We hit because we love you

Guess who is the love of my life? 

As a child, until around the age of fourteen, I was often whacked as punishment by my father. I wasn’t the most well-behaved child, so in his mind, that was probably the reason behind the punishments. Even now, I still can’t say whether those punishments disciplined me at all or whether it was simply the natural maturing that happens on the way to adulthood. What I do know is that I don’t feel resentment toward my parents, and I also don’t believe those moments left any lasting psychological wounds. This is probably because, in some way, the message I received was that it was my behaviour that wasn’t acceptable, rather than something inherently wrong with me.

There is one memory that stays with me; an incident (which is not important) where I received a strong slap. I was a difficult teenager grieving my mother’s death. I felt lonely, misunderstood, and lost, unsure of how to figure life out. Back then, that moment of punishment hurt me deeply, perhaps because I was already hurting inside. But when I think of it now, it isn’t my own pain that makes me emotional. What makes me profoundly sad is imagining what my father must have been going through. He had just lost his wife. He was suddenly alone with a pre-teen and a teenager, trying to raise us while barely staying afloat himself. I can’t begin to imagine his fear, grief, or helplessness. And maybe he, too, regretted those moments when anger and frustration overtook him. Looking back, I realise it’s unfair to blame my younger self for not having the empathy I now have for him.

But this isn’t what I sat down to write about. It’s strange how the mind threads memories together in unexpected ways.

Recently, I witnessed something that brought all these reflections back. Two boys were arguing with an adult, trying hard to prove a point. Maybe the adult knew the boys weren’t being truthful. I could see her growing uneasy, losing control of the moment and not getting the outcome she wanted. In a heated second, she raised her hand to hit one of the boys. But then she stopped herself. She took a breath, regained control, and chose not to strike.

Watching this unfold reminded me of the countless children who have shared with me the pain of being whacked by their parents for all sorts of reasons. In Sri Lankan parenting, hitting is still common, even in an era where laws have changed. Working in a school setting, I’ve even met parents who explicitly request teachers to use physical punishment as a corrective measure.

I’ve thought about this a lot, especially because I experienced it myself. My own experiences were often not so traumatising, but many others carry heavier agony – a lifelong ache from parents who were unkind, sometimes cruel, in the name of love or discipline.

I believe children should be the most precious people in a parent’s life. At least that is how it should be. I am not a parent myself, but sometimes I wonder what parental love must feel like. The closest I can imagine is how I feel about Kinkini, my pet cat. Even in her naughtiest moments, I cannot stay angry. (But this way of cat parenting is also quite unhealthy.)

However, the stories I’ve heard about parents and parenting remind me that not everyone feels the same way toward their children. Parenting is more complicated than I can fully understand.

Perhaps part of this complexity comes from our cultural and religious upbringing. As children, we were taught that parents never do wrong and that children must be eternally grateful. That belief makes hitting even more complicated, because the narrative becomes:

“We hit because we love you. We hurt you to correct you.”

It’s a painful paradox.

I’m not an expert on perfect parenting. The gentle approaches we hear about today, the soft methods, the positive parenting models sound ideal. But I sometimes wonder if there is an absolute truth to them.

Maybe resorting to hitting or harshness isn’t about love at all. I see it as a personal flaw; a skill deficit; a moment of losing control, or the frustration of not knowing how to manage a child who is years younger. Society tells parents they ‘must’ be in control, that they must know what to do, and that the parent is always right. A child deviating from the parent’s plan easily becomes a threat to that sense of control.

But adulthood has taught me something: being an adult doesn’t mean you always know what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean you always have to have control. And maybe, just maybe, good parenting lies in accepting this humility; in understanding that sometimes the children are right too, and that they can have control in certain moments.