Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Finding the Real Debate on Spanking

Jacquielynn Floyd writes, correctly, that too many studies and discussions of the appropriateness, or lack thereof, of spanking children conflates the practice of providing a swift swat on the rear with various forms of angry, out of control violence. In a thoughtful piece, she concludes:

The big divide, in terms of child welfare, is not between parents who spank and parents who don’t. It’s between parents who lovingly and judiciously discipline their kids and violent sociopaths who lose control and beat them senseless....

But it’s simpler and less discouraging to have a political shoutfest over spanking than to consider the intractable problems of immature, overwhelmed adults raising children, or of selfish grownups who fail to protect their kids from violent partners.

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