Why do advocates of corporal punishment call it “spanking” when they probably BEAT their children?
Because they know that the term “spanking” softens the perception of hitting children.
Every time I’ve ever read online comments about corporal punishment, the parents in favor of this have always referred to it as “spanking,” which I found quite suspicious.
There was that occasional poster who said something like, “When my dad whipped my ass, I obeyed him.”
But nearly every person who believes in corporal punishment calls it “spanking” or “spank.”
If I had been part of the online conversation, I would’ve posted, “Define spanking. This is ambiguous and can mean a lot of things, including the inclusion of grabbing the child by the upper arm and slamming him or her into a wall, then delivering a ‘spanking’ that sends him/her flying into a book case.”
People are violent but then when it’s time to admit it, they call it “spanking.” Why don’t they call it for what it is? As in:
“I think kids should be punched in the head,” or, “I think that preschoolers should be knocked to the ground for discipline.”
Instead they cover their tracks by calling it “spankings.” That never fools me.
So one day I saw a little boy dart across a street, leaving his mother at the curb. She ran after him and swatted, with her hand, his bottom. Twice. She did nothing else physical.
Then she knelt and, hand on his arm (not aggressively, but more like a “You really worried me” kind of hold), began talking to him (obviously explaining the danger of what he had just done).
Her actions were that of a genuine spanking.
When I was a teen I saw a woman in a store KICK her preschooler in the stomach.
This was after a barrage of insults from her. I bet she told people she “spanks” her child. I wouldn’t be surprised if this abused boy grew up to be a violent criminal or wife beater.
When someone says that kids should be spanked, I wonder if they actually mean whipped with a belt, tree branch, crow bar or some other such device. Or kicked in the gut.
Shutterstock/ TANAPAT LEK.JIW
Is that “spanking” really a beating?
People can be amazingly gullible. A very interesting study out of Methodist Southern University led by psychologist Alan Brown shows this.
Participants in the study determined the acceptability of corporal punishment based on the WORD used to describe it!
My point has finally been proven by a study!
When the corporal punishment was called a “spank” or “swat,” they were ranked as more acceptable than the same act referred to as a “beat,” “hit” or even “slap.”
I used “swatted” to refer to the corporal punishment of the boy who ran across the street.
However, I witnessed it. It truly was two swats with her open hand. This could also be accurately called a spanking.
When I was a child I saw a man at the mall yank his little boy down the hallway to the restrooms, pull off his belt and whip him repeatedly. I bet he told people, “Kids should be spanked.” A whipping is not a spanking.
In the SMU study, “spank” was rated highest for effectiveness and commonness, while “beat” was ranked as the worst.
The woman whose son dashed across the street spanked him. The man at the wall, and the woman at the store, BEAT their sons.
“We found that altering the verb used to describe an act of corporal punishment,” says Brown, “can change perception of its effectiveness and acceptance of it.”
Shutterstock/GOLFX
How can people be this suggestible and gullible? Is this something good or something pathetic?
Brown and his colleagues suggest using “assault” in place of “spank” to change the perception.
If you don’t think that a true spanking qualifies as an assault, then ask yourself if you’d call it an assault when a full-grown woman reports that a 200 pound man on the street came up to her and, with an open hand, smacked it as hard as possible on her bottom.
The police department would definitely call it an assault.
Yep, I’m betting you’d call that an assault too. So why is that same action, aggressively directed onto a five-year-old by 200 pound Dad, just a spanking?
Maybe an occasional, controlled spanking (not whipping, not beating, no painful arm grabs) won’t harm a child who’s been given repeated warnings about an infraction, and other disciplinary means have failed, but let’s also not fool ourselves by switching up the terminology.
And please, don’t call striking a child with a wooden paddle a “love tap.”
A coworker of mine years ago would tell me he endorses spanking.
Then one day he described a corporal punishment act: He had whipped his seven-year-old daughter with a belt — after she had fled from him screaming in anticipation of this beating.
He never used the word “whip” when talking about his beliefs. It was always “spank.”
One day he told me he had slapped his wife in the face during an argument inside a car. I wonder if it was really a punch.
