[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Silly ideas?

[Lee Kaiwen]

Carol:
> Even when I was a child, parents routinely spanked their
> children

I'm pretty sure most American parents still spank; I don't know about 
their European counterparts.

Just to show we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do, I'd 
always been one of those spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child types, who 
thought parents who refused to spank were just some of those liberal (in 
the American sense) wackos (in anybody's sense) whose kids were growing 
up spoiled and wild.

Then I became a father.

Now I just can't imagine striking my daughter; the very thought repulses 
me. And, in fact, I've never needed to. Not that she hasn't done her 
share of misbehaving (she's in the middle of her terrible twos), but 
simply because through the simple exercise of even my meager imagination 
I've discovered a whole toolboxful of effective, non-corporal, 
disciplines. I'm starting to believe that 98% of all spanking is done 
primarily to assuage the anger of the parent, not correct the behavior 
of the child, and that there's just something fundamentally cocked in 
the whole idea of using fear and intimidation to train a child ("Don't 
(*bop*) hit (*whack*) Daddy! Hitting (*slap*) people (*whap*) is 
(*smack*) wrong (*bam*)! Now I hope you've learned your lesson.").

CJ, who's now off to read "Choco Needs a Mother" with little Em