Corporal punishment or Corporate punishment?

So at dinner last night we came across the topic of spanking i.e. corporal punishment, the idea that you should use physical force to discipline your child. Needless to say there was a lot of buttons pushed and alot of words slung, Is it good? Is it bad? Are you going to raise your kids that way?

Corporal punishment 
–noun
1.Law. physical punishment, as flogging, inflicted on the body of one convicted of a crime: formerly included the death penalty, sentencing to a term of years, etc.
2.physical punishment, as spanking, inflicted on a child by an adult in authority. Origin:1575–85

Spank
–verb (used with object)
1.to strike (a person, usually a child) with the open hand, a slipper, etc., esp. on the buttocks, as in punishment.
–noun
2.a blow given in spanking; a smart or resounding slap.
Origin:1720–30; imit.

While one definition is severe the other is not, but are we really speaking of the same thing? That debate is very divided at both our dinner table and throughout the country...

A lot of people are shocked that this is still allowed in this country, laughingly because we think that we are so rights based that we would never actually allow this anymore. But we do, there are some very shocking cases of what has been deemed allowable as corporal punishment. There are many who are advocating the banishment of such ideals because the U.N. itself has said that it denounces such actions. Rightly so, there is too much variance in the idea of "reasonable" acts and the idea that anyone else has the right to abuse a child then call it discipline is highly controversial. However it is a bit far fetched to believe that if you lightly spank your child for misbehaving it should be compared to strapping your child or hitting it so hard you chip his tooth (Real cases, all deemed reasonably admissible as discipline).

The physical and mental harm from spanking is not reversible, but what is when it comes to parenting? Every choice, every action, every word is probable cause for turning your child into a horrible human being. It is not enough to think that because you show your child right from wrong that they are going to be great human beings. The intrinsic idea that if you show your child good behaviour he will in turn behave well I think is asking too much of someone too young to understand himself/herself.

Personally, and this is all opinion because I only parent my cats, I was parented in a way that now I barely remember, is that good or bad? I don't remember being abused or spanked, I do remember feelings of guilt, remorse, alienation from the usual one way talks of the things I had done wrong. Did this steer me to become a different person than if I had been spanked? I don't think so.

Every situation and every household has its ability to change a child into many things, some are blatant others less so. Abuse is a harsh word for the idea of spanking most people have, I think to relegate it to mean only the cases in front of the supreme court to be a convenient way of us taking up the fight to absolve something that in the long term means so much more.

In this time and age the idea of spanking is not a high factor in child abuse, in my eyes those that neglect their children, argue in front of their children, allow for t.v. to be a substitute for the encyclopedia, never read with their children, buy video games over Lego, feed them McDonald's over home cooked meals and never attend parent teacher meetings are far worse than someone who may spank their child. The idea that corporations have more control of your child's actions than you is a far more scary idea to me than the idea that you are spanking your child. I fear that they will only understand marketing schemes and how to get to the next level on a video game, that they will see aggression as something to look up to and not something that is used only to make you see that what you are doing is wrong. See when I was a kid, a raised hand meant, you better stop what you are doing...not abuse. It never even came with a resounding slap, just the raised hand was enough to know that action was taboo. Now the raised hand doesn't even resonate, you are killing people in video games, you are killing people in movies, and aggression is not something that you see at the movies, it happens in plain sight everywhere.

Everyone knows my stand on non-violence, I have seen enough (believe me) in my lifetime that has shown me it can come to no good but I think its a good time to take a look at the greater picture, we need to understand that crowding our ideals on small topics do not always show how it resonates to our greater ideals. You can say you are against spanking, I am too, will we never spank our kids?... that's to be seen.

I know alot of people who are fine human beings that have lived through actual abuse, not just spanking and I don't think anyone would say they are never going to spank their kids, are they going to abuse their kids? Point blank no. To live through it is to live with it, never underestimate the power of history, even in the most well balanced people it has a way of sneaking up on you.

Time out,

~Cosmopolitan