CA Assemblywoman proposes Anti-Spanking Bill

[Polly]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6939415&ft=1&f=1001

Major eyeroll on my part. It's a parenting choice. Do it or don't. But it does not constitute child abuse when used judiciously and properly. Yeah, there will be people who misuse spanking/smacking the tush. But for the most part, they are also the people who verge on other forms of abuse, such as mental or neglect.

Do I think spanking is a good choice? It all depends on your child's temperment and reaction to all other forms of punishment, i.e. timeouts, losing privileges, etc. For a small minority that I've either taught or nannied, sometimes there is nothing else that works for serious infractions. Yes, of course, if you are going to spank, follow the spanking guidelines. But the state should not get involved. How the heck would this be enforced? Parents word against the child's?:soapbox

BTW-I do not plan on using spanking.

Polly

[Beka]

we're an entirely non-physical discipline household, in fact we're pretty much a "reasoning and natural consequences" household when it comes to behaviour in general and for us it works but i acknowledge it's not everyones bag.

Do i think this kind of legislation helps? No, it'd discriminate against the parenting choices of many good and decent parents who are currently raising perfectly happy children in loving caring homes, will it help the children who are in genuinely abusive homes? No because it'll divert the energy, time and resources- all of which are far too limited already- of child protection agencies to needless causes and away from situations where genuine abuse is going overlooked, far too many children slip through the net already that are being neglected, harmed and who very much need help and nit picking legislation to ban the use of rational, calm physical discipline within loving households will only make the situations worse for them- the type of people who badly abuse and beat children (the extreme people who do need to be legislated against) are not the ones who listen to the law in the first place- if they did they wouldn't be abusing their children.

How we discipline our children should be personal choice provided it does not cross the line into beating and abuse, there's a big difference between spanking for discipline in direct response to bad behaviour than that is hitting to cause physical harm because of your own inadequacies as a human being.

[Lori]

I don't like the bill, but I understand the impulse behind it. I don't support it at all, but I do think this is a well-intentioned bill, but one that would cause way, way more harm than good.

The problem with spanking is that, as it is now, there is A LOT of pressure on parents to spank, in many parts of the country. I live in an area where the pressure to spank is really, really high. I literally know two other parents, out of dozens I know IRL, who don't spank. It's a complete turn-around from when we lived in Ann Arbor and nobody I knew spanked or condoned spanking. When I was in an environment where spanking was not accepted, or at least not the norm, I never, ever even contemplated using physical discipline with my child. I wish I could still say that's the case, but it isn't. Spanking is so much the norm here that I find myself thinking--despite the fact that spanking goes against all of my moral and religious and philosophical convications--that I should be spanking Thomas, and that spanking would be the answer to our behavior problems. When spanking is prevalent and alternatives are looked down upon--which is the situation here, and I imagine in many parts of the country--then there is a huge, huge amount of pressure on parents to spank, and it does sometimes feel like it would just be easier if it were illegal and so not presented as an option.

But as long as we're talking about spanking that doesn't cause physical harm, I see absolutely no reason to legislate it. Honestly, I think spanking is immoral, but that's just based upon my own personal morality. I don't think it's an issue that needs to be legislated, and I can respect that spanking isn't immoral to other people. That's fine, and they should be allowed to discipline their children in the way that they see fit. As long as physical harm isn't being done, it's not an issue for the government to get involved with. I certainly wouldn't want to see state power used to force parents to go against their own conscience when it comes to child-rearing and have to conform to my point of view. Making spanking illegal would no doubt cause more harm to families than people spanking their kids ever could. I think the law might be very well-intentioned, but it would have terrible results. How can anyone honestly believe that having the state step in and remove children or investigate families is somehow less harmful to children than a discipline practice that, agree with it or not, has been around for a long time and isn't shown to be physically or psychologically harmful?

But, I do wish that there was more of an educational effort done around discipline. I think that many people have false views about spanking--that it leads to better behavioral outcomes, that they can't be a good follower of their religion if they don't do it, that the only alternatives are spanking or complete permissiveness--that keep them from making fully-informed choices about discipline. If someone is fully informed about spanking and the alternatives to spanking, and knows that they aren't going to be raising a brat if they don't spank, but that spanking in simply one of a number of discipline methods, and decides that spanking is the best choice for them and their family, then that's fine. That should be respected, even if everyone doesn't agree. But I do think that many people spank not because they truly think it's the best method for their family or their child, but because it's how they were disciplined and so they're going to use it with their kids, and in cases like that it's more of an expectation than a choice. I'd much rather see efforts to educate people--especially those who really aren't aware of alternatives or how to use them--about the range of discipline choices, than to use the government to punish people for making a choice we might not happen to like.

I also think that a lot of families who choose not to spank--including us--are left pretty much adrift about how to proceed from there. If we didn't have the leisure time to read a lot of books and access to non-spanking friends who can give advice, we'd have no idea what to do discipline-wise. I think that the lack of concrete, step-by-step information about how to discipline a child in a non-physical way--the same kind of information that is pretty readily available around spanking--is a problem, and that the lack of support for parents who choose not to spank (who are still a minority among U.S. parents) keeps people from being able to truly have options about using the best parenting techniques for them and their children. Long point being: rather than punishing people for making discipline choices we don't agree with, why not put more of an effort into educating parents about their options and providing support for whatever option they feel is best for their situation?

[gr8mommy]

I don't think it well intentioned at all. I think it is just another nosey-body way of poking the government's nose where it doesn't belong. And I totally agree with Beka, that it will divert the resources needed to help truly abused children.

[AdinaVerbena]

I don't think it well intentioned at all. I think it is just another nosey-body way of poking the government's nose where it doesn't belong.

Exactly this. How on earth can you even enforce something like this? How would they know if I spank my kid or not? It stinks of a Big Brother, "we know what's best for you," mentality and I don't like it.

[Lori]

I agree it's overstepping bounds, but I do think the state has a responsibility to protect children, given the prevalence of child abuse. Since children have very few rights, I do think that it's important for the government to have a role in defining what those rights should be and making sure they are respected. Right now we don't believe, as a society, that spanking is a violation of a child's rights or that it is a practice that's wrong. Maybe we will in the future, maybe we never will, but right now, the consensus in this country is that spanking is an appropriate way to discipline a child. Given that, and that there isn't empirical evidence to indicate there's harm being done that would justify the law, this law wouldn't work and would cause much more harm than good. But I can't imagine anything other than a desire to protect children and their rights motivating this, misguided as it may be. There are things that were not considered abusive in the past that we now consider abusive, like whipping children. If these issues were never reconsidered, it would still be legal to do that. I think that, when it comes to laws that affect people's most personal decisions--about sex, about reproduction, about childrearing--the government needs to be extremely careful not to use it's power to coerce people, by threat of punishment, to adhere to any sectarian set of beliefs (which, right now, the belief that spanking is wrong is--it's a belief that is only held by a subset of people who have specific beliefs about children and violence and what is right in that area, it is very much not held by a number of other people), but that doesn't mean that there isn't a place for government regulation in some regard.

There are many countries where spanking is illegal. Many European countries consider the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child (a really wonderful declaration that we've sadly failed to ratify in the U.S., since we don't believe that children should have rights) to make spanking impermissable. You can't hit an adult, you can't hit a child. Those countries have far less of a Big Brother mentality than the U.S. does, when it comes to allowing the government to dictate what people can do in their private lives. I've never heard of anyone who lives in a country where spanking is illegal say that they feel somehow oppressed because of the law, because those are societies where spanking simply didn't and doesn't have the social acceptability it has in the United States. So while I think, in the current context the law would backfire badly, if there comes a time when people find spanking as barbaric as we know consider other methods of child discipline people used in the past, a law against spanking would make sense.

[Marzipan]

I'm not sure where to start, really, so be prepared for rambling. I don't spank, at least not as a regular form of discipline. There have been a few rare instances, like once every 6 months or so. So I'm not terribly pro-spanking. However, the difference between spanking and beating is the difference between raising your voice and verbal abuse. They're at different ends of the same continuum, and most people are damned well aware of the difference between the two. Most people care, and some don't My issue with the government trying to step in here is that (a) I hate big governments and (b) it is insulting. We already have laws that say we cannot abuse children. There are all kinds of abuse. Physical, verbal (as I mentioned above), emotional, etc. We assume that the average parent can use their judgment and tell the difference between saying, "What you just did really disappointed me" and "You're a worthless little shit and I wish you had never been born." It is already illegal to beat or deliberatly injure a child. Making spanking illegal does nothing but waste money, time, and divert from the real issue. It's like saying we should make it illegal to break the law so people would stop committing all those darn crimes. If you already beat your kid, you're not going to care. This is a flagrant waste of taxpayer money.

[Lori]

They're at different ends of the same continuum.

ITA with that. However, the law has to operate on a line, not on a continuum, because at some point behavior has to go from being acceptable to being abusive. And where that line is going to get drawn depends on the culture and the times and all of that. Fifty years ago, the line that separated acceptable from unacceptable discipline was drawn at a very different place than it is today. Discipline methods that my grandparents used on my father, which were entirely acceptable and normal at the time, would be considered physically abusive today, and I think we made the right call.

Right now, spanking falls on the "acceptable" side of the line for most people, and it does legally, as well. But that doesn't mean that it's not an issue it's wrong to revisit at times. It's possible that fifty years from now, spanking will fall on the unacceptable side of the line, and at that point, I would say the government would have a role in regulation. There simply aren't non-contextual or ahistorical rules for these things, and I think we do need to be open to the fact that what we believe to be right at this moment may not be what's right for all times and in all places.

[Marzipan]

I agree that there has to be a line, but I disagree that the law cannot operate on a continuum. Every type of crime I can think of operates on a continuum. Manslaughter, negligent homicide, 1st degree murder...we recognize that all actions under a broad umbrella are not of the same nature. And right now a line on the spanking---abuse continuum exists. A better approach would have been to try and develop education programs geared towards positive parenting. I don't like having fingers wagged at me, especially when I pay those fingers every April.

[Lori]

A better approach would have been to try and develop education programs geared towards positive parenting.

I agree completely. The number of families that would be positively served by education informing them of different discipline techniques and how to safely and effectively use all of them would be much greater than any good that could even potentially come from this.

Child abuse is a hard issue for a continuum, though. It's so egregious that it's hard to separate being a little abusive from being very abusive. We do it all the time, of course, in terms of sentencing and deciding while parents can keep their kids and which can't, but an act that goes on the "abusive" side of the line is going to be an act that is pretty universally abhorred in a society. Right now, spanking doesn't fit that. Maybe it will one day, maybe it won't. I don't spank, as a rule, but I've spanked Thomas once or twice, and I've slapped his hand a few times. I have felt horrible for doing it, but obviously it was an act that was thinkable for me. Beating him with a belt simply isn't thinkable, or locking him in the basement. For my grandmother and grandfather, who were by no means evil or immoral or bad people, beating their children with a belt was thinkable. Maybe in a couple of generations spanking will be as unthinkable to most parents as whippings are to most parents today, and in that case, these things would need to be reevaluated. But right now that's not the case, and a law isn't going to make it the case. I certainly wouldn't want to be legally punished for having a lapse in judgment that caused my child no harm, physically or emotionally.

If the idea behind the law is to get people to not spank, then education is the way to go. Most people are either unaware of alternatives to spanking or have absolutely no idea how to implement them if they do know about them. Making people aware of these things in a non-judgmental way would go much further than passing unenforceable laws. Unenforcable laws just create a general disrespect for the law, and a disrespect for laws that protect children is a very bad thing.

[gr8mommy]

If the idea behind the law is to get people to not spank, then education is the way to go

Right. So the legislation should be to make available a class in positive parenting strategies that should be completed within X number of months after the birth of a child. make it free, and tie it to some sort of a tax credit as an incentive. Hell, even give people a $25 gift card to Babies R Us for diapers or whatever. (I'm not including adoption, because at least here, that is already required before you are approved).

Carrots will work better than the stick of Big Government if the goal is truly to get people to use alternatives to spanking. This smacks of Big Brother and just a sneaky way of increasing revenue--'spank your kid? pay the fine and we'll let you go' sort of idea. Handling parenting isn't the government's job, unless the child is a ward of the state. And we all know how well the states do handling the kids already in the system.:banghead

[Kristen]

We had this discussion on 20ish a while ago, and since I already typed out what I think about this, I'm just going to copy and paste it here. Rewriting it seems a little silly. :p

For starters, I can't imagine how this would be enforced.

and just how far will it go? It's true that parents who lose their tempers with their children and yell at them do damage to said children...maybe we should have a law against that too? That way when a mom yells at her kid in the grocery store, we could call the police on her.

Do we prosecute someone who is morally opposed to spanking, but just loses it and spanks her child? or do we just prosecute those who hold a conviction that spanking is ok?

I came from a home where I was spanked(not beaten and not in anger) and judging by the adults I see around me in the world, I am pretty unusually well-adjusted. and I see many, many adults who weren't spanked as children who are messes because of their childhoods. I just don't think you can draw a line across the board and say all spankers are ruining their children for life...it's just not the case. Calm spanking(not "beating" or "punching"...heavens! I don't think it's ok to punch your children!) didn't make me or my sibilings violent or abusive, it didn't make us depressed, etc., etc. We're all happy, normal adults. I suppose it would have been better to send my parents to jail for parenting us as they did? Then we could have lived happily ever after in a foster home.

I am just so impressed that the woman sponsoring this a wealth of parenting experience from parenting her cat. Surely she knows what she's talking about!

One other thing, on the topic of, "where would this stop?"...I was thinking about Steve's childhood as compared to mine, and how our childhoods have affected us. Both of us were spanked, but very differently. Steve's parents spanked him when they snapped(which I think is a totally wrong way to spank) and they even did stuff like slapping him in the face when they got angry(which I also think is terrible to do. My parents would never in a million years have ever done that to me or my siblings).

Aside from that, though, many other things about the way they parented him have stuck with him. They way they derided him, they way they questioned his ability to do things, they way they purposely exasperated him, esp. as a teenager, etc, affect him still today. He has a hard time thinking that he is capable of doing things well because for so long, he was not encouraged. This actually has hurt him more than the inapppropriately administered spankings(which, again, I think were wrong). Are we going to make laws prosecuting parents who deride their children and give them an inferiority complex? Did the government fail Steve by not protecting him from his parents? My future sil also came from a home that has scarred her, and none of those scars came from spankings. It's all emotional stuff.

And like someone else said, there are ALREADY laws on the books making abuse illegal. Maybe we should work on enforcing those.

[Jejune]

This was actually never proposed. She came up with the idea, and there was a lot of uproar, and it never was put on the floor. I have a lot of opinions on this particular lawmaker, but this isn't news, as the bill never actually was even voted on. The NPR story is from January.

Edited: Sorry, Polly, that sounded rude and curt. I wanted to add that if I sounded crabby, it's because I heard that Assemblywoman interviewed, and I hate how much she made California seem like a bunch of fruitcakes in one state.