To Spank or Not To Spank

Here we have a very controversial question, and I don't really understand why. Arizona is right now trying to pass a law to make it illegal to spank your child, which I think is utterly ridiculous. I grew up in a time when spanking was the norm, and I don't see a damn thing wrong with it unless you take it too far! I was one of those hard headed kids. Send me to my room? Everything I own is in there! Ground me? Please. Put me in a corner? Ha! Break out a spanking? Instantaneous and utter respect. I didn't turn out all that bad, either.

I belong to the school that says your rear end, heinie, derriere, butt, whatever you choose to call it, is padded for the express purpose of giving your parents a spot for the application of the palm of their hands. You do not own that particular portion of your anatomical real estate until you move out of the house. Period.

Look, I will be the first one to admit that if I didn't receive a spanking on a particular day, I was either sick, or I was not home. I will also be the first to admit that there are children out there that will never need to be spanked. Those children are devastated by the very idea of displeasing their parents, and a simple talking-to is enough. But a child like me?? Have you ever seen "Bill Cosby: Himself"? His description of his five children as they were growing up was like listening to a recitation of the faults of myself and my brother, and, honestly, every other kid in our neighborhood. All of us got spanked regularly, both publicly and privately, and I can't think of a single one of us that didn't turn out well.

There is a huge difference between spanking your child and beating your child, okay, people? And yes, sometimes a spanking has been called a beating, i.e., "If you don't stop that right now, I am going to beat your behind." A spanking involves the flat of your hand being applied noisily to the padding of your child's hind end, maybe once, maybe several times, depending upon the infraction. That's really it. You never close your fist, you never punch or kick, you don't use a baseball bat or some other ridiculous item capable of inflicting true harm.

Now, you've got all these people nowadays who call CPS on a dime. It happened to us at a WalMart, when my daughter took it into her head to misbehave and really put on a show when her father tried to talk to her. He swatted her butt once and didn't even connect, and this strange woman walked up to us and informed us that she couldn't believe what she had just seen and was a mandatory reporter and was calling CPS to turn us in. I couldn't believe what I had just heard! People: unless you see a clear-cut case of child abuse, do everyone a favor and mind your own damn business. If you see a father twisting his child's arms behind his back, call CPS by all means. If you see a mother beating her child with a bat, feel free to call whom you will! But when you see a parent trying to discipline his or her child, please make the common sense distinction between a swat to the rear and actual child abuse. There are children out there who really do need the help of CPS, and if you are calling because someone spanked their kid, there's another kid out there who needed someone to come save him that is slipping through the cracks because another idiot got involved in someone else's business and tied up the CPS workers with stupidity. Save the CPS calls for the kids who really need help, not the ones who just want their own way and get mad because their parents had the audacity to be parents.