<p>I have noticed more instances of public shaming lately.</p>
<p>Parents make their children wear signs that say “I was bad” and posting it on line. Judges who sentence people to wear signs that state they stole from a store or drove on a sidewalk. They are sentenced to wear these signs and stand in a public place.</p>
<p>It really bothers me. I think it shows a lack of class by those imposing the sentence. I feel like it is bullying. It is certainly not something I would model as a positive behavior I would like others to emulate </p>
<p>Do you think public shaming has any place in your community?</p>
<p>Well…it would be a lot better if the guilty paries sentenced by judges didn’t do the crime! I have no problem with this type of consequence. It is better than jail time.</p>
<p>I do NOT, however, think parents should do the same with their kids either in person or online. </p>
<p>I am fine with it as a punishment for a crime, but like thumper, not for parents to impose upon their kids. That seems abusive.</p>
<p>Our local paper used to publish the names of people convicted of DUIs in our area, but they stopped, and I don’t know why. Crimes are public record, anyway. </p>
<p>I do wonder whether it is effective, however. It seems like no one has any shame about anything anymore. And everything possibly shameful seems to end up being the cool thing du jour.</p>
<p>I am appalled by child-shaming (I actually wrote a short story about this.) Many times it seems to be because the child was bullying someone, and my thinking is–gee, wonder where they learned THAT from???</p>
<p>For children? No, absolutely not. I hate it. I do think it’s borderline abusive. Kids don’t have the necessary social skills yet to cope with that kind of embarrassment. </p>
<p>OTOH, for something like drunk driving, I’m all for it (and a lengthy prison sentence). </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Your definition of shameful is not mine. Out a pornstar student … I don’t care but you do and I have to wonder why you act that way. Are you afraid the dirt will rub off? Why then is it your business to expose what you think is shameful … and then why can’t it be mine to scream just as loud that your behavior is more shameful? Degenerating into screaming is not the way to conduct a society.</p></li>
<li><p>Public shaming correctly brings to mind the imposition of social rules, mostly as an organized fight against the devil. Putting people in stocks. Wearing the letter A. Who decides what is bad? When I was a kid, in most of the country, brown people - then called negroes - mixing with whites in public was socially unacceptable. It was even the proximate cause of death by beating or hanging. Letting people like me live in your apartment complex - or buy in the town where I grew up - was impossible because deed restrictions said no Jews, no negroes, no whatevers. </p></li>
<li><p>Piling on. In the era of the internet, a girl with the same name as the girl suing her parents is inundated with abuse. It’s free and almost always without consequence to pile on.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Do u remember an old Saturday Night Live parody of the Scarlet Letter? </p>
<p>The women in the village are castigating Hester Pryne for wearing the large A on her chest, while the men are grinning at her and winking at each other. Then the men get extra excited as 2 other “shamed” women walk in, wearing the big initials BJ and 3WAY. </p>
<p>Public shaming may lend celebrity rather than infamy to the shamed.</p>
<p>I think any kind of punishment can end up backfiring where kids only remember being mad at their parents and not learn whatever the lesson was they were trying to teach. Natural consequences worked just fine for my kids. I’m so against this kind of stuff and spanking. I think it’s lazy parenting. </p>
<p>An acquaintance posted a shaming picture of her two older school age children by their Christmas tree. The sign said “We were caught opening and trying to rewrap our hidden Christmas presents”. The kids looked absolutely miserable. I got a chuckle out of it but the kid’s obvious distress did make me feel uncomfortable.</p>
<p>“Do you think public shaming has any place in your community?”</p>
<p>I don’t know if this falls under “public shaming” but when I first went to work in the defense industry, (the same company that employed my dad), there were some comments about how workplaces were starting to look the other way when the male employees (the company was very male heavy) were cheating on their wives. In the past, when such things happened, there was such pressure from the executives wives “to get rid of those bad examples” that such men often found themselves “laid off”, transferred to undesirable divisions/jobs, or outright fired. This was to discourage other men from cheating. I also think that the wives didn’t want their H’s seeing other men with “younger models” and getting any ideas. </p>
<p>However, by the 80’s some of this pressure had died down, but it was still “office gossip” when some married guy suddenly dumped his wife to be with some younger trophy babe. It didn’t sit well with the women to see any of that, and I’m sure many female employees were less friendly to the guys who did this. </p>
<p>I vaguely remember watching a movie about a boy whose parents tried to shame him about his bedwetting problem. They would hang his soiled sheets out the upstairs window for all to see. So he started racing home from school in order to get there before his schoolmates so he could take them down and wash them. He got so good at running that he became a track star. Anyone remember that story?</p>
<p>^ Yes, I remember that movie! I think it starred Michael Landon from Bonanza. It was inspirational in that it depicted a child who turned a traumatizing (horrible, abusive) experience into something positive (no thanks to his parents).</p>