Upcoming Article on Spanking

I know I have a very diverse group of patrons and this particular article is written with The Black Experience in mind. I would ask that you refrain from commenting on specifics of this experience and rather let me know if the article hits emotional points for you.  Thank you all and I look forward to providing you with more pre-release content.

Thank you, Dr. Stacey Patton for inspiring me to speak my truth and for writing Spare the Child*

My name is Derrick Hoard, and I am a Black licensed marriage and family therapist, and I hope to convince you to stop using corporal punishment to discipline your children.  I say "I hope" because the chances that this essay will persuade you to stop spanking are almost entirely slim to none.    That is because white supremacy has done a great job of convincing us that the only way to protect ourselves from its violence is to inflict violence upon the most vulnerable among us-our children.

It is challenging for me to discuss this topic without becoming very angry, but as one of the few prominent Black Therapists, I don't have the luxury of being angry.  I also realize that my anger is a privilege afforded to me by my education and licensure as a marriage and family therapist.  

"Why do you become angry", you might ask.

I become angry because I know that if you understood the way your child's body records every smack, pop, and whupping you ever gave them and how their tiny minds have to construct delusions and defenses to process the experience you're inflicting on them, that you would stop hitting your children.


I become angry because talking about this forces me to consider how parents actively participate in replicating a pattern of interacting with black bodies that was perfected in slavery and continue to create the very problems it claims to solve.


I become angry because the lie that "if I don't hit my kids, then the cops will do something worse" is so ingrained in our community that we don't stop to think that if spanking our children worked, we shouldn't be where we were are right now.  How many more names will it take for us to realize that spanking your children does not decrease police violence?

I am angry because it doesn't matter how many years of education I have; it doesn't matter how many articles I bring you or write,  nor does it matter how many direct correlations I can draw between spanking and the development of severe mental illness in the future.


 It doesn't matter that  I can show you that being spanked as a child is a predictor of failed relationships, future addiction issues, or any of those "unexplainable mental illnesses" that people cling to "genetic" explanations for their causes.

It doesn't matter because white supremacy has sold you the lie that being a good black parent means using violence on your children, and you believe it.  You believe it just a strongly as Derek Chauvin believed that George Floyd was less than human, you believe it just as strongly as George Zimmerman believed Trayvon Martin was a threat, and some of you believe it just as strongly as you believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the light.

And you would sooner give up Christianity than give up your right to parent your child the way you see fit, even as it is killing them. And that is by design.  Slavery may have ended on paper, but you are still a slave to the violent impulses instilled into us by Master's rod and your gift to your family is making sure that this indignity, this violation, this intergenerational trauma is faithfully transmitted throughout your family for generations to come.

The problem isn't that the evidence isn't there, nor are you all unreasonable or "uneducated" people.  The research shows that most college-educated black people still believe that a parenting strategy that includes domestic violence against children is not only beneficial but not to do so is to be neglectful as a parent.  The problem is that you cannot see what you cannot accept.

To accept that spanking is abuse is to accept that although "momma", "daddy" or both did "the best they could", "the best they could" has left you with emotional and sometimes physical scars that continue to cause you severe problems in adulthood.  You did not turn out fine.

To accept that spanking is abuse is to accept that you have been unwittingly complicit in the wholesale devaluation of your child's body and that I can draw a correlation between your use of "spanking" and a decline in your child's mental and emotional functioning.

Accepting that spanking is abuse is to accept that you have been wrong, sometimes loudly so, in the way you have chosen to raise your child. You have done violence to them-ignoring their cries of agony as you absent-mindedly relieve yourself of stress built up from dealing with being black in America.

You don't see "spanking as abuse" because you don't see yourself as an abuser, and if you spank your kids, you are. There is no way to describe spanking without using a synonym for the word hit.  Go ahead and try it.

If an adult hits an adult (unless it is consensual as in sex or martial arts), that is assault, and they will go to jail.

If an adult hits an animal (unless that animal was attacking them somehow or for food), that is animal cruelty, and they will go to jail.

If an adult hits a child, whether or not it is abuse becomes up for debate.

Dr. Stacey Patton said it best, "Unlike domestic abuse involving adults, people seem incapable of immediately recognizing the violence for what it is when an adult is hitting a child. And they go through a process of having to deduce if whether what they are watching is abuse".

The reason people go through this process is because black culture celebrates abuse against children, and no one wants to accept that what happened to them in their childhood was abuse.  

Look at our entertainment. Bernie Mac used to exclaim that he would "beat you until the white meat shows", comedians from Tyler Perry to Kevin Hart and Rickey Smiley have made millions by submitting to white supremacy's assertion that the only way to interact with a black body is by subjecting it to pain.

These comedians are also complicit in normalizing behavior against children who did not ask to be born, did not ask for your sacrifices, and cannot continue to bear the brunt of your unresolved trauma. Trauma that you won't even acknowledge because to accept that you have trauma from childhood would be the first step in accepting that spanking is abuse.

A common question I get that isn't as meaningful as guilty parents think is, "Do you have kids?".  No, but unlike most people who have had to harden their hearts to their childhood experiences, I remember what it is like to be a child.  I remember the look on my mother's face as she viewed me as a problem to be solved, not a child trying to understand and find his way in the world.

I remember being made to pick my own switch, having toys destroyed and used as instruments of violence, and the embarrassment and shame of being stripped naked and beaten all over my body.

I remember how she would call her best friend after and recount the story of my abuse.  Laughter on both sides as they discussed how funny it was that I tried to get away or how she "made a mistake and caught him in his lip" or how she was making sure "I'd never be like my daddy".

I remember what it was like to have to live with the person who claims to "love me unconditionally" and would "never let anyone hurt me"-as they hurt me for behaviors that, if psychology weren't so eurocentric, would probably have garnered me a diagnosis of being autistic, adhd, or some other signifier of a unique way of processing the information from my environment.

Many of you are spanking away the very behaviors that predict future industry leaders, pioneers, and savants because you perceive any behavior that isn't abject submission and servitude as somehow disrespectful.

That is the real tragedy here. White supremacy has convinced us to beat the saviors of our families in their youth.  We spank them for being "too sensitive", when my sensitivity is what makes me a proficient therapist.  

We spank them for "being disrespectful", when you know they tell you a truth that you don't want to hear.

We spank them because we think it works when it just ensures that when you are older, you will wonder why "they don't call me anymore".  

 The first step to healing intergenerational trauma in our community is learning to see each other as human beings who do not deserve to be physically assaulted for any reason at all.  Some will read this article and laugh, some will cry, and some will get angry.  It will not change the minds of people whose minds cannot be changed. For others, it will start a journey of self-discovery and introspection, leading to a fundamental shift in your family's trajectory forever.


Would you please stop hitting your kids?