Is it abuse to throw your children down a hallway by their shirt collars? I wanna know from childhood experience and I wanted to know if it was considered child abuse.

*** Warning: description of child abuse by a caregiver. ***

I’m going to describe an incident that happened to me during childhood. You tell me whether or not you think it was abusive.

I was in an organized child care facility attached to my elementary school at a relatively young age (I’m going to guess 7–10 years of age) while my mother worked. My father was out of the picture at this point as my mother had divorced him.

I don’t even remember what precipitated the event of my being taken out of class, but suffice it to say one of the caregivers (a woman) yanked me out of class by the arm and dragged me down a set of stairs with a metal railing, like the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got that image in your mind? Good.

As she dragged me behind her, she swung me around her at the bottom of the stairs to go in the opposite direction. I should have been on my feet walking ahead of her where you see the ice and snow above.

Instead, since she was pulling me with such great force, I was in mid air by one arm, unlike the child in the photograph below, who’s being dragged on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was a young black boy, just like the child above, being thrown by a white female teacher, just like the woman above. Except I was actually off the ground. I’m pretty sure some unconscious bias about “uncontrollable” black children being able to “take” higher degrees of physical punishment than other kids was in effect.

Regardless, I didn’t end up on my feet walking ahead of the childcare worker.

I hit, forehead first, right against the end of the metal railing with such force that it sounded like a church bell being rung.

I don’t really remember anything after that, except that I probably ended up in the medical facility to recover from my concussion.

I don’t recall what the incident was about or why I was being punished. I just remember recovering after being knocked out cold.

That’s what can happen when you take a child’s ability to control their own body away from them. You make it about your control, not about the so-called “lesson” you were trying to teach.

Do better.