Massachusetts seems to have set off a national debate on the use of corporal punishment with its proposed legislation to ban the practice. State representative Jay Kaufman who is presenting the bill on behalf of the Arlington nurse who first proposed it says of the bill,
We need to have a serious public conversation, not about spanking — that isn’t what this is about — but where people cross the line and are abusing their children. WBZTV
I am not against public discussion. But I fail to see why a law is necessary in order to discuss a topic. Normally, the discussion occurs before the passage of the law. Child abuse laws already exist, and somehow I doubt true abuse will stop simply because of a ban on spanking. If the report is correct that under this legislation “parents could be charged with abuse or neglect for forcefully laying a hand on their child unless they are trying to wrest that child from danger,” then it is very much about spanking and not just the line where it becomes abuse.
Ironically, representative Kaufman does not seem particularly keen on sharing his own child rearing philosophy. According to Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald, he went on a talk show Wednesday morning where he was asked if he had spanked his own children.
It’s none of your **** business. Boston Herald
I am not sure if this is attributable to arrogance on the part of the representative or ignorance of what he is proposing, but he does not sound like the best person to be putting this legislation on the table.
I know there are some people who are very passionate against spanking. Beth of A Mama’s Musings and Meditations, for example, says she is considering moving to Massachusetts to show her support if the bill passes.
And make no mistake blog reader, whether I do it or you do it, physically hitting, slapping, smacking, spanking is abuse. If a man or woman did it to another grown person they could be arrested but if we do it to our children it’s fine. If a husband whipped his wife with a belt, we would be all up in arms but if he whips his child with the same belt - we turn a blind eye and call it discipline.
I do understand the sentiment, but I have a problem with the overuse of the word abuse to label every parenting practice we disagree with. Yes, child abuse is horrific. It leaves lasting physical and emotional scars on children that will never be erased. Regardless of how you feel about it, however, a swat on the fingers or on the behind will not. It may or may not be the best parenting practice in any given situation, but that does not make the act abuse nor does it make the parent a child abuser.
Now let’s put this in perspective. Take a normal spanking. Not a situation that truly does test the boundaries, but a typical swat well within what the majority of Americans would accept as routine. The kind of swat a good many of us grew up with, and some of us attribute to our fine upstanding character.
And then imagine the horror of that child being removed from his parents and placed in protective custody. Because make no mistake about it, removal from the home is one of the worst acts of abuse that can be done to a child. Abused children are not thankful for their “rescue.” They have nightmares about it. They run away and try to go home. They cry for mommy. They wonder what they did wrong.
There are times when it is necessary because the danger in the home far outweighs the trauma of the removal. But regardless of how offensive you may find corporal punishment, it is nothing in comparison to the trauma of waking up in a stranger’s home and not knowing where your mommy is or when you will see her again. Not to mention the fact that far more child abuse goes on in foster homes than in the general population, despite the fact there is more state supervision and the fact that corporal punishment is generally not allowed with foster children.
By all means discuss spanking and alternative consequences for misbehavior. But let’s maintain a little perspective. (And please, if it is none of my business how a representative raised his children, what right does the state have to know any more of me?)
(Hat Tip: Radio Equalizer)
[tags]spanking, corporal punishment, HB 3299[/tags]
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I read a link on ABC News where the woman who proposed this legislation said that she didn’t want spanking parents *punished* for spanking- just to provide them with help and support.
This makes absolutely no sense. If you are going to equate ALL spanking with abuse, then of necessity is should treated as all abuse is treated.
How exactly is one going to prove that a parent spanks, unless lasting physical damage occurs? And if physical damage occurs, we have laws already on the books for that.
What’d be a hoot is if the current laws were enforced reasonably and consistently. And while I’m waiting for that to happen, I’ll just take a spin around Mars on the mothership…….
Absolutely!
This makes me SO VERY GLAD we moved AWAY from Massachusetts several years ago. Aside from the exorbitant taxes, ridiculous cost of living, and laws about everything under the sun–so much so that Country wide insurance dealers REFUSED to insure in Massachusetts. Yup, very glad we don’t live in that state anymore–although New Hampshire with its Live Free or Die motto, that we could handle if it weren’t for the cost of rent.
This makes me, more than anything, to lean even more Libertarian than I am–stupid laws.
Get real. I live in Mississippi, which is about as far removed from Massachusetts as Pluto is from Earth. What do you hear when a child is misbehaving in public?
“That child needs a good spanking.”
A law like that has NO chance of passing here.
However, after seeing what passes for parenting skills in my local grocery, I have often been tempted to say,
“That parent needs a good spanking.”
Now there’s a law I could get behind (no pun intended).
Spankings for parents that let their kids run around in Wal-Mart. Let’s debate that one.
When I first became a Christian Sean was 3. I didn’t know what God had to say on the subject of discipline so I asked my pastor and his wife. He said that there are different ways of disciplining a child. Slapping is the last straw. He also says that you are the last person in the world that should discipline your child if you are angry, but the most important thing to say is this: God says in the Bible that we hate our children if we refuse to disciple them… end of story!
Good post. Thank you.
Oh by the way, I live in Ireland, and as yet, it is not illegal to slap your child but they are pushing for it. Last year I was reported to the authorities (by an unknown person) for home schooling my son (this is legal here) for his being slim (he is in good health and has regular health checks so at least I had this as a back up) and for disciplining him. The social workers were able to check out the first two concerns but insisted on meeting Sean about the third.
They came to our home, met Sean and told us afterwards that within the first 5 mins of our meeting they knew he was fine! Al least we have it on record that we are good parents!!
Last week we got an e mail from a family friend who lives in Holland. He is divorced from his wife and his 13 yr old daughters school doctor is making both his and his wife’s life miserable because she insists that his daughter is unhappy. (this could lead to the child been taken from them)
Things are pretty serious over there at the moment and the system is very much against Christians. We got word yesterday that the latest meeting went ok (the doctor in question was not there)so hopefully things will calm down.
I think we will find that these new laws will be pushed on the people through the governments the world over. Not a pleasant thought.
Sunnymom, that seems to be the intent but you cannot have a law without consequences or it is pointless. And what is “getting help?” And why do we need to spend who knows how much money on “getting help” when we could be serving the real victims of abuse better? I agree the law makes no real sense.
Life on the Planet, I have thought the same thing, too. It doesn’t look like it has much chance of passing in Massachusetts, to be honest, but I figure it will eventually. Our culture is slowly moving toward criminalizing everything.
Thank you, Heather! I have never even been to Massachusetts, but I do remember its renaming to “Taxachusetts.” And whatever it is they plan to use to enforce such a measure is going to cost a lot more in taxes!
Ruth, I hadn’t thought of that. Such lax rules on what abuse is would make it a lot easier for parents in a custody battle to throw abuse around.
You are right that we discipline our children because we love them. “Discipline” really only means “teaching.” I know what Proverbs says, and I’m not taking any sides in whether or not spanking alone is good or bad or whether all children “need” spanked. In the ideal, we need to look at all of what discipline is, however. It is modeling good behavior as parents, it is teaching appropriate behavior, it is rewarding good behavior and it is setting reasonable limits which are enforced.
I don’t think a swat is abuse where it is used as such, but I also don’t think it is the only way to correct.
I caught part of this debate on television last night. It was really disturbing the way the woman presenting the anit-spanking legislation kept insisting that “this is not about spanking”. It was about having a “conversation about what is best for our society.” Um, yes, it *is* about spanking, because that is what you are seeking to outlaw, and the fact that you see it as a broader issue means that this is just the beginning of things you’d like to label as abuse.
She also held up Sweden as an example, which is a whole other can of worms.
You cannot legislate good parenting. The law only serves to set limits on the harm people can do.
I agree, Rebecca. If this is only about a conversation, then have a conversation. Write to the editor of your newspaper. Talk to people about alternatives to spanking. See if you can get on some local talk shows.
Don’t outlaw all forms of corporal punishment, for that is exactly what spanking is. And if she doesn’t want to go that far, then she needs to reword her stance.
But also be aware that child abuse laws do exist in this country.
And holding up Sweden as an example? That sounds to me like she DOES want this to be about spanking, but also knows that 80% of America is against this kind of legislation. Meaning that she is hoping people will sign on to preventing child abuse, not realizing that there is more in this bill than that.
And that is deceptive, if truly what she is after.
Great post, Dana. My mom and I were just discussing this bill over the phone the other day.
My feeling is that government is getting too big for it’s britches and becoming a real micro-manager. Here the state of Mass. wants to tell people how to parent (or in this case, how not to parent.) They claim this isn’t about abuse, so we aren’t talking about putting a law into effect to protect children from serious harm. The message behind this bill is that state knows how to raise a family better than the parents who love and care for their children on a daily basis.
Sunnymom, I completely agree with you about the need for current laws being better enforced, particularly when it comes to child abuse.
We have a neighbor who has a young son–and a terrible record for neglecting him. When we first moved in several years ago, he was only 2 or 3 years old and yet we were shocked to see that he was constantly wandering around the neighborhood unsupervised for hours. We sometimes witnessed him banging on his own front door, calling to his mother to let him in. Once I had to intervene as a couple of adolescents (read: much older and stronger) were bullying him, at first just verbally then physically–and mom nowhere in sight. There was also a long history of domestic violence in the home, during which his life was threatened by a live-in boyfriend at least once that I know of. And about a year ago, the boy was going door-to-door for the period of a few days asking neighbors for food, because there wasn’t any in his house. His mother has failed to provide for his most basic needs–food, safety, and shelter–time and time again. I could go on and on with examples, and these are just what we have happened to see.
Of course Child Protective Services has been called about this family before, but nothing ever seems to change.
My point in relaying all of this is just to demonstrate the warped priorities re: this spanking bill. Children suffer abuse and neglect at the hands of their own parents, parents who are cruel and selfish and are not concerned about what is best for their children. Meanwhile, we have people proposing laws like this one, which, if passed, would doubtless be used to wrest children from the arms of loving parents–simply because the parents and state of Massachusetts do not see eye-to-eye on the method of discipline.
Thank you so much, Jamie. I used to work with foster parents and saw the kinds of abuse it took to get a child removed and the kinds of situations children would be put back into.
So on the one hand, I doubt that there is anyway a swat would ever end in removal from the home. I think it would be more of an annoyance in custody battles.
But perhaps the bigger problem with this legislation is more closely related to what you are talking about. Social Services is overburdened as it is with caseworkers handling too many cases, low funding and a high turnover rate.
What will this do to a system already overtaxed and unable to adequately assess the safety of children who really are at risk as they have to add every swat in the state to their pile of work to do?
Proposed legislation like this would be laughable if it wasn’t so scary. Slowly, but surely our personal rights as parents are being eroded by an agenda which claims to be “for the child”, but is REALLY “for the policy makers.”
There is NO possible way for government to effectively (and fairly) enforce a policy like this. It is not possible to create laws which make it clear exactly what constitutes abuse. If this legislation passes, it is inevitable, good parents who discipline responsibly WILL get caught in the net. That terrifies me.
Good parents will be harassed and at the same time, real abuse cases will go uninvestigated because social services will be so overwhelmed. They already are and they do not have to investigate every time a child is swatted anywhere in the state!
Very eloquently stated. I wish more people would just exercise some common sense. I’d be willing to wager that the people supporting this legislation have never been abused themselves. If they had, they would understand the difference between spanking and abuse. They come across to me as self-righteous morons.
Or they really have not thought things through. It is becoming pretty common to see a problem and think it can be fixed by passing a law.
I don’t know. If Representative Kaufman’s response is any indication, I’d say that more than likely the supporters think they are better than everyone else.
But I think that may be what is behind their inclination to try to solve all problems by passing laws…
You’re right, there. I was thinking of the nurse. But we know representatives don’t always have time to read the legislation. They need a mocking constituency to do that for them and talk show hosts to call them on it.
Ignorance or arrogance? I don’t know, but neither are good qualities in a representative.
I’m with you on this. Overall, this is part of the trend away from any kind of discipline. That’s why schools have become the way they are: you can’t have education without discipline.
“It leaves lasting physical and emotional scars on children that will never be erased. Regardless of how you feel about it, however, a swat on the fingers or on the behind will not.”
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.
Do you think removal from the home would have been a better alternative?
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.
How far America has come since the days when the words “For God and Country” were penned. Proverbs tells us “… spare the rod and spoil the child”. So now, we are going to let our child spank us in court? When we choose to turn away from core principles and try to create our own path through life, we do stupid things like pass a law that bans spanking of misbehaving children… Makes one wonder how many people in legislative power were victims of child abuse to the point where they fear discipline that much…
I was wondering how long this discussion could go on before that verse would come up. : ) There does seem to me an increasing push toward parenting styles which treat children like adults, allowing them quite a bit of freedom and minimal consequences, like the movement to never tell a child “no” I heard about back when I had my oldest.
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.
actually the verse reads: he who spares the rod hates the child.”