Spanking

Foreword

This book is a gift to the millions of young people who are yet to become parents. A gift also and especially to every child yet to be born whose parents will have had the good fortune to read it. Without question, it will be appreciated as a rare source of essential and valuable information that refrains from laying blame; rigorous, yet presented in a way that is free of pretension.

What is not apparent right away is how this guidebook allows us to open our eyes, to emerge from blindness and look squarely at this obvious fact which the taboo against judging our parents' behavior has kept hidden from us: children should never be beaten. We all knew this in our hearts, but early on when we were little we had to learn the opposite: that being hit was beneficial, that it was "for our own good," that it caused us no suffering, that it was just and normal to assault a weaker being than oneself while claiming it to be a beneficial act.

Olivier Maurel rejects all of these lies, all of these habits which consist of looking for excuses, deflecting the truth, or hiding it. He reveals it simply, gradually, with every new question that he answers, clearly, without blaming the reader, but with no concessions or ambiguity. That is what makes this an innovative, clear-sighted, and important book, despite its compact size.

 

As we proceed through its pages, we emerge little by little from everything that was instilled in us throughout our lives. By the end, it becomes apparent to us that reading this book has taken us to a place where we always wanted to go but were always kept from reaching. We feel relief as everything falls into place. We are finally allowed to take seriously what we felt so clearly as far back as our earliest days: that it is not right, and is even harmful, to hit a small person.

I thank Olivier Maurel for collecting all this information and for providing it to us with such skill and simplicity.

This book must be distributed quickly and as widely as possible. It would be a shame if any parents had to say to themselves, "Oh! If only I had read this book before my children were born."

By

 Alice Miller

Why is it that hitting an animal is called cruelty, hitting an adult is called battery, and hitting a child is called discipline? — Anonymous

We cannot rid ourselves of an evil  without first naming and judging it as an evil. — Alice Miller 1

Treat children exactly as you would like children to treat you. — Norm Lee

Read the whole book here: nospank.net