CA Bill to Ban Spanking Young Children
Two questions: 1) what took us so long as a society to have legislation like this? 2) why just banning spanking of children under 3?
Let’s be clear – spanking is hitting, spanking is violent, spanking is an assault. The subtext to this whole conversation about spanking is that children are still seen as “belonging to their parents”, as in “property of…” This may well be the heart of the matter. What if, rather than children “belonging to”, parents are “responsible for…”? What if parents begin to see that their children are not their property, but are potentially autonomous human beings who deserve to be treated with respect even when they also need to be disciplined?
Where is the line between spanking and child abuse? Since this line is impossible to draw, perhaps we need to avoid going down that road at all.
Here is the story.