Against Spanking

As unpopular as this may be, I am against spanking children. I'm against hitting anyone except in obvious self defense. I didn't always think this way. I grew up in an era where if your mom told you to go pull a branch off a tree so she could whack you with it, you did it. My little brother and I were spanked with "the belt", "the switch" and ”the stick". My younger sister got "the wooden spoon". We were slapped in the mouth, had our hair pulled and just plain smacked. We didn't deserve any of it. Did we act up as children? Of course we did. We were children. Did I have a fresh mouth when I was growing up? You bet I did. But I did not deserve to be hit.

Because of the way I grew up, as a young mother, I too, thought it was ok to threaten to spank my daughter and to carry out that threat if she didn't "behave". She never deserved to be hit either but I'm sure in my unenlightened youth, she got spanked at one time or another for something. Thankfully, by the time I had my son, I was becoming a little more awake....conscious....aware....and I realized hitting a child for any reason was not something I was comfortable with.

I admit there were moments I had to leave a room to cool off; and I admit to using foul language, never in a threatening way towards my children but enough for them to know when I was really angry. If I could turn back the clock, I would do some things differently...when you know better, you do better. And a grown adult hitting a child to make them behave is not ok with me.

There are alternatives. Aren't we the only industrialized country that still legally allows adults to hit children? I'm not claiming to know the right way to raise kids but for me, hitting a child is not an option; and if I'm not mistaken, research shows it is detrimental to children and does no good whatsoever, so, again, can we get out of the sixteenth century? It used to be more acceptable for a man to hit his wife to make her "behave". Now it's called "domestic abuse". We are all becoming more aware.