Family Issues Friday - part 8

  In 2002, Child Trends, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization, published a large study titled Charting Parenthood -  A STATISTICAL PORTRAIT OF FATHERS AND MOTHERS IN AMERICA. One of their results was this:

Percentage of adults ages 18 to 65 who either agree or strongly agree that it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking:

           1986 '88 '89 '90 '91 '93 '94 '96 '98 2000
Females 82   76  75  77 69  72  69  70  69  71
Males     84   81  83  82 78  73  78  73  77  79

I suspect that you, like me, are not surprised by those results... that those who spank have probably decreased in number, but that a substantial majority do still occasionally spank. I also suspect that many of those parents prefer not to spank, and don't do it very often. We could also quibble about how hard a "hard" spanking is.

I doubt that my own experience is unique. I certainly didn't enjoy being in a position where spanking one of my daughters seemed necessary... it was a last alternative. There were times when a quick whack on an amply-padded bottom was no more than an attention-getter or maybe a reminder of who's in charge. Most parents learn that distracting a child from unwanted behavior is sometimes enough, and a single spank may accomplish that. I think most parents also learn that the mere act of physical punishment is more important than any pain or discomfort, but that can depend on the age of the child, and certainly differs from one child to the next.

Health Plus at Vanderbilt University says that:

More than 90 percent of parents report that they spank their children at least occasionally.

I think we can attribute the difference between the 70-some percent who answered the survey question and the 90 percent number to the survey phrase "good, hard spanking"

Converse with a parent about spanking and you're not likely to get a simple Yes or No... you'll get an explanation similar to the one I gave about myself.

My point is that (1) survey results don't provide very useful information, and that (2) almost all parents do, in fact, think seriously about spanking, rather than just lashing out like brutes. When I was a kid, some parents would say "This is going to hurt me more than it does you". I don't remember hearing it myself, but I wouldn't have believed it... until I became a parent and regretted feeling that I had to resort to spanking.

The Vanderbilt site goes on to say:

Most parents spank their children occasionally, and most kids grow up to be good, productive, and loving adults.

Another source points out:

Interestingly, most older Americans - the ones who stayed married, stayed off drugs, and kept their kids out of trouble - employed spanking liberally.

If between 70 and 90% of all parents spank occasionally, it seems disingenuous to label it "deviant" or "dangerous" or "abusive" behavior. Nevertheless, there are groups doing their best to force us to stop spanking altogether. They obviously do not trust parents to use their own good sense. Instead, they would eliminate all forms of physical discipline... promoting a blanket rule against spanking of all kinds. They presume to comprehend all possible contexts and all possible children, and claim that spanking is never needed. By implication, they know better than the rest of us how we should control our children. Such programs do what many advocacy groups do... they use loaded terminology, such as "never, ever hit a child", and labeling spanking as violence, corporal punishment, and abuse.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but such know-it-alls invariably wish to force their enlightened opinion on the rest of us. As I reported in an earlier column:

Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services forcibly removed forty-one children from parents who belong to a church that advocates spanking for discipline... but only two of the children had bruises or other signs of injury.

Even more astounding is this article from the Christian Science Monitor  about the British Parliament:

As a new children's bill makes its way through Parliament, ministers and officials are debating whether all forms of corporal punishment - even by parents - should be banned. The government has taken state interference in personal behavior to a new level; it now seems to distrust parents so much that it thinks they can't distinguish between disciplining their kids and assaulting them.

Parenting is a difficult task, and children are an exception to many adult "rules". Parents bear the heavy responsibility for the safety and well-being of their children. They certainly don't need the second-guessing and one-size-fits-all generalizations of do-gooders hanging over their shoulders, judging them.

I think the Child Protection Reform site sums it up well:

Anti-spanking zealotry is really about cultural warfare, not child welfare.  System insiders view spanking as the strong abusing the weak.  But, the standard system response - send men with guns to forcibly remove the child into America's genuinely abusive foster care system - is ALWAYS defined by Children's Services as "assistance". If spanking justifies system intervention, then what about other items shown to cause genuine lasting harm? Divorce should qualify as child abuse. So should live-in boyfriend relationships. Studies show divorce, cohabitation, and forcible removal cause far more lasting harm than a hard spanking.

I would certainly be more willing to trust parents to treat their own children sensibly and lovingly than I would be to trust "outsider" government employees with little knowledge of the specific family. As in all other areas of government intrusion into family affairs, the trumped-up issue of spanking is worse than just ridiculous, it's dangerous as hell.