POINT OF VIEW
How I choose to discipline my kids may impact their Hispanic identity and mine. BY SABRINA LABOEUF
Sitting on a worn-out couch in San Pablo Viejo, Panama, my greataunt, my mom and I watched a video called Signs You Grew Up With a Latina Mom. “Callate,” says the Latina mom in the video. Menacingly, she holds up a pink slipper, and all three of us burst into laughter. For us, it was more than a slipper. It was a chancleta, a common tool for spankings in Hispanic culture and a heralded symbol of Latinx childhood. Its popularity has earned it YouTube videos with millions of views and satirical listicles. For me, the chancleta and its appearance in the video was a bonding force between three generations of my family. In that moment, I felt like I was more than just the person sitting at the end of the couch. I was sitting at the possible end of a cultural lineage. I’m first-generation American, the daughter of a Cajun and a Panamanian immigrant, and I am proud of both sides of my heritage. But I’m only half Panamanian, and many people mistake me for being 100 percent American because I’m white. This often leaves me wondering about my personal identity, as well as what kind of identity my kids may have. More Hispanics are disregarding their identity as immigrant ties fade with time. According to the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of U.S.-born children of U.S.-born parents but immigrant grandparents selfidentify as Hispanic. This is a staggering difference from my generation, in which 92 percent self-identify as Hispanic. If I have children, I want them to feel proud of their Panamanian heritage. I want them to be able to watch the Signs You Grew Up With a Latina Mom video and laugh just the same. That would entail taking up my own chancleta and demanding respeto from my children. But I don’t have kids yet, and I don’t know if I even want to spank my kids. The 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics warning about spanking warned it can lead to aggression. The Journal of Pediatrics noted corporal punishment as a child can lead to dating violence during adult life. Beyond all possible side effects, my theoretical children will have the memory of me hitting them. I love my mom and how she raised me. I think her strict parenting is the reason I am disciplined and selfmotivated, but I do remember the times when I was spanked. Elizabeth Estrada, a Mexican mother who lives in Waco, Texas, didn’t want her kids to have that memory of her. Initially, she started raising her kids the way her family had raised her. Growing up in a family of 13 siblings, physical discipline made the most sense. When Estrada disciplined her kids, spanking was effective, but when her kids turned 5, she stopped. “I didn’t want them to think, ‘Oh, my mom hit me,’ ” Estrada says. “I didn’t want them to remember me like that.” 86 | AUSTIN WOMAN | JANUARY 2020
Photo courtesy of Marta LaBoeuf.
TO SPANK OR NOT TO SPANK
Austin Family Counseling Founder Lora Ferguson has similar memories of her own mother, despite not being Hispanic. After all, spanking isn’t exclusive to any specific race or ethnicity. According to a Pew Research Center survey of American parents, 14 percent of white parents, 19 percent of Hispanic parents and 32 percent of black parents use spanking as a form of discipline “often or sometimes.” Spanking is on the decline, though, with about 16 percent of parents using it “at least sometimes,” according to the Pew Research Center. Ferguson doesn’t use corporal punishment with her kids and instead utilizes positive discipline, a parenting model developed in the 1980s. Compared to corporal punishment, which produces a short-term result, this model looks at a child’s internal motivation. A common metaphor used in positive discipline is an iceberg. A behavior is represented by the piece of ice above the water while the rest of the iceberg represents the underlying reason for a behavior. Ferguson says behaviors can be addressed by developing a connection with your child to understand why he or she is acting in such a manner. This is followed by creating consequences that are respectful to the child. This excludes spanking, yelling and timeouts. “We want to come up with solutions that aren’t humiliating, that aren’t harmful to anybody, that are respectful but that are also firm,” Ferguson says. “A lot of times, people hear ‘positive discipline’ and they think you just let your kids get away with everything: ‘If I don’t spank them, they’re just going to think they got away with it.’ No, that’s not true.” Ferguson says spanking is becoming less effective as hierarchies in society diminish. She says previous examples of top-down power, such as whites overpowering minorities and men overpowering
