Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?
Incoherent question, isn’t it? Nevertheless, that’s the question that New Zealanders are answering in a citizens initiated referendum. The referendum is being conducted by postal ballot, and it closes at noon (NZ time!) on Tuesday 25 August.
Since 1993, New Zealand has allowed citizens to initiate referendums, on any question that can be answered either “Yes” or “No.” But it takes a fair amount of work to get a referendum underway. The organisers of a referendum have to first propose a question to the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The Clerk is allowed to rework the question, but only to ensure that it can be answered with a “Yes” or a “No.” Once the question has been approved, the organisers have 12 months to gather support for having a referendum, by getting 10% of the voters on the electoral role to sign a petition to that effect, within 12 months of the question being approved. Given that there are about 3 million people on the electoral roll, anyone organising a petition now has to come up with about 300,000 signatures. So far, only four petitions have crossed the 10% hurdle.
1995: Should the number of professional firefighters employed full time in the New Zealand Fire Service be reduced below the number employed on 1 January 1995?. Result – 88% voted no. This referendum petition got its 10% of votes very quickly, by the clever tactic of standing uniformed firefighters on street corners, clipboards in hand. The pollies ignored the result.
1999: Should the size of the House of Representatives be reduced from 120 members to 99 members? Result – 81.5% voted yes. The pollies ignored the result, of course.
1999: Should there be a reform of our justice system placing greater emphasis on the needs of victims, providing restitution and compensation for them and imposing minimum sentences and hard labour for all serious violent offences? Result – 92% voted yes. This was a laughably incoherent question; it was impossible to support the first clause without also supporting longer prison sentences. The pollies didn’t quite ignore this question. There was no reform of the justice system, but they’ve done a bit of work on victim support. And they’ve gone hardball on prison sentences, catering to the credulous consumers of crime-porn news who think that crime in New Zealand is increasing all the time. It isn’t, but shamefully, New Zealand has an incarceration rate second only to the United States’ rate among OECD nations, (though to be fair to New Zealand, its rate is far more like the rates in the United Kingdom and Australia than the US rate).
For the record, I voted “No” on all of those questions.
And this year’s question, right up there at the top of this post.
Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?
There’s history behind this question. Section 59 of the Crimes Act had provided a defence against assault charges. A parent who assaulted her or his children could claim that she or he was using “reasonable force for the purpose of correction.” What constituted “reasonable force” was left up to juries to decide, with the result that some parents were found not guilty of assaults that involved using rubber hoses, bamboo canes and horse whips. [link] There was a long-running low key campaign for the repeal of section 59, but eventually, in 2005, Green Party MP Sue Bradford’s bill for repeal came before the house as a member’s bill. Partway through the legislative process, the ruling Labour party adopted the bill. The bill was extensively debated up and down the country, with those in favour of the bill arguing that all citizens, including children, should be entitled to the protection of the law, and that some appalling cases of assault against children (see above) had been discharged using the defence. Notably, virtually all the organisations in New Zealand that work with children supported the bill. Those against the bill, and in favour of the defence remaining in the Crimes Act, argued that this was just the nanny state interfering with home life, that parents had a god-given right to hit children, that police officers would spend all their time staling parents and entering private homes to keep an eye on the treatment of children, and that the sky would fall in. Eventually, the Leader of the Opposition (John Key, now Prime Minister), proposed a set of amendments which Prime Minister Helen Clark, the Labour Party and the Green Party agreed to. Section 59 now reads:
Parental control
1. Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of—
a. preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or
b. preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or
c. preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or
d. performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.2. Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
3. Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
4. To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child or person in the place of a parent of a child in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child, where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.
The bill passed in May 2007, with 113 votes in support, and just 7 against. The critical change that brought the National party over to supporting the bill was the new section 59(4), urging the police to use discretion. So the first cases that were brought under the new law were watched very, very carefully. To the delight of the anti-bill/pro-smacking campaign, led by the curiously named Family First (they really should cross out the letter “r” in their name), one of the earliest cases was a prosecution against a dad who had allegedly ear-flicked his kids. Family First director Bob McCoskie was astounded that the dad had been charged, and proclaimed that it was a test case for the law. [link] But when all the details came out, it turned out that the father had punched his four year old son in the face. He had managed to do this right in front of a police station. He was found guilty, and sentenced to do an anger management course. To me, that looks like the amended law working as it should. Family First continue to be aggrieved by the law, and they claim that it is not working, but the data to date suggest that it is working perfectly. All of which makes the referendum pointless.
I think the question is utterly incoherent. I don’t think there is a possible world in which “good parental correction” and “smacking” go together. Hitting a child means that parents have failed, not as parents overall, but in that particular instance. It represents the parent’s loss of control, the parent’s anger winning, the parent failing to calm down, walk away, and in general, be the grown-up they are supposed to be. As a parent myself, I know there are many, many ways to discipline a child without resorting to physical violence. (In our house, it’s usually the sitting chair; the child is asked to sit on a chair, in the family room, until she calms down, usually for no more than five minutes. The clock starts again upon movement or talking. It works – everyone gets some time-out, including the adults, but no-one is removed or isolated. We also use the chocolate frog technique.)
At this stage, it seems that about 85% of New Zealanders will ignore both the evidence and the incoherence, and vote “No.”
And what our pollies will do about it? Prime Minister John Key, who seems to have all the moral fibre of a blancmange, says that ah.. well… hmmm… what are the focus groups saying… yess… well… I won’t be casting a vote! How’s that for leadership? Alas, the leader of the opposition is doing the same. [link] Shame on both their houses, I say. Shame for not voting to ensure that the smallest citizens of New Zealand are entitled to the same protections in law as any other New Zealander, and shame on them for not even having the courage to have an opinion on the matter. In any case, both leaders think that the law is working well, so there is no need for a change. [link] So this is set to be yet another referendum result that the politicians will ignore. What point then in having citizens initiated referendums at all?
As for me, yet again it seems that I’m going to be in the minority. I’m voting “Yes.”
For the curious, sites for the Yes campaign and the No campaign.
Yes, it is an incoherent question. I’d be wary of voting yes or no, because I question exactly how much say I should have in the way other people bring up their kids. The obvious riposte to this is that we have laws to stop abuse etc, so that we already make decisions about this issue, so why not? But, the question’s very incoherence puts me off.
I agree that there’s no reason to hit a child. But I’m also curious about the way this becomes such a contentious issue. When I was growing up I had a friend who had the most openly abusive parent I can remember. He never hit her. He used sarcasm, emotional manipulation and verbal humiliation to make her feel terrible herself, which had a long term negative effect. In all honesty, as much as I dislike parents hitting kids, I’m sure his behaviour did much more harm than a smack. But how can we frame laws to prevent this sort of treatment?
If legislation were passed to punish parental violence in New Zealand, what is to stop NZers from taking their children to the nearest extra-territorial port-of-call and spanking them there?
Australian authorities should brace for a smacking holocaust at Kingsford-Smith Airport.
Time to pitch a whole new reality series. “Spanker Stoppers”
I agree with you that smacking need not be part of good parental correction, but I’m not sure in most cases it needs to be a criminal offence – though the case you cite of a father punching his son in the face I think would. A criminal record could be quite counter productive when referral to counselling and education services and management by child protection services could suffice.
Just out of interest what do you do if she refuses to got sit in the chair but keeps doing what she wants to do? I’ve seen kids who respond well to the kind of discipline you describe and others in the same family who don’t.
I think using food as behaviour control technique is also starting to get frowned upon because of the risk of it leading to eating disorders.
The chocolate frog technique is a joke.
I agree that the sitting chair would not work with some children. It happens to work with ours, so we continue to use it, ‘though these days, less and less frequently. We also use some withdrawal of privileges (eg. computer time, wii time), usually specified in advance. At this stage all of our girls have reached the age of reason, and none are yet teenagers. So I do agree that things are comparatively easy for us at present.
Oh man, what a mess. I find these things always so odd because they presuppose that the way things are currently dealt with are (in the majority of cases) somehow appalling, when in actuality they’re mostly fine. And in situations where it’s not fine, I question whether a law is going to make much of a difference.
I was smacked, and it didn’t do me any harm, but it’s not for my children. As Fine alludes, there’s more than one way to abuse your kids.
I do love the horrendous double standard we apply to children, however. If an adults hits another adult for pretty much any reason, it’s not really cool. Kids are fine. Much like how adult harrassment lands people in court; child harrassment is too readily seen as something to endure.
Oh, we *dreamed* of having to vote on incoherently-phrased referenda. Why when I was a lad, our Dad made us vote on bicameral legislative propositions that had to be answered with a “sic” or a “non” in the lower chamber but rephrased (from Latin into Attic Greek) in the upper chamber to facilitate nuanced debate, with both bills reconciled in committee in a cold stoveless shed; and if we so much as passed a single clause of incoherent legislation, our dads would impeach us, strip us of our citizenship, and transport us for life to a penal colony in the frozen Arctic wastes where we ate nothing but walrus tusks and ice cubes and were beaten to a bloody pulp by the local Inuit with seal-clubs made of frozen-solid driftwood salvaged from the wreckage of the Franklin expedition. Then our Dads would pardon us, ship us all the way back to Wellington locked in the coal-furnace of a steam trawler, then give us a good parental smack on the bum and send us off to bed without seeing who won in the finale of Australian Idol.
If we were lucky.
What is the point of having these referendums if the politicians can ignore the result?
I’m not sure that I’m in favour of this sort of thing, given the mess that the US state of California has gotten itself into, through referendums for everything.
That is an easy one. The answer is no. The control is in the definitions of “a smack” and of “child abuse”. Similarly yelling can be seen as parental correction (of children) and/or child abuse. It is a matter of degree. It is lazy legislation to avoid adjudication with oppressive rule making. I personally see no difference between a “smack” (and you have to be clear here that a smack is a low energy event as against an event intended to cause physical harm) and a mental punishment. Extended psychological manipulations are every bit as damaging (see internet bullying and consequences) as abusive physical violence. And the absolute worst case is where the two are combined to achieve the most negative outcome.
Putting aside the merits or lack of any particular referendum it must be terribly disheartening to have succeeded in literally getting 10% of the voting population to sign a petition, win a referenum and then see the pollies ignore it. Then again when you see California’s terribly budgetary problems maybe it is for the best?
two anecdotal observations on the smacking side of things
I spent some time in Sweden in early nineties and spent a fair bit of time with people with yong families. Smacking had ben outlawed many years earlier in Sweden of course. My conservative colleagues would have predicted ad I confess myself also prior to visit that this would have resulted in a lot of unruly behaviour in youth/children etc. In all honesty though I could see no material difference, although I do think at least then Swedes seem to get more violent than Aussies when drunk which was a surprise (but I don’t think there is any connection to lack of smacking).
At the small children age it struck me the key difference is how “inefficient” running a Swedish family is. In order to convince a small child to get dressed to go to town for instance could take a very long frustrating time, whilst an Aussie family could cut that short and say if you don’t hurry up you’ll get your bottom smacked. I don’t claim it gives it any morality just simply observing the efficiency of it.
On corporal punishment as a whole one interesting contradiction has stuck with me from boarding school days. Where I boarded there was an official punishment system whereby a misdemeanour incurred demerit points. From memory if you got 5 you were gated/grounded. Points took a month to expire and you could accumulate in excess of 5 so it could be wll over a month before you regained your freedom to visit shops, family and friends etc. The unofficial punishment implemented by the year 12 prefects was a swift punch in the arm. Almost without fail students chose the punch in the arm and never the demerit points. There were of course some atrocious abuses with the arm punching system. Yr 12 first 8 rowers punching 12 year olds in the arm by definition is an abuse but the more “politically correct” demerit system was utterly despised and the arm punch system almost universally hailed by the students who suffered it as fair and even admirable. Nearly all these students were the sons of pastoralists or farmers so typically physically tough so maybe that played a part but it has always fascinated me how emphatically the students preferred it over the more accepted privilege denial system.
It makes me wonder that for physically tough “free spirits” some mild level of corporal punishment is more humane than any financial or privilege denial system. I think many would find that hard to comprehend but if someone is consciously of their own free will choosing physical punishment I find it hard to argue against.
I’d imagine most here would be opposed to any corporal punishment, ( I’d describe myself as agnostic) would be interested to hear views on the above.
I think it is a leading question as the part “good parental correction” gives it away. I am a parent and I believe you can bring up children equally well whether you smack them or not. I think it depends a great deal on the parents and the children involved, some children respond very well to reasonable requests others do not. Some parents can explain things so well that children understand why they should change their behaviour and others do not.
I was smacked a bit when I was a child, but not much and I understood very quickly about reading parents and avioding them when they were getting desperate enough to maybe entertain the idea of clipping you around the ear.
Current laws about assault and abuse offer sufficient protection against violence, the issue is enforcement. Abusive parents, as the previous poster mentioned, can exact horrible psychological effects using non violent means and legislating good parenting through a non-smacking law is about as likely to make it happen as legislating universal peace and love. Nice sentiments but they do not address the root cause of what presents as a problem.
Nope
Correction must be hands off and non-contact. Under no circumstances should a child infer that the way to express disapproval or to secure with speed that which may be difficult to attain is resourt to abuse, including physical abuse.
In the grand dialog between means and ends neither must shout down the other. When that happens, a paradox follows.
While I accept that hitting a child could easily go over into abuse, I can’t see that smacking a child’s hand away from the stove or something similar is a bad thing. I also imagine that the people likely to move into the area of abuse are not likely to be influenced by a law one way or the other – abusive behaviour already is a crime.
I was smacked as a kid… on the bottom, or on my hand. I can’t say it left me with any particular scars, emotional or otherwise.
‘ere you at 6. that were LOOKsury! When we were bairns, we ‘ad to ‘and out ‘ow-to-vote cards for the Senate election of ‘74 with 93 candidates, aye that were before above-the-line voting, Senator Fielding Lord bless ‘im, and if a voter so much as questioned ‘ow we ‘ad placed our preferences 86 to 92 (generally the 93rd prefrence didn’t make much difference), our Dad used to give ‘em such a godalmighty ear-bashing you could ‘ear it oop in Lygon Street though the voting booth were down in Napier Street Fitzroy, joost be’ind them factories where the little urchins were boiled oop in huge cauldrons for the makings of salami sausages by the only Eye-ties that weren’t slammed inside as Aliens during the War on bloody ‘itler, yes we were poor; Attic Greek? that were LOOKSury, we ‘ad to use Spartan ‘cos our Dad admired heir fearsome warrior culture, not like them namby-pamby Athenian pooves; we were ‘appy but destitute; then one day the Kiwis gave oop on the Party system and it’s been downhill all the way
My comments may seem naive, & I admit straight up that I have no offspring. Perhaps my questions are drifting too far into philosophy.
Should physical punishment be distinguished from any other type of punishment? I understand this distinction hasn’t been addressed in the blog post. Should there be a distinction? The question in the referendum appears to make a distinction, but does the proposed legislation imply that ‘force’ is physical?
Isn’t the point of punishment, of any sort, to inflict some degree of suffering, of any sort, in order to alter the behaviour of the punished or of potential offenders?
I suppose my questions boil down to these:
Is physical suffering caused by physical punishment less morally justified than suffering caused by any other form of punishment?
Is it right to inflict suffering in the name of punishment?
My preferred position is that there should be no section 59 at all. That is, citizens and residents who happen to be children should be entitled to exactly the same protection in law as citizens and residents who happen to be adults. That is what Sue Bradford’s bill set out to achieve. The bill that was eventually passed was a compromise, but to my mind it’s better than the old section 59. So I will vote “Yes” in order to preserve the amended version of the Crimes Act.
Stewie @ 10: Current laws about assault and abuse offer sufficient protection against violence
Only if you accept that punching a four year old in the face is “reasonable punishment”. The problem that’s being addressed in NZ is that people are getting away with quite serious assaults because they’re allowed to discipline their children. What’s been remarkable to me is the number of times the childbeaters hold up some case as an example of the nanny state run amok but on further investigation it turns out to be something that the great majority find abhorrent.
Further amusement came from the Electoral Commission ads having the piss taken with the “write your own question site, leading to such gems as “should a kick in the head as part of good spousal correction be illegal” and “should hanging as part of keeping the bastards honest be illegal”.
Seeing adult humanity often has difficulties that the offspring do not create,I offer two distinct solutions.A. a pair of ear plugs industrial type found in hardware shops like a piece of hard cylindrical foam..to be worn in the early months of childhood development.B. Being aware of Time Dilation..that is the the long and short of any length of time.No real advice on smacking will meet the requirement of parent and thus offspring.Both parent and offspring need to understand simple key matters like the initial,or first bad episode of child misbehaviour as seen or felt by parent.That is Initial Conditions.Understanding or observing that,may unleash creative responses,and even smacking that has no pain at all.The child remembering the first smack,maybe encouraged to not want any other type,and eventually would surely indicate it misunderstands something.
I was belted as a child when I did something naughty. I deserved it, and learned from it.
What I hated was the other method, the guilt trip, that really hurt, “you have disappointed your mother”
Give me a quick belt, it’s over and done with. Life’s too short to be worried about “I am upset with what you have done, I am going to cry about it”, that REALLY hurt.
Smacking is bad parenting. Criminalising it will just make bad parents into criminals. Is there any evidence that parents are getting away with serious assaults in the name of disciplining their children? And if such a law came into force, could we expect it to be enforced sensibly? I no longer feel comfortable taking photos of my kids in public places if other children are around. Will I also be made to feel like a criminal if I have any physical contact with them? (“You say you were fooling around, but the CCTV footage suggests there was a smack … We’ll let the courts decide, in the meantime, you can expect to hear from the child protection unit…”)
Is there any evidence that parents are getting away with serious assaults in the name of disciplining their children?
Well, yes. In New Zealand, that is, prior to the amendment of section 59. That would be the horse whips, rubber hoses and bamboo canes that I referred to in the post. The most recent police stats suggest that police discretion is being exercised reasonably well – see this analysis (also linked in the post).
The nonbinding (and hence, waste-of-time-and-money) referenda are weird enough, but why have the question written by some incapable of stringing three concepts together without hopelessly mushing them together?
Apart from that, Deborah @ 15: “citizens and residents who happen to be children…”
With rare exceptions, no such thing. Kids are born as self-centred, short-sighted barbarians, quite different from ‘citizens and residents who happen to be adults’. Kids need to be socialised to become the latter, and it can take a while. In the meantime, I do not believe in full rights, privileges and freedoms for the incompletely socialised.
I think the sooner we get away from this you cant hit kids the better,I went through school it was a Marist Bros school and use of the strap was on me about every 2nd day.
In my line of work when I was doing my Apprenticeship I found if you did not stand up and fight you were ridden into the ground,only had one fight but it was a good one.
Same as when you go out,I worked door on a few clubs and most people at 4am 5am in the morning are pissed fools,if there not they are just being smart arses trying it on, you tell them to go, if they don”t whack em a few times they get the message.
Sorry I think we mollycoddle people,kids,life is hard and if you don’t stand up for yourself you get crapped on
An exasperated clip over the ear or smack on the bum by a parent on the spur of the moment is one thing but an organised system of corporal punishment is another.
As usual the reality lies somewhere in between.
An interesting anecdote. I grew up in a third world ex-British colony where up to 12 strokes of birch was still still being legally handed out by magistrates until the mid-seventies. I asked at the time a senior public servant responsible for overseeing how it was carried if it worked, ie: reducing recidivism.
“I can’t really say. Some come back and some don’t. However the bloke doing it was birched himself once and so really knows what he is doing.”
So never mind the poor victims of corporal punishment – does anyone consider what it’s doing to the punishers. Something not good I suspect. Won’t someone think of the poor birchers?
However the public hangman back there then was not recruited the same way.
Nice guy though. He used to tune our piano. It was his day job, tightening strings to keep things in tune.
“I went through school it was a Marist Bros school and use of the strap was on me about every 2nd day.”
Apparently at the expense of the three “R’s.
Reminds me of another anecdote. “The Day Corporal Punishment Was Suddenly Phased Out Of My Third World School.”
I was in the class when a small and physically unprepossessing teacher hauled a strapping teenager twice his size and weight in front of the class for a not particularly painful but very humiliating five strokes on the palm with one of those old yard long rulers. After one whack, the student hauled off and punched the teacher out. I’m not kidding. He cold-cocked him in front of us.
The outcome?
The student’s family payed for the teacher’s broken jaw.
His father belted him something rotten afterwards.
Corporal punishment was immediately banned at our school.
The student in question is now a Cabinet minister of the country where it happened. And with whom I occasionally correspond. He doesn’t mind at all being reminded of that incident.
I have no idea what lesson you possibly draw out of all that.
“I have no idea what lesson you possibly draw out of all that.”
Umm…maybe different folks for different strokes?
I hope he waited for his jaw to heal before he did that to him.
I have foster children and I can tell you first hand the effects of excessive smacking on children.
1. It normalises violence
2. It teaches them it’s okay to solve problems with their fists
3. It makes children unhappy, distrustful and uncooperative
It is not easy to change this mindset once it is entrenched. One of my long-term children came to me as a baby – no issues there, thankfully – but the other came once the “smacking mindset” had already taken hold.
He is very hard work, both for our family and for childcare and kindy. We’ll get there in the end, but the damage done to this child was appalling. And I’m not talking about routine physical assault; this is just “normal”, albeit excessive, smacking.
1. It normalises violence
2. It teaches them it’s okay to solve problems with their fists
3. It makes children unhappy, distrustful and uncooperative
Exhibit A, John Ryan above.
What happens to the smaller kids or those who just aren’t good at fighting? Leave ‘em on a mountainside?
Lynda 27,
I think that your experience is only half the story. The other half is about the consequences of the failure of the coercive method of child management. What happens when the child gets the upper hand because the parent does not have the skills, or where the non physical approach becomes abusive through excess. All of these are failures, and each has its own set of outcomes.
If you are going to make smacking illegal then you have to make yelling illegal as well.
The only workable approach is to make EXCESSIVE discipline illegal. And as several commenters above have pointed out, this is called abusive behaviour and it is already illegal.
On the substantive question, I’m with Deborah’s position – prefer to abolish any child-specific provision in the law entirely.
The only thing that needs belting into shape here is the citizens initiated referendum system. One major problem with the system is, clearly, that the questions that get put up are worded in a loaded form. But how do you define when a question is “loaded” and who should rule on it?
My guess is that the wording of CIR questions should be a matter for court challenge (and, ultimately, probably the High Court), but what should be the standard by which questions are judged acceptable, and how should any required rewording take place?
BilB – My point was about EXCESSIVE smacking (ie, where smacking was the only form of punishment, even for petty “offences”).
I don’t think there is any doubt that smacking is often (not always, though) about bad parenting. Many would argue that the “short, sharp shock”, last resort smacking works well for some children. However, it is just as easy to argue that there might have been other option had the parent been calmer or been able to think of more creative solutions to the problem.
A point worth contemplating: do children get smacked when parents are feeling calm and in control? If the answer is no, I think it is obvious where the emphasis should be placed – on parenting and responsible child behaviour management. The solutions are not easy, but if you love your children and want what’s best for them, it’s a no-brainer.
I should also point out that I have, in the past, smacked my own daughter, so I’m not coming to this argument as some sort of anti-smacking zealot. Once I started fostering, it was made perfectly clear that smacking was absolutely not on, and that we had to look at other ways to discipline the children. As I said above, in some cases it hasn’t been easy, but there really is no other option, especially when you are dealing with children who have already been so seriously damaged.
Good point. It is a real eye opener to read how CIR have crippled the administration of California. It has become another form of anarchy. Very slow anarchy.
Why stop at children, anyway? Those old people can get really annoying!
Regarding the wording of referendum questions, Green party MP Sue Bradford, who sponsored the Section 59 repeal legislation in the first place, back in 2005, has sponsored another members bill, the Citizens Initiated Referenda (Wording of Questions) Amendment Bill, which it seems that the National party will adopt in some form as government supported legislation. [link]
This whole debate over smacking is fundamentally wrong because it focuses on the negative.
Children need to be raised positively. ‘Catch them being good’. Praise, encouragement and reinforcement.
Trouble is, Positive Parenting requires a few skills which most of us didn’t get from our parents and the ridiculous political correctness about blaming parents means the issue of poor parenting is tip-toed around, and terms like ADHD, ODD and depression absolve parents from blame.
My son was smacked a few times up until 5yrs when I read ‘Raising Boys’ by Steve Biddulph which made me realize why smacking is wrong. I then attended a Positive Parenting course and learned a few easy techniques for raising a child properly.
It was a wonderfully uplifting experience because, while it made me acutely aware of my deficiencies, because if the positive nature of the course, the focus on solutions and the fact that everyone else on the course was in the same boat, I did not need to feel uncomfortable.
I feel that Positive Parenting courses should be made widely and economically available by the government, and even tied to child payments in some cases, while having a plan to legislate against physical violence in the immediate future.
Linda 31,
It is all too easy in a forum such as this to forget the circumstances under which most smacking takes place, and concentrate on examples of excess. It is also easy to not understand the fact that children can be masters of escalating violence themselves. I can remember well the one time that I wacked my youngest (extremely strong willed) daughter. After an episode that progressively escalated I gave hear a wack on the bottom with a wooden spoon, a wack that would have brought tears to my eyes. In the so doing I realised that I could have beaten the child to death at that point and she would have not changed her mind. The wack became the turning point that changed us both. I had to find other methods to manage a strong will. Deflection became the method of choice. I was never going to succeed in a head on confrontation with this child. Recognise approaching head ons and divert.
But pain is a very important instructor. I was pleased when each of my daughters had burnt themselves, for instance. Thereafter they learnt faster about the risk of burning the house down with candles and matches (so far so good).
The whole “smacking is bad” argument is too simplistic. Furthermore, there is a gender argument that is only touched upon if you tally the views on a gender basis. What works for girls does not necessarily work for boys. There are very real physical dangers in being a boy growing up in many environments (though not all) that routinely lead to death. Sometimes the countdown method just doesn’t work.
I didn’t get a wack when I drained the water out of the (new) car radiator but didn’t get to refill it before Dad took the car for a drive and nearly seized the engine, but my brother did get a wack when he shot the next door neighbour through the leg with a bow and barb ended arrow. This is not girl behaviour.
I just remembered another non girl behaviour goody. A kid where I was living at the time didn’t experience any pain until his dad wacked him after he got the neighbours kid to hold the detonator while he put the end of the wires on the battery. The neighbour lost his hand, and that was painful for him. Boys!
Punching your 4 year old in the face would be illegal under the common law in Australia without any legislative intervention. I suppose if you have the good fortune to get in front of a jury you never know what they’ll do, but a judge wouldn’t let someone get away with the the horse whip nonsense.
It’s possible they might give someone a chance to prove it was an isolated incident with a section 10 bond or something if the evidence in mitigation was good enough. Mummy or Daddy being in prison isn’t always the best for kids either, unless (s)he’s a real full time bastard and the pros outweighs the cons (so to speak).
I would be voting yes, and have a great deal of problems with physical discipline for children for the reasons Lynda Hopgood has outlined best I think in this thread.
One of the critical issues for me is that many parents are most definitely not in control when they smack their kids – it’s not a calm parenting technique administered in a compassionate but disciplined context, it’s too often a frustrated and angry parent hitting their kid. I’ve seen it more times than I care to count.
Small children are generally terrified by parental anger – that alone can have a big impact, and can also result in behaviours in the kid that generate frustration etc. in parents and so a vicious circle is born – it happens because the kids and parents are human. The threat of being hit, even if not realised, also normalises those feelings and teaches kids to use them in turn.
We really need more support for good parenting, not least so that where parents find a child is not responding to some of the example techniques Deborah listed for eg, they feel empowered to go and access some basic assistance, rather than this being seen as ’seeking counselling’ or other labels that make people feel like they are in big trouble, or have failed etc.
We need this as much because children are pretty close to AndyC’s description above – little walking Ids with phenomenal willpower geared towards survival in the first few years, and then ‘little barbarians’ while their brains and EQ develop far enough and they gather enough experience to learn how to behave. I just don’t happen to think that these facts mean that smacking is an appropriate option.
Personally I think that parenting is a such a touchy and personal issue for most people that it’s really hard to have a conversation with the majority about how they raise their kids, how they were raised etc. Talking about the latter is seen as insinuating something about their parents, talking about the former is seen as suggesting they aren’t good parents.
Perhaps because I come from a home that included a violent father, it’s meant that my brother and I, for all that we see eye to eye on very few things, have both got a good healthy habit of self-examination and consideration of our learned behaviours when it comes to raising kids. It’s meant my brother is a wonderful father to his two little girls and an outstanding primary school teacher, and it’s certainly helped me, childless though I am, be a good nanny for an intensive year and babysitter on the more casual level, a good auntie to my blood nieces and various close friends’ kids. It’s not because my brother and I were perfect, it’s because we were forced to examine our parenting behaviours, or find ourselves repeating things we had inherited. It’s probably the only good thing we got from my father’s mental and physical violence when we were growing up.
I perceive that this referendum question is a stalking horse for the Christian fundamentalist religious right.
A quick tour of the blogosphere indicates that this referendum required the valid signatures of 300,000 NZ citizens in order that it might proceed to a vote.
In stark terms, fundos appear to believe that the parental hand is in effect the hand of God. The state contrariwise represents the forces of evil insofar as it presumes to stand between God and the child.
Thus, if Jesus could redeem mankind by doing His Father’s Will that He be tortured to death, then why complain about a Godly smack on the botty?
The fundos’ opponents appear to be driven by boring old enlightenment values.
They thoroughly merit crucifixion.
“Why stop at children, anyway? Those old people can get really annoying!”
Don’t forget just how annoying women are as well, sometimes they need a short, sharp shock to snap them out of their silliness. It would only be reasonable to discipline one’s wife, after all she is a man’s property, just like children.
The amusing irony about these kinds of CIR proposals which are drafted for political advantage rather than legislative clarity is that they created a space big enough for TEH JUDICIAL ACTIVISM to drive a horse and cart through when phrases like “smacking” and “good parental correction” become subject to judicial review.
We don’t. When adults break the rules we send in the police. Police have the authority to use force if the adult doesn’t comply. Do we want to have to call the police every time a child doesn’t comply with the authority of the parent, or do we want to allow parents the power to enforce their authority?
BilB#36, if anyone deserved a whack in the example in your last paragraph it surely should have been the significant adult other who either gave your brother, or allowed him access to, a bow with a barb-ended arrow.
“Mummy or Daddy being in prison isn’t always the best for kids either, unless (s)he’s a real full time bastard and the pros outweighs the cons (so to speak).”
Yeah, cause punching your kid in the face, that doesn’t make you a “real full time bastard”… oh wait…
You hit a kid, you teach them that it’s okay to use physical force to get what you want. Not a great life lesson, in my opinion.
I think a lot more damage is done by kids being hit too much than is done by them being hit too little.
But based on my own parenting experiences, there is a case for an occasional smack to the leg or bum in some circumstances – notably when the kid is below the age of reason and so punishments delayed in time (such as withdrawal of privileges) will be ineffective and hence quite cruel.
A smack is immediate, and any Pavlovian will tell you that for rapid conditioning the response should immediately follow the stimulus. But it should be single, immediate and never hard enough to bruise.
Hitting kids after they are old enough for other methods to work is just abuse. And anyway kids, like adults, respond better to positive than negative incentives and that’s where the emphasis should be – if you find yourself punishing your kids regularly in any form u r doin it rong. And using belts, sticks, canes etc is way, way wrong.
Not necessarily Rebekka. In the real world:
1) some people are cruel and abusive by habit, and
2) other people have brain explosions, for a myriad of possible reasons.
As I suggested though, you would be very lucky indeed in this country to escape a conviction & criminal record for punching a small child in the face, were the offence proved.
I am reminded of a story told by my best friend about how, during her childhood in New Zealand, she wrote her initials JH in some newly poured concrete in the family garden. Her parents, not believing she had yet acquired the lteracy to be able to do such a thing, assumed that her older brother (also a JH) had done the deed and duly administered a most incondign physical chastisement.
Paul@44:should have been the significant adult other who either gave your brother, or allowed him access to, a bow with a barb-ended arrow.
A better choice would have been to bludgeon the child until he was incapable of turning everyday items into weapons. The idea that supervision can prevent an intelligent child from producing weapons is ridiculous. I went through a weapon-building phase and that taught me (and my parents) that there is little to nothing that can be done unless you have the resources to hire 24/7 supervision or the fortitude to isolate the child from anything that can be manipulated. The latter is illegal, and the former expensive, either way imprisioning a child is inhumane. FWIW many of the other things I have built can be used as weapons.
PN 44,
The bows and arrows were hunting tools used by the New Guinea natives, they were readily available, we had had them for years and used them responsibly. My brother shooting the neighbours kid in the leg was very deliberate, and a very good shot too by the way. My brother, at that age, had a bit of an empathy problem. He also pushed me off the garage roof head first when I was 4. The bow and arrow was incidental, people really do not need weapons to hurt others when they really want to. The detonator story, also from Port Moresby, was possible because the surrounding hills were littered with war time munitions, and electrically operated detonators, I had found several, were there as well along with plenty of 303 ammunition. Everytime there was a grass fire you could hear ammunition going off from the heat. The most scary thing I ever found was a box of sweaty dynamite, I backed away very quickly.
Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence?
.
No.
.
Punching your son in the face however is assault and that is a criminal offense. Temperance in all things (except Beethoven).
I think that DD46 is the most balanced appraisal. How do you put that into legislation?
Oops, Ootz, I forgot to say thanks for the advice!
Why can’t it just be dealt with as a common law assault?
“Swedes seem to get more violent than Aussies when drunk”
It’s their inner Viking.
Because various control freaks are outraged that the people in authority aren’t coming to the same self-centred knee-jerk uninformed decisions they are.
Sean, thanks for your totally patronising remark, I never would have realised how intellectually superior you are if you hadn’t sent me your bulletin from the ‘real world’.
I actually never suggested that the *only* reason why some adults are violent is because they were hit as kids – that would be patently ridiculous. How about learning some reading comprehension before patronising other commenters?
@56,
Actually probably a better answer to my own question would be that a child can’t bring the action in the first place. I think the case for not treating children differently from adults with regard to criminal assault is the strongest. This would probably make corporal punishment an offence. The questions appears to somewhat defensive as it proposes that good parenting could be criminalised.
Actually probably a better answer to my own question would be that a child can’t bring the action in the first place. I think the case for not treating children differently from adults with regard to criminal assault is the strongest. This would probably make corporal punishment an offence. The questions appears to somewhat defensive as it proposes that good parenting could be criminalised.
Agree, but also think it should be added that particularly in early years incidents of violence or the normalisation of violence for children plays a strong role in the kind of adults they will grow up to be – hence I think it’s worth making it a higher benchmark at least for justifying using physical force against children because the lasting impacts of it are / can be disproportionate compared to that of an adult.
I think the question is an attempt to challenge the presumption that smacking == bad parenting.
There’s a big difference between a few incidents where a child is testing boundaries and “normalisation of violence”.
Katz re fundementalism and corporal punishment: When i first had kids I was talking with a maori pentecostal woman who told me when raising kids i would do well to keep in mind the old testament proverb “Spare the rod and spoil the child”.
Being raised fundie and finding myself on the receiving end of that adage many times, I was careful to explain to her that i wasn’t intending to use corporal punishment on my kids, only to find her agreeing furiously with my point of view. Turned out she had always read that proverb in the positive, literally as “spare the rod, and spoil the child” and was astonished to hear that many people used it to justify a good beating.
Bilb: I have a couple of sets of those hand-carved new guinean bow and arrows that are great fun to take down to the park every now and then. Our arrows have three different tips: a thin narrow type for possums and birds, a broad tip for pigs and several intricately carved multi barbed arrows designed especially for humans. God forbid my son ever shot someone….
BilB @ 52 – I don’t think you can legislate that sort of nuance which is probably a hint that you shouldn’t try. Set the bar for criminal assault to something higher than what many would consider a smack but low enough to include things like a punch to the head. And then discourage the use of corporal punishment through education programs at the low end, and intervention by child services at the higher but not quite criminal end.
In most cases I don’t believe that bringing in the police and court system will be the best way to address this problem. And either way you have to be prepared to provide support for parents who have difficulty getting other techniques to work, otherwise you can end up with even worse outcomes such as parents who end up providing no control or guidance at all.
Paul Norton: ….which wont happen, ’cause we are ridiculously vigilant.
And I never suggested that you suggested it. I initially pointed out two things.
Firstly, that the law as it stands in Australia already prohibits punching small children in the face, without anti-smacking legislation. It is true that juries reach peverse decisions in all sorts of cases, but the outcome of the OJ trial doesn’t mean that murder is legal in California.
Secondly, dealing with how a person found guilty of punching a small child in tha face might be sentenced, I said that there might be rare cases under the Australian law as it stands where a person could avoid prison and possibly even a recorded conviction. They would have to show that it was out of character, for starters, ie that they were not a “serious full time bastard”.
You responded that if ever a person loses their shit in that way then they necessarily are a full time bastard, albiet you argued in the barely coherent sitcom style of “… oh wait” argument that prevails among the young folk these days.
Despite the patronising sarcasm of that reply I patiently expanded upon my point, which you have missed again, either wilfully or through that self professed intellectual inferiority.
There’s a big difference between a few incidents where a child is testing boundaries and “normalisation of violence”.
Which is why given none of us are experts perhaps all those child experts in NZ in support of retaining the current law should be listened to; not least as Deborah has pointed out, evidence shows that on a case by case basis the law is working well.
Because I think
“Because various control freaks are outraged that the people in authority aren’t coming to the same self-centred knee-jerk uninformed decisions they are.”
it’s pretty obvious why the choice shouldn’t be left to you.
Outlawing spanking of kids is one thing.
Such a law actually preventing spanking of kids is, however, most unlikely.
What ever happened to caring and common sense?
I think that education and good community cross support are the best tools for parents and families. The high schools now awadays have very good classes for much of this starting with sex education. But there is always more to learn.
I only just the other day learnt a technique for handling precious children (principally involving a happy smile and earmuffs) which would have been very helpful some years ago. The only person who gets smacked in my family now is me, by my daughters with an NCIS style (affectionate?) head clip when they feel a need to say silly Dad.
Folks,
Smacking, done right, is devoid of emotion. It sets understandable boundaries (have you ever tried to reason with a 3 year old?).
As adults we have boundaries on our behaviour, and relevant & understandable punishment. Children, too, need boundaries on their behaviour & they need relevant & understandable punishment.
As parents, we enforce boundaries on our children (smacking is but one method of enforcement) because we love them & we want them growing into a world that has boundaries & a world that has an hierarchy of authority.
Seen this way, there should never be emotions associated with smacking (an analogy is that you don’t get a speeding fine because the judge is frustrated with you, or the tax office doesn’t fine you just because you keep being annoying).
Consistent boundaries reinforce your love for your child (ie, “I have already told you I don’t want you to do this because what you are doing is going to hurt you”).
Where possible 1. enforce the boundary in private, 2. obtain the apology, 3. show your acceptance of them as a person (ie, hug them).
Parenting is rewarding. The benefits are great if done right, but done wrong there are years of heartache ahead.
Paul
Delight @ 41
It would only be reasonable to discipline one’s wife, after all she is a man’s property, just like children.
It turns out that there are some people who think spanking your wife as a form is discipline is permissible. As far as I can tell, this site is completely serious.
Christian domestic discipline NB: may be NSFW, possibly, in a weird sort of way. Use your discretion.
(Per Helen’s comment below, I’ve edited this comment to add a NSFW tag. Deborah)
Ooooh, those naughty Christians! I’m sure that will be NSFW. I’ll check it out when we get home! (What a shame I never bought the daughter her own whip when she had those horse riding lessons!)
Blow the budget, max out the credit cards on clothing, shoes, and bling, and get off with a light spanking?..I don’t think so. That is no example for the kids.
I think it’s fine to spank your lover. As long a s/he’s willing to spank you back.
I think it’s one of those issues where, when it’s first legislated against, it seems extreme as it contradicts the (scary) norm that generally liberal peaceniks seem unaccountably able to excuse within themselves. Within a few years of legislation, “smacking” children would be seen for what it is: domestic violence and often brutalising assault.
Surely that Christian Domestic Discipline site was set up by the Monty Python team?…
From the Christian Domestic Discipline site (WARNING: MAY OFFEND SOME):
A Domestic Discipline (DD) marriage is one in which one partner is given authority over the other, and has the means to back up that authority, usually by spanking. The application and practise of DD in each marriage is as unique as the individuals who make up that marriage. There is no “One Ring of Power” in the Domestic Discipline world, to which all DD couples must bow; no singular path to “true DD enlightenment”. What works well for one DD couple may not be a good fit for another marriage. Therefore, you may see many different suggestions espoused on this site and elsewhere.
A Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD) marriage is simply a traditional, male-led, Christian marriage which utilises aspects of Domestic Discipline. It is set up according to Biblical standards.
Now that is truly distracting from the topic at hand – sorry Deborah. Egad.
“At that stage, the adult(s) should reach for a chocolate frog. They should wind the window down, and throw the frog out.”
… whist saying: “Look children, this is called littering. Can you spell littering?”
(… as I struggle to type ‘whilst’).
Don’t! Don’t stuggle to type “whilst”, Socratease! It’s a habit I’d like everyone to get out of.
If you were here now I’d be throwing that chocolate frog out of the window.
“Whilst” should be banned for evermore. “While” – see, it’s one letter shorter! Think of the time you’ll save!
I don’t remember being hit as a child, although my father had a fearsome temper which was best unprovoked, so I suppose fear was a disciplinary tool in our house hold. However, I also remember having heated arguments with my father most of my life, so obviously fear of his temper wasn’t much use in the discipline department.
My mother was a very different kettle of fish. I think I can only remember her getting really angry a few times and she never smacked me as far as I can remember. However, she was no pushover and never had to raise her voice; keeping it firm but calm was her method, which she had learned from her parents.
I smacked my kids on the bum occasionally, particularly if they were about to embark on some life-threatening enterprise like dashing out onto a busy road, generally followed by a lecture once they were old enough to understand what they were told.
After they could reason and listen, the discipline was verbal often with a Q & A
I don’t remember being hit as a child, although my father had a fearsome temper which was best unprovoked, so I suppose fear was a disciplinary tool in our house hold. However, I also remember having heated arguments with my father most of my life, so obviously fear of his temper wasn’t much use in the discipline department.
My mother was a very different kettle of fish. I think I can only remember her getting really angry a few times and she never smacked me as far as I can remember. However, she was no pushover and never had to raise her voice; keeping it firm but calm was her method, which she had learned from her parents.
I smacked my kids on the bum occasionally, particularly if they were about to embark on some life-threatening enterprise like dashing out onto a busy road, generally followed by a lecture once they were old enough to understand what they were told.
After they could reason and listen, the discipline was verbal often with a Q & A
Helen said: “Whilst” should be banned for evermore.
I blame it on the then NSW Dept of Government Transport. For all of my school years, as I travelled each way on the bus, I was confronted by this sign:
DO NOT SPEAK TO THE DRIVER WHILST BUS IS IN MOTION.
It’s seared into my grey matter, along with TO STOP BUS PULL SIGNAL CORD ONCE WHEN APPROACHING THE STOP REQUIRED.
My English teacher would start spinning in his grave while I was still just thinking about using the word.
As I recall, my English teacher was dead in his chair for a week before we realised it.
Aha! A non-smacker, serves them right!
Had my English teacher died on the job we’d have known about it as soon as the first caning was due!
Working compromise.
I believe that I have developed a compromise that will be acceptable to all.
Recognising that the progression of physical discipline from a soft smack towards assualt and on to grievous bodily harm is the precint of men, smacking and all other forms of corporal punishment shall from here forward be metered out by women only. Men are hereby banned from all forms of physical retribution. Women should take note that “just you wait until your father gets home” can in future only be used where the father is bringing chocolate.
Furthermore:
Recognising that the progression of mental discipline from simple “tut tuts” towards mental withdrawal and onto complete nervous breakdown is the precinct of women, “guilt trips” shall in future be metered out by men only. Women are hereby banned from all forms of mental retribution on children under the age of 65 years. Women should take note that all countdowns should in future be organised to climax when “you father gets home”.
Sean, if you didn’t realise that your answer was implying that I was suggesting the only reason people grow up violent is because they are bashed about as kids, then I’m afraid the intellectual inferiority (which, by the way, was sarcasm – I certainly do not think based on your patronising comments so far that you are in any way my intellectual superior) is all on one side.
I’m also not sure I qualify as the youth of today, being in my mid-thirties.
I also agree with everyone on the use of “whilst” – it is an unnecessary word and should be consigned to the annals of history.
‘After they could reason and listen, the discipline was verbal often with a Q & A’
I think that having to watch Q&A is punishment enough for anyone.
Rebekka, please point me to the words that make that implication.
Anyone who cannot use the word “whilst” correctly, organise yourself some remedial instruction in your native language.
English as a second language speakers, you may continue with your broken English.
Schoolteachers who do not understand use of the word, you may resign at your earlierst convenience.
I wrire in support of ‘whilst’. Why is everyone picking on her?
Oh, is it “for a myriad of possible reasons”? You’ve put the emphasis on the wrong phrase. The important phrase was “people have brain explosions”.
Which is to say that people who have led largely blameless lives up to a certain point can, due to some unfortunate set of circumstances, do something appalling. Hence they are not “real full time bastards”. The “myriad of possible reasons” refers to the circumstances which led to their loss of control.
Of course the “real full time bastards” mostly have their reasons as well, but you can’t have the same confidence that they want to learn a better way to deal with life.
I’m sorry that you took such offence to “in the real world” that you proceeded to misinterpret what I had written. Many people deal in broad social trends and cultural attitudes, which is a perfectly constructive thing to do. I’m down at the Magistrates’ dealing with individuals. We’re none of us perfect and quite decent people can f__k up royally, believe you me.
There you go. ESL is a good and well-known acronym for English as a second language, but “English as a second language” is a phrase, not a language, ie. it is English that is spoken, not ESL. At least, this side of the Tweed.
…
Smack ought never to be used as good parental correction, BTW. Methamphetamine is preferred.
If you can’t see why smugly telling someone that “in the real world” is patronising and offensive, then I guess there’s probably no point carrying on a discussion with you.
Rebekka, in the real world people tend not to take huge offense over hyperbolic figures of speech.
Fur what it’s worth the real world is vastly underrated, but that’s just our opinion.
I somehow thought that you might respond exactly as graciously as that Rebekka, but I went and tried anyway. More fool me.
Sean, in the real world, “in the real world” (see what I did there?) is a dog whistle to indicate that you consider the other person ivory tower and naive. I understand it is possible to use this phrase without that motivation, but that is how it is generally used, in foums, talkback and the tabloids, so that is the meaning that people generally take from it.
Drifting briefly back onto topic, I was belted at home and at school. My father had a violent temper and used his fists to assuage it, and my teachers enjoyed wielding the cane at every opportunity.
There’s a saying that goes: “The punishment is forgotten but the punisher never is”.
That was never truer for me than when it came to violent corporal punishment.
When a parent or teacher belts a child, then the problem lies with the belter.
Oh I certainly considered Rebekka’s original comment to be niaive Helen. It was also sarcastic, entirely misrepresented what I had said, and was barely literate.
Socratease, in order to make out the common law defence, the corporal punishment meted out by the parent must be done for the purpose of correction and not in anger, and must not go too far. Fists used in anger would not be within the defence.
I “got the cuts” at school a fair bit too. Whilst it was always a fair cop, I’m glad they’ve done away with it.
Sean, I understand the proposed conditions but for me they are nothing but a lawyer’s picnic.
In my day quite a few teachers were fond of dealing out corporal punishment to the entire class for the “wrongs” of a few members. An early lesson in the concept of guilt by association. As I think back now I realise that those men were simply gutless bullies towering over small children. Nothing like Dickens or the likes of Fairbridge, but wrong nonetheless.
Yes, good riddance to it all.
Socratease – what I said above is (essentially) the defence of parental discipline as it exists in the Australian states already. Ie on the face of it hitting a kid IS assault, already. If you are a parent and can show that it was something akin to a smack on the bot to discourage playing on the road, you have a defence. The proposed NZ referendum question does vaguely reflect that position I suppose. In other words your dad would not have had the defence available to him at the time, had he been charged, which is another kettle of fish of course.
PS: criminal law of this type is rarely anyone’s picnic.
Re caning, funny innit. I was sent up for mouthing off to my (young, female) teacher one time (only the principal or deputy could hit children with sticks in the public system). It was in the arvo. I just hung around outside for a while and went back in rubbing my hand. By the time she found out in the staff room, she couldn’t do anything till next morning, by which time she was over it, and I never got them cuts but rather a gentle and understanding chat.
As I said, “must not be done in anger”.
Barely literate, Sean? Now there’s a laugh. My first response to you was:
“Sean, thanks for your totally patronising remark, I never would have realised how intellectually superior you are if you hadn’t sent me your bulletin from the ‘real world’.
I actually never suggested that the *only* reason why some adults are violent is because they were hit as kids – that would be patently ridiculous. How about learning some reading comprehension before patronising other commenters?”
How is that “barely literate”; there’s not a spelling mistake, a grammatical error, or so much as a mis-used comma. If you’re going to make such ridiculous remarks, back them up.
And Desipis, you’re right, people “in the real world” often don’t ark up about being patronised. That’s because that’s the usual way of the world – women are patronised a lot. I, however, don’t like it, and don’t see why I shouldn’t call someone on it.
A Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD) marriage is simply a traditional, male-led, Christian marriage which utilises aspects of Domestic Discipline. It is set up according to Biblical standards.
.
How odd. A peasant’s view of traditional patriarchal sexual morality asserted as a sub-species of S&M. Does this Church hold films nights wherein people watch Secretary?
Oh there it is. The Sexism Card. Unbelievable.
Rebekka, that wasn’t your first response to me. Your first response was full snark and sarcasm but no actual considered response to what I’d said, which was just a description of the law and sentencing after all. “Oh wait” is barely literate if you have something to say about that complex and serious subject. It is just a cut and paste from a mediocre sitcom script.
You’ve proceeded to twist my words,and fling more sarcasm and insults. When I put that aside to search those words for a meaning that was never intended, which you alleged but refused to back up, and then re-explained it to you in a civil way with an apology for the misunderstanding and an explanation of the “real world” comment, I get more snark and sarcasm for my trouble.
And of course my self-appointed nemesis at this site had to weigh in as well.
But yes, you’re the victim. Of sexism.
I’ve had an afternoon of murdered fathers and badly battered wives, but I must say it’s you who’s made the misanthropy really bubble along nicely.
Rebecca and Sean, can you both leave it off please? You’re just squabbling about perceived mutual insults rather than the topic at hand.
.
If you don’t cut it out I’ll have to come round and give you both a good smack on the behind
Promises promises.
The NSW law on corporal punishment of children was tightened up a few years ago in a much more effective way (I suspect) than in NZ. The new law defines ‘excessive’ as any blow to a child above the neck, any use of an implement, and anything that produces a long-lived mark. I am slightly hazy on the details but the idea is that the traditional slap on the hand/smack on the bot is legal, and pretty much no other corporal punishment would be.
The preliminary results are in: 54% turnout (not bad for a referendum), of whom 87.6% want to be able to hit kids. Just 11.81% voted “Yes.” The remainder were spoiled votes. [link]
Sigh.
How unutterably depressing.
Yeah… my home has voted for hitting children. I knew it was coming, but even so, I feel a horrid sense of despair.
Won’t anyone think of the children?
But New Zealand has a (rather rigid) law against using physical punishments to discipline children! And this left-wing agenda has been implemented even with this level of opposing public opinion!
Surely sensible people must think there is something horribly wrong with that democracy. The New Zealand parliament may not have a legal duty to repeal this law, but it has a moral one.
This situation where governments believe they don’t answer to the people, but rather exist to impose some sort of moral agenda on their ’subjects’ to make them live ‘correctly’, is a political disease rotting so many western democracies.
It should be compulsory to smack kidz!
etc…
Deborah, you are taking this a little too hard. This is not a vote to bash, beat and maim kids. Nor would 87.6% of the NZ population see it that way, in my experience of New Zealanders. Physical beatings are immensely damaging, occaisional smacks have a neglible damaging effect. Quite the contrary they are a natural learning device (seen through out the natural world) intended to alert reactions in the face of dangerous situations. I would go a bit further and suggest that a bad application of verbal punishment is far more damaging overall, even dangerous for extremely strong willed children.
But New Zealand has a (rather rigid) law against using physical punishments to discipline children!
I note that this statement is not true.
Smacking reeks of a parent losing control. Assault in other words. Why inflict pain on a child. Parent/s in other words cannot control the child.