You Should Hit Your Kids

We've confronted this before.  The nanny-state.  The idea that you aren't smart enough to raise your own children.  The idea that someone else knows better than you, and that they don't want you to smack your kid.  A California legislator was practically laughed out of Sacramento when she tried to do this.  Do lawmakers have the right to ban spanking?  A group in Massachusetts wanted to.

How can I relate to this debate, if I don't have my own screaming infants?  I was spanked, that's how, part of the last generation that was raised with the occasional rap on the butt.  Before Dr. Spock got into everyone's head and convinced them that they had to mollycoddle their kids.  

In the '70's and early '80's you could still spank; you could still let kids play in the dirt, and they could eat it, too; you could set them loose on metal swing sets and jungle gyms with nothing but concrete to break their fall; they got to stay outside until the streetlights came on; kids were grounded and punished fairly and told "no," a lot.  

Nowadays?  Organic food and soy milk, sterile play environments, scheduled activities or playdates, antibacterial soap and handwash and butt wipes, video games, rubber playgrounds, and the prevailing attitude of "little Johnny needs psychological space."  Let's not even get into the over-drugging of children today-- for a non-Scientologist I'm pretty vehement about not screwing with a kid's brain chemistry.  Now we have little corporate drones with permanent Xbox claws and no immune systems.

I was spanked as a startling tactic.  Touching hot stuff, running out into the street, running off in a department store, sticking a fork in a toaster, etc.  Time-outs don't work for those situations.  Time-outs don't work for much, unless you include some sort of physical restraint.  Hell, my husband got smacked with a wooden spoon by his aunt last Christmas.  And we both love our parents, respect our parents, and are polite and compassionate human beings.  No cat killing, matricide, or overt aggression.  Gangster rap and Grand Theft Auto are more dangerous than spanking.  And haven't you ever seen "Supernanny"?  Those children are what happens when you don't spank. Screaming devil children whose self-indulgence is matched only by their parent's helplessness.  Smack your child today, for the good of the country. 

Originally written 11.07