Hall of Famer Charles Barkley is as old school as they get, and there’s a lot that he doesn’t like about the way the world is today. When discussing how head coaches can no longer yell at players on the Dan Patrick Show, Barkley went on a rant about how parents raise their children these days.
“People talking about you can’t yell at your kids,” Barkley said. “Yes, hell, you can yell at your kids, and you whoop their a** too.”
Host Dan Patrick pointed out that parents aren’t allowed to whoop their kids anymore, and Barkley believes that’s the reason why they are crazy these days.
“Listen, I believe in discipline,” Barkley stated. “I’m not going around telling people to beat their kids, but I think if you don’t spank your kids and discipline them, they turn into some of these brats that we got today… I’m not here for child abuse, but how are kids going to know they’re doing something wrong?
“First of all, you can’t rationalize with kids,” Barkley continued. “They’re dumber than rocks. They don’t know they doing stuff wrong. But when you spank them, that gets the message across, because they don’t want that… Listen, you can blast me on social media. You guys know I don’t do social media. I don’t ever read any comments. I don’t care what you think.
“Y’all can kiss my big black a**,” Barkley added. “I’m gonna say what I gotta say. Some of y’all gonna like it, and some of y’all not. And y’all will get over it.”
Barkley is sure to get some backlash for these comments. The 63-year-old made it clear here that child abuse is wrong, but believes there’s nothing wrong with disciplining kids with a spanking. Barkley thinks that is the only way you can get the message across to them that what they have done isn’t right.
The argument against this would be that hitting a child leads to trauma, not better behavior. How many times have you heard a parent say over the years that spanking their somewhat problematic child only leads to them misbehaving even more? It can build up resentment to the point where they don’t listen to you. Also, with how children often imitate their parents, they, in turn, could turn aggressive toward their peers.
Maybe if your child does something truly deplorable, then a spanking is in order. There does come a point when you have to draw the line.
Someone like Barkley is never going to agree with this line of thinking, though. He is set in his ways at this point in his life.
Getting back to the original point about coaching, Barkley recently came to Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo’s defense as well. The media has criticized Izzo for yelling at his players, and the former NBA superstar would like them to shut up. Barkley also wildly stated that the players should get better parents and friends if they have a problem with the yelling. That’s classic Sir Charles right there.
