[rovolo]

Any discussion of parenting and Native peoples needs to include the context of the Indian Residential Schools. The state (Canada and the US) would force Native children to attend boarding schools with restricted parental visitation rights (legally compulsory in Canada 1894-1948, and de-facto compulsory for the 20 years before and after). The schools would punish the children for 'acting Native' (wearing traditional clothing, not speaking english, etc). It was a program of forced cultural assimilation (sometimes called 'cultural genocide') which was supported by saying that Native parents were bad influences on their children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc...

Any attempt to remove Native children from their parents needs to acknowledge the use of children by the government to attempt to wipe out Native culture. Around a quarter of Native children were removed from their homes in the US by child protective services and permanently placed in non-Native homes. This was such an issue that the Indian Child Welfare act requires that Native tribes and Native family have the first opportunity to claim custodianship over Native children removed from the home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act

So for the comment you link to, I have the following objections:

- Native people were raised in government schools (until 1970) which used corporal punishment regularly. They're criticizing parenting styles which the government taught parents as kids.

- Canada and the US have a long history of removing lots of kids from Native parents. Of course Native leaders are going to care about CPS rules

- The SSC guy is completely ignoring how shitty White Canadians have treated Native people when he compares abuse rates between Inuit and "Western" (White) populations. This reeks of a long history of calling Native people "savage".

[dwohnitmok]

Hmmmmm now we're getting somewhere if this is the heart of the objections.

However, this seems like it's covered by

> Also, the Inuit have changed a lot recently as they get influenced by European culture (but NPR did their interview with Inuit this year, who talk as if they're describing the present).

Granted I'm sure you'd find this far too lenient in terms of phrasing, something more like "Traditional Inuit culture was both destroyed by what was effectively Western cultural and actual imperialism and retroactively viewed and criticized through a warped Western lens."

But the basic essence of that is still addressed by Scott's comment. It may not be the way things used to be, and it may not be the "fault" of the Inuits at all, nor may it even be the right perspective to view Inuit culture.

Nonetheless the empirical observations made in this article seem to be in direct opposition to multiple other sources of data we have. That seems bad. More specifically it suggests the article is suffering greatly from selection bias and its conclusions are therefore suspect.

[rovolo]

> Nonetheless the empirical observations made in this article seem to be in direct opposition to multiple other sources of data we have. That seems bad. More specifically it suggests the article is suffering greatly from selection bias and its conclusions are therefore suspect.

Yes, the article is overly broad if you take it to mean 'all Inuit', but I don't think that's a reasonable reading of the article. This is a 'feel-good' story talking about ideals of child raising in an Inuit town. Scott objects to this narrative, so he collects negative evidence to debunk the article. He isn't picking neutral counter-evidence, he is exclusively saying that Inuit abuse their kids and each other:

- "protesting Canada's anti-child-abuse policy": this cannot be discussed without the context of history mass child-separation by the Government.

- Interviews of "how things were in the traditional old days.": This book interviewed elders in 2000, which means they grew up in the Residential School era. The white culture approved of corporal punishment at the time, and the residential schools used most corporal punishment than average. Scott is focusing just on the existence of spanking, and is ignoring the ideals the interviewees express.

> Ilisapi: Some of us tended to take out our frustration on our children when it was our husband who we were angry at. Even if the child had done nothing wrong, if he made one small mistake, we took out our frustration on him. If children were treated like that, they could be damaged. It was their spouse they were angry at in the first place but they took their frustration out on their child. That is not the way to treat a child. It is not good.

...

> Tipuula: Yes. When they are finished crying and are feeling better, that is a good time to talk to them. You need to explain the situation. Let them know you do not like spanking them but what they did required discipline. Once they understand that, they will feel closer to the mother or the father. Things are completely different today. We only reprimand our children verbally because we are not allowed to use physical discipline with our children anymore.

- "(some of these are adult abuse statistics rather than child abuse statistics, but if adult Inuit never get angry or act impulsively, why are they doing all this abusing?)": This is straight-up character assassination. This is the point which I most object to, not because the abuse statistics are wrong, but because it is being used to discredit the ideals of a community.

[war1025]

For anyone interested in Native American / Canadian issues, I can't recommend Kent Nerburn's "Neither Wolf nor Dog" series [1][2][3] highly enough.

The second and third books deal more directly with the boarding schools, but all three are fantastic in terms of giving a perspective that is usually left out when it comes to Native issues.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72662.Neither_Wolf_Nor_D...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6532022-the-wolf-at-twil...

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707906-the-girl-who-sa...