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This is absolutely outrageous. I watched it because the girl herself uploaded it to the internet to show the world what her parents did to her. And it worked. Millions and millions of people have viewed the video since it was uploaded earlier this week.
The disturbing video shows Texas judge William Adams repeatedly beating his then16-year-old daughter with a belt while she screams in pain. At one point he is assisted by his wife, Hillary’s mother who, as you’ll read below, has since divorced the judge.
This all apparently took place in 2004 so that would make Hillary Adams 23 years old today. She uploaded the video below with this powerful message:
2004: Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams took a belt to his own teenage daughter as punishment for using the internet to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time. She has had ataxic cerebral palsy from birth that led her to a passion for technology, which was strictly forbidden by her father’s backwards views. The judge’s wife was emotionally abused herself and was severely manipulated into assisting the beating and should not be blamed for any content in this video. The judge’s wife has since left the marriage due to the abuse, which continues to this day, and has sincerely apologized and repented for her part and for allowing such a thing, long before this video was even revealed to exist. Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself. Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His “judgement” is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.
Click here to watch the video and see Judge William Adams’ and his ex-wife’s response to its release. Continue reading »
Would you ever spank your child?
Over at the Stir today, Linda Sharps has some interesting things to say about spanking. She’s in a similar position to my own. She doesn’t spank her kids, and doesn’t see the day coming where she ever will.
But she says she understands better now why some people do it, and doesn’t feel comfortable saying it’s always wrong for all families all of the time.
For myself, I find that the longer I’m a mom, the less willing I am to sit in judgement about other people’s parenting choices on just about everything. I know what’s right for me and my family. I know how hard it is to show up and keep doing the right things, day after day. I know there’s a broad range of right choices, and that all parents make mistakes.
It’d be nice if there were just a clean, clear answer to the spanking debate. Turns out, there might well be.
Can we ever agree to disagree, or will the fighting continue?
Opinions are like moms. Everyone has one. And every mom has an opinion.
In fact, you won’t have to look far (the mirror, perhaps?) to find a mom with a very strong opinion on a variety of parenting topics. Perhaps the one thing we can all agree on, however, is that we’ll never agree on many of these things.
Take a glance at the arguments that will likely never be settled, no matter how right you just know you are on the issue:
It seems that spanking used to be more common (and acceptable) than it is today
For some reason, I don’t exactly equate spanking with child abuse. I had plenty of friends who got spanked or had their punishments meted out with belts when we were kids. I’m not condoning either one, and yet I never thought of them as abused kids, per say.
That being said, I’d never spank (or hit or beat or whip or grab or pinch or smack or slap) my kids. I think if you hit a kid in anger, the kid in turn learns to hit in anger. And while I find it hard to stand in judgment of how other parents choose to discipline their kids, I can’t imagine what toddlers can do that’s so terrible that a parent feels that laying a hand on them will really make it better. Furthermore, it breaks my heart to think of a kid my daughter’s age or younger being punished in a physical fashion.
A judge in Texas seems to feels the same way, having issued a “stern warning” to a mom who admitted to spanking her 2-year-old daughter.
Continue reading »
Would you spank this child?
Do you ever really want to spank your kids? Whether you do or not, the impulse to simply smack the little angels can be strong sometimes.
Of course, no responsible parent hits a child in anger. Even parents who use spanking as a discipline tool are clear that the parent doing the spanking needs to be calm and collected when doling out the punishment.
But as essayist Krista Pfeiffer says in her essay for Babble, sometimes the temptation to spank a child can be extremely strong. Spanking seems like such a quick, simple way out of some gnarly discipline problems.
Spanking in schools?
Do you know your school’s rules on corporal punishment? Amazingly, it might be allowed. That’s right: In many schools, teachers are allowed to strike or spank children to discipline them.
New Mexico just narrowly passed a ban on spanking in public schools. It joins 30 other states which had already banned the practice. That leaves 19 that have not. Many individual districts have existing bans, but not all.
I had no idea spanking, or any form of corporal punishment, was still legal in any school. Frankly, I’m shocked. I personally think all spanking should be outlawed. But even if it isn’t, surely it’s not something that should be allowed in schools.
“If you aren’t bruising the child you’re not spanking the child enough.”
Would it surprise you to find out the above quote comes from a pastor as he preached to a congregation?
It does. The quote was just one of several played in shocking audiotapes featured on last night’s 20/20 on ABC. A woman who grew up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church – or IFB – claimed church leaders would tell members God wants them to beat children as young as two weeks old. Why? “Crying too much. That cry is a cry of the will and that will needs to be broken.” You can hear the pastor shout “How many whacks is irrelevant, you might need 100 strikes. That’s what the bible speaks about.”
There are thousands of IFB churches across the United States and hundreds of thousands of members. They’re ultra-conservative, interpreting the bible literally - which is how they justify child abuse. Continue reading »
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