Perhaps some of you can relate, or even add a little perspective to my first-time-mom crisis of conscience, for lack of a better phrase...
I was in the baby room at church this morning. It is the room for moms of kids under 2 to tend their babies during the service. Our church doesn't do a nursery. So I'm sitting there with DD (just turned 1 y.o.) in the circle on the floor with other moms with their babies under a year. DD is sitting in front of me. She is going through a "pull hair, grab eyes, grab nose and try to rip it off" phase. She was working her moves on a little boy (8-9 mos) and his mom was sitting right there. We are friends so I felt pretty comfortable that she would move DD's hands as needed. But I was watching and I kept saying, "No grabbing; Be gentle." So after going through this 3 or 4 times. I got into a conversation with another mom. I wasn't watching so close and DD reaches out and is grabbing this little boy's face. Her hands are already on him. I grabbed her hand back and slapped it and said, "No!" After I did it, my heart sank. I hit my baby. I raised my hand against my own child. She cried a little. I didn't hit her hard.
The group of moms that was sitting there are all pretty strict with discipline, especially when it comes to their kids hurting other children. All of the babies there under a year were 2nd or 3rd children, so these ladies have had a lot more time to figure out how they want to parent than I have. I actually like this camp of moms, the "strict moms." I think they are good parents and their kids (from age 1 to 5) are usually very well behaved.
There is another camp of moms at church who are more Attachment Parent style, or maybe just lax disciplinarians. Their kids say rude things and don't get reprimanded. They are mean or rough with younger children and get away with it. These kids also happen to be boys and the oldests are older (6 to 8 y.o.) than the oldests kids of the group of "strict moms" I was sitting with. And in very un-Christian character, the "strict moms" spend a lot of time criticizing the parenting style of the "lax moms" and how obnoxious their kids are. And honestly I usually agree with the strict moms. If my child acted like these kids do, I would be horrified. And it is not just the older boys, their younger boys and girls are also rude/ sassy and show little regard for the feelings of other kids. I do NOT want DD to grow up to act like this, so I feel I need to parent the way the strict moms do, which includes disciplining a 1 year old. In fact, one of the strict moms said, "Yeah, discipline is rough, but how else is she going to know she can't do that?" when I expressed concern that maybe I should not have hit DD's hand. They clearly approved of my discipline.
But still now, 12 hours later, I wonder WHY I reacted that way. Was it the irritation of seeing her do it AGAIN after we just talked about it? Was it the pressure of all the other moms there watching how I was going to handle this situation? I'm not sure. But I do know that it felt wrong to hit my kid. Maybe it is because she is very young. Maybe I will never feel right using spanking or slapping a hand. I don't know.
So I guess my question is, why do you discipline the way you do?