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I'm tired of over-generalizations about "spanking."

Bruising, switches, rods, and welts are not "spanking." Whipping is not the same as spanking.

Spanking as properly executed does not leave marks and is much more a psychological than physical punishment.

That is not to say that it's good. Routine and frequent spanking is most certainly evidence of bad parenting.

All that said, the reason that parents are free to spank kids whether or not it's the ideal form of punishment is pretty obvious: parents need to have latitude in the punishments they can use to set limits with their kids.

Spanking won't work for every child, and probably won't be used more than 5-odd times in the course of childhood, but sometimes there aren't better alternatives. At the very least the effects, however deleterious, of a handful of spankings over the course of a childhood are not sufficiently serious to warrant state intervention.

But it is most certainly NOT the same thing as whipping, which is what the author of this piece refers to.

(I'm not intending to advocate for spanking, I'm just getting annoyed with how what it entails seems to be getting categorically expanded.)

So is the author saying that if spanking were effective, then it would be acceptable?

There are tons of parenting practices that are as harmful or more harmful than spanking that no one cares about, so this whole controversy strikes me as somewhat disingenuous.

I've been following Stefan Molyneux's take on this for some time, and it really seems to make sense. Entering a bargaining stance rather than teaching children that violence (however 'tame', it's about the lesson it teaches) isn't an acceptable form of solving a problem or dealing with emotions.

I think the net affect on societal damage would decrease rapidly, if every new parent took this into consideration overnight.

Worse, it just doesn't work. It is painful to hear stories from folk that are convinced that "back in the day" things "were better" and then they immediately go off on discipline.

Seriously, we aren't guessing nowdays. We know it is detrimental. At this point, it isn't just worrying about the well being of some individuals, but knowing that society as a whole could be much better off.

Edit: I should say that I am not trying to contradict the story at all.... Just adding my voice to it.