Friday, January 19, 2007

The Crime of Spanking

I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not.

A California state legislator is drafting a bill that would outlaw spanking children, specifically children three years old or younger. The bill would make such spanking a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and as much as a year in jail. The legislator said that the law "would allow people who view a beating to say, `Excuse me, that's against the law.' ''

Where do I begin? First of all, the LAST thing we need is yet another "Nanny State" law that has the government telling us how we are to live. The state does not know better than I do what is best for myself and for my family.

Secondly, I am a parent who firmly believes in the effective use of spanking. It is an extremely effective response to willful defiance in a child. All three of my children have received a swat on the butt before the age of three as the result of an act of willful defiance. In every case though it has not been done in anger, and it was done knowing that they would understand why. I see no practical purpose at all in spanking an 18-month-old child, because (as the article also points out) they would not understand why it happened.

I have seen how we raise our children and how well-behaved they are as a result, and I have seen how other couples we know raise their children and how their behavior has reflected on it. It is not the state's job (or is right) to dictate how I am or am not to raise my child. It is enough that they attempt to systematically brainwash them through the public school system.

The richest part of this though was the end of the above-linked article:
For the record, she does not have children and says she was not slapped as a child. But she does have a cat named Snoop, which her veterinarian told her never to hit.

``And if you never hit a cat,'' Lieber said, ``you should never hit a kid.''

Why is this not at all surprising? If there is ever an area that one should NOT be dictating policy on unless they have direct personal experience, it is parenting.

By the way, if one of our cats strikes at me or otherwise defies me, I do not give the cat a time out :)

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