Spare Change

If Spanking is Outlawed, only Outlaws will Spank

Posted by Bryan

California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber wants to outlaw spanking very young children in her state.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the assemblywoman is not a parent. She does however, manage the discipline of a black and white kitty cat named Snoop, upon which she does not administer corporal punishment. While she is certainly to be commended for this, I'm not quite ready to agree that this qualifies her to enact legislation that polices the discipline taking place inside a home.

I've read the statistics that show 120,000+ injuries occur each year and more than 2000 deaths occur annually to corporal punishment. I have to disagree with this, in that these hospitalizations and homicides are the result of child abuse and domestic violence, not corporal punishment. Mothers and fathers who commit these crimes should be charged with a felony, not a misdemeanor, as Lieber suggests with her new law.

I've also seen this chart, showing the relationship between race, sex, and education levels regarding the perceived need for corporal punishment in the home. Unfortunately, this visual aid offers no demographic information for highly educated, married-with-no-kids-but-I-own-a-cat, white females. As such, I'm speculative of her ability to rightly assess the best modes of behavior modification within my family.

Take a few moments to load this video of her interview on the Today show, because there are a couple important things to note.

First, when asked about how this potential legislation was birthed, she mentions how it came as the result of her conversation with a professor. And as you know, much of our nation's greatest legislation has come as a result of too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen conversations between Cat Lady politicians and bookworm law professors.

Second, this is clearly an intent to enact legislation that begets further legislation. She advocates this settling for the good compared to her ideal, referring to the relative civility of other countries where similar laws are in place. She wants expanded coverage over disciplining older children, but willing to accept just getting her foot in the door, so to speak, for now. She also suggests the expansion of police state behavior, and the mandating of classes for uneducated parents and anger management courses for offending parents.

While I concur with Assemblywoman on the point that infants (and to a lesser degree, toddlers) rarely if ever need spanking or can properly respond to it, I would rather keep this legal door firmly closed, lest we one day find that her no-spanking wedge has grown to Audrey II-ish proportions with an insatiable appetite for consuming every other parenting right we currently enjoy.

Third, and this is important, she needs to update her web page portrait. I wasn't sure I was looking at the same woman. I thought I was looking at her page for the "take your daughter to work" day. Then I remembered she was mumsy to Snoop, so it had to have been her.

Thankfully, the Today show does air a clip of the Governator saying he never spanked his child. Maybe the fact that they grew up watching him destroy a morphing robot from the future as a murdering robot from the future had something to do with his non-spanking success. Perhaps the rationale is that America's men are a bunch of impressionable troglodytes who will stop spanking their children because Ahnold abstains.

Now, as for spanking....you might be surprised if I told you that I'm not a blanket advocate for spanking. But that's a little misleading, the way that saying The Godfather trilogy was a family drama. I am an advocate for the intelligent use of reasonable and appropriate corporal punishment. As oxymoronic as that may seem to some, it is possible and necessary.

Spanking provides a physical reminder of the consequences for disobedience or for bad/inappropriate conduct. I'd much rather my child shed a few tears over a swatted rear and learn a lesson than have a life of "time out" and "i'm counting to three" and never learn the lesson, only to grow up with a false sense of entitlement and privilege.

I was recently part of a multigenerational conversation where we were talking about spanking in schools. I never was spanked in school, and only saw one classmate swatted. However, the prospect of getting a tanned hide at home was always a significant enough factor to keep me relatively faithful to the intersection of Straight Street and Narrow Blvd. An older man (who I deeply respect) smiled and even said, "I'm laughing at y'all," telling us of the innumerable times he was spanked in schools. Times change and we're gettting softer. I'm not an advocate of a teacher/administrator spanking my child, but neither am I one for allowing the government telling me that I cannot discipline my child in this manner.

While anecdotal evidence of three good kids may not be enough to convince you that I'm right and that "I'm my Kitty's Mommy" Lieber is wrong, the extended entry offers a few "rules of thumb" in adminstering corporal punishment. Note: none of the "rules of thumb" actually involve the use of thumbs.

1. Be Calm. It's the nature of a child to behave like a child, and you are the one who supposed to be the adult. When your child messes up, take a few moments to collect your thoughts and to cool down if you need to. Never punish out of anger, but out of a loving, disciplined motive to correct.
2. Use time as your ally. In some circumstances, you need to punish swiftly. In most, though, you can use the same time that you need to get your own thoughts in order to have them reflect on their own behavior and identify where they went wrong. As an added bonus, the time they spend anticipating the punishment is usually as useful as actual punishment itself.
3. Don't extend the punishment. For a child receiving a spanking, every second feels like a minute. It doesn't take much to make a strong impression and there is no need to "throw a hand grenade to get rid of a housefly."
4. Explain yourself. Tell them...every time...that you don't like to spank, and that you will not spank as long as they comply.
5. Love on your children. Follow up every spanking with a hugging. Remind your children that they are loved, and they are good children, but their behavior was bad. Love on them at least twice as long as you spanked them.
6. Be consistent. Whatever you determine to be a punishable offense, make sure you consistently administrate that punishment.
7. Be reasonable. Not every offense is punishable by a spanking. The reminder that "if the only tool you have is a hammer, it isn't long before everything looks like a nail," fits here.
8. Be fair. Listen to the whole situation before you administer justice. The world is not fair, but you can be. Sometimes a mitigating factor is important enough to consider.
9. Be creative. If you need other corrective means, ask people you respect what they do. We have employed a few other means of correction that have been effective, appropriate to the behavior that needed attention. (note: be smart enough to know that this is an extremely emotional issue. For example, while I've never met anyone who uses hot saucing as a disciplinary measure, I know that it agitates many parents on both sides of the issue. I know that it wouldn't work in our home, as we all tend to like spicy food and our kids would just ask for Mexican food for dinner.)

In the end, you are not responsible to the world for the job you do as a parent. You are responsible to the God who gave you children as a gift, and to those children who are the gift. Remember that you are raising them to be excellent adults, not to be entitled children.

January 22, 2007 2:33 PM