I am not saying they cannot parent according to their philosophical convictions, but sometimes I wonder where our nation will be if we continue down that path.

I know people on both sides who have been spanked…I don’t know if the difference is in personality or in how the spankings are administered. I do know studies have shown that it has a different effect on children in communities where the practice is common and those where it is not.

My main point is that we cannot legislate good parenting. And the consequences of potentially losing a parent (Sweden is held up as an example where a parent can receive jail time) are far worse than the average spanking.

And our social services are overburdened as it is. They are not able to effectively protect children as it is without having to investigate every parent who administers a spanking.

For the record, I neither condone nor condemn spanking. And please remember also that I have worked with kids who came from some pretty bad places, including being prostituted for drugs. I cannot put the two on the same plane.

I’ve got to disagree with you there. I was spanked as a child. Nothing more than anyone else my age was having, nothing that would be called “abuse”. Yet is did leave emotional scars to me, and to many others that are anti-spanking. I never felt that I learned a lesson other than to do as I was told or I would be hit again. My feelings against spanking are from the moments when the adults thought they were disciplining me, and I felt that I was worthless. Those emotions rarely go away, especially when created by someone who is supposed to love you most of all. As a child I felt that if that was what my mistakes made me to them, what did they make me to the rest of the world? I found myself over-eager to please, doing anything that was asked to make people happy. To show that I was good and not worthless.

Ignorance or arrogance? I don’t know, but neither are good qualities in a representative.