Spanking
The crux of cultural warfare over American families is disciplinary spanking. Child Protection Reform (CPR) has found most Childrens' Services caseworkers, and even some police officers, hate spanking. Laws in Oregon and elsewhere support them. They happily persecute parents who spank.
Anti-spanking zealotry is really about cultural warfare, not child welfare. System insiders view spanking as the strong abusing the weak. But, the standard system response - send men with guns to forcibly remove the child into America's genuinely abusive foster care system - is ALWAYS defined by Children's Services as "assistance". If spanking justifies system intervention, then what about other items shown to cause genuine lasting harm? Divorce should qualify as child abuse. So should live-in boyfriend relationships. Studies show divorce, cohabitation, and forcible removal cause far more lasting harm than a hard spanking. All are topics on which Children's Services maintains politically correct silence.
Interestingly, most older Americans - the ones who stayed married, stayed off drugs, and kept their kids out of trouble - employed spanking liberally. A clear majority of traditional parents - especially Christians (the ones who still stay married, stay off drugs, and keep their kids out of trouble) - spank, sometimes harshly. If you are Jewish or Christian, you should know that God clearly says harsh spanking is okay if given for genuine discipline.
At Child Protection Reform, we believe spankings should be infrequent, well explained, and held in reserve for direct disobedience or life-threatening behavior. Harsh spanking should be very infrequent, reserved for the very worst behavior. We believe a bruise on a bottom is legitimate reason for system concern, but is not by itself child abuse. The "bruise as abuse" model only allows a huge system to terrorize families who are doing a good, nay, oft superior job of raising their children into responsible, loving adults.
To illustrate:
RealAudio testimony #1 - A mother of five discusses Children's Services attitudes toward her family.
RealAudio testimony #2 - Pastor Don Cobble, who fought all the way to the Mass. Supreme Court, in an excerpt from Focus on the Family tape CT284, available at 800.232.6459
Laura Ingalls-Wilder - America's best- loved frontier woman discloses stories of loving discipline sure to enrage SCF caseworkers. Children's Services involvement would have improved Laura's childhood immeasurably, no doubt.
Anne of Green Gables - Though a fictional character, Anne is still a classic. Here, she gives a well-deserved spanking that would today have ruined her career, perhaps her life. Of course, what was right then is wrong now, because....uh, because...ahh...
A Good Whuppin - An outstanding piece on contemporary spanking.
Great Spanking Apologetic - The anti-spanking forces rely mostly on junk science. Try this site on for size....
Backhand Banned - Evidence how far down the road towards collectivism is Europe.
To defend your children, your family, and your neighbors against false accusations, visit our defense page. Additional websites may be found in our Links page.
If you feel good about the "spanking as abuse" model, consider this question: is it really sane for society to say a hard spanking given in love is a felony, but a prospective mother has a fundamental right to crush her baby's skull and suck out its brains in a third-trimester abortion? Hello?
