Thanks for taking up this line for me.
Has anyone bothered to point out that Wotjek has a habit of MAKING UP horror stories (based, as you point out, on a narrow range of experience) to support his position? They are very entertaining. He should write for Hollywood.
As for the claim that those of us who disagree with him are over-the-hill hippies and birkenstock-wearing academics . . . I don't think so. That may get a rise out of some people (I am even tempted to smile at it myself), but it hardly constitutes a good argument.
I happen to like most children. Raised a couple of them for a while. That does not make me some "Rousseauistic believer in the child as noble savage."
I think Wotjek likes playing the role of "Wotjek the Incorrigible."
Peter
---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: joanna bujes <joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 15:16:37 -0700
>Woj,
>
>It's becoming pretty clear that you have a very specific view of
>children/adolescents based, I guess, on your own experience. My problem is
>with the extent to which you are willing to generalize that experience. For
>example, you wrote:
>
>>Let's see. The mommy gets daily beatings from her hubby, so finally she
>>divorces the asshole and raises the kid by herself. The kid reaches
>>teenage years and starts behaving like the daddy: calling her mommy a
>>bitch, screaming and punching her when he gets upset with her over her not
>>doing what he wants. When asked by a counselor/therapist/social worker
>>about his behavior he explains he does so out of his anger because his
>>mommy "abused" him by depriving him of his daddy (who BTW does not give a
>>shit about the brat he sired), dating other men, or generally not letting
>>him do what he wants. I bet that the majority of self- or state-appointed
>>"child advocates" would agree or at least be sympathetic toward that kid
>>and see his mother "unfit."
>
>
>Huh? Are you saying that the majority of child advocates are morons?
>
>Next, you write:
>
>"Now, enter the ageing new-agers who still psycho-analyze their own
>childhood, hate the mainstream society, and long for "alternative"
>lifestyles. Violence in general, and much less so violent children, are
>not a part of their upper-middle class background. "
>
>What makes you think violence is a monopoly of the "lower" classes? The
>most violent families I know about ARE upper middle class: A friend, raped
>by his step father from age 11 to age 17. No one in that family is still
>the wiser. Another friend who witnessed the father beating the mother to
>death...and then his getting custody of the children. Another friend whose
>sister was raped by her father when her sister was five. The only
>difference between upper class and lower class domestic abuse, so far as I
>can see, is that if you're in the upper middle class, you don't get
>punished for it.
>
>As for the rest of it: medicate em, kick em out of the house, etc., what
>can I say?
>
>Joanna Bujes
>
>