turning a blind eye to abuse elsewhere by authority figures and peers.
It causes me to raise an eyebrow that all of the bibliographical citations are outsourced, so to speak, to four publications all by the same person. It makes it just a little too difficult for me to track down his primary sources (referenced in "over 600" footnotes.)
Edit: I see in another branch of the thread that you count circumcision, in which case unless I outright challenge your inclusion (I'm disinclined to do so) I haven't a leg to stand on: it's very common indeed, and most of the people here are male.
What would you consider the minimum threshold for 'unambiguous abuse'?
Deliberately or negligently injurious corporal punishment (e.g. anything that you can still see evidence of five minutes later that was intended to be that hard, or, after several occasions of "unintentionally" being that hard, is continued with no extra safeguards), sexual contact, protracted neglect (of physical needs like food, cultural needs like clothing, safety in the environment like not harboring a dangerous pet or leaving exposed electrical wires around, education [home or non], or of opportunities for social interaction), regular emotional/verbal abuse (I say "regular" because I wouldn't want to call parents abusive for merely being human and occasionally stooping to yelling or insults), or any combination of the above. I may have forgotten something.
I think only the last item (regular emotional abuse) should really count. But to some extent even that, and certainly everything else (battery of the child, molestation/rape, and neglecting to feed/protect/raise the child) goes way beyond the minimum threshold for abuse and into the territory of strictly evil and even savage parenting.
Corporal punishment is legal in all states. It's illegal to hit an adult, but it's legal to strike a child. Spanking, in particular is prevalent and has been linked to anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. And, basically, inducing that in a child is evil and abusive. The prevalence of spanking has been absurdly high throughout the 20th century - it obviously varies by region, but in the U.S. it was as high as 80-90% at times.
So the prevalence of spanking was certainly above 50% throughout the 20th century. And that's just spanking - it's fairly easy to find the other saddening statistics concerning the other forms of corporal punishment and physical abuse and their prevalence. Same goes for the disturbing frequency of sexual abuse.
As for emotional abuse, if your parents were socializing it's likely that you received it. The socializing parent will often withhold love and support for their child if he or she does not conform to their wants/wishes. The love is conditional upon their children reaching prescribed goals (e.g. grades, college, homosexuality, performance in sports, etc.) and that counts as abuse in my book because it diminishes free will, integrity and self esteem.
Most children are abused. And you don't have to think or know that you've been abused to actually have been abused, so just because most people who suffer this kind of abuse won't come out and admit it doesn't mean it wasn't really abuse.
Spanking is typically not injurious by the definition I gave. Non-injurious corporal punishment doesn't exactly make me want to award the offending parent stickers and Snickers, but I don't think it's "unambiguous abuse", which is what you asked me to define.
I'm willing to believe that unambiguous child abuse is sickeningly common - it would not be the first time I've been gravely disappointed in my species - but it's not down to you to define child abuse into the majority. "Withholding love and support" contingent on the failure to achieve certain desiderata isn't stellar parenting either, but just what are you expecting here? I think I'll be a great mother and I'm sure that there are things my kids could get up to that would grievously injure our relationship. Which things it's okay to react badly to and which things must be taken as neutral and effect-free with respect to the parent-child interactions is a very gray area... it's hard to label much in that department "unambiguous abuse".
You're right, it's very hard to raise a child completely abuse free. I'm not calling all parents evil (or didn't intend to anyway). What I'm saying is that we should recognize these practices as abusive maltreatment of children. A crucial part of that is coming to terms with the fact that they were abusive when they were done to you too.
Inevitably an argument over something like this will come to "my parents spanked me" or "my father hit me, and..." It's already happened in this thread. These people can't accept the fact that when their parents hit them, it was abuse (talk about absolute denial macro).
The point is to turn it off. It's not a contradiction to love your parents while also acknowledging the bad things they did, even calling it abuse. If they wielded their power as caregivers in anything less than a helpful way, then it was basically an instance of abusive parenting. That doesn't imply that in every case they were horrible people or that you can't love them. It just means you acknowledge it as an abusive practice, harmful to the development of the child.
Studies show a linear correlation between the frequency with which a child is spanked and the occurrence of several psychiatric disorders. Also, one in three parents who begin with legal corporal punishment (e.g. spanking) end up crossing the line into criminal abuse (e.g. battery).
The evidence shows that spanking is injurious. You can't just redefine the word.
I think one obstacle to having this conversation is that, as a society, we think that intervention is called for when a child is being abused. People are modus-tollensing away your declarations of abuse because they don't think the things you mention warrant bringing in Child Protective Services: if it's abuse, then it warrants calling CPS. It doesn't warrant calling CPS, therefore it is not abuse.
By your definitions, I think it would be next to impossible to find someone who was never once abused as a child. That means we have no information about any given sort of abuse relative to an absence of abuse altogether. We can only compare the results of abuse A with abuse B, or more of A with less of A, or A with both A and B, or whatever. There's no control group. That casts a shadow of a doubt over many of your claims.
I'm curious about how far your absolute intolerance of hitting kids goes. I was hit exactly once by each parent as I grew up. I don't remember the exact circumstances under which my mother struck me, but I know why my father did it: I was attacking my little sister over some childish upset. There was no way to get me off of her without causing me some pain; he smacked me and I was startled enough to stop. Would you consider that an act of abuse? Wouldn't letting me attack my sister be an act of abuse towards her?
I think this is correct. I personally find the current social model under which children are the chattel-slaves (i.e. the property) of their parents unless and until such time as the parents do something truly egregious*, or until the child turns 18, to be rather revolting.
*That should really read "do something truly egregious, or try to extract economic value".
Nice. Tying the usage of words to inferences seems to be a generally useful strategy for moving semantic discussions forward.
No.
Yes. It is also a very common form of abuse.
Does that include spanking? Note that it is usually applied to toddlers and you might not remember.
I'm pretty sure I was never actually spanked by my parents, although my grandfather tried once before I escaped.
What she said.
Correlation is not causation. Have you read Judith Harris?