Who’s your daddy?

Liberal politicians act as a parental substitute

By Sunthosh Madireddi
From the March 2007 Print Edition

            Too spank or not to spank? Believe it or not, that is the question now put before the California state legislature. Law as it stands today prohibits spanking a child in school and also prohibits a parent or guardian from willfully inflicting cruel or inhuman corporal punishment that would result in undue bodily harm to the child.

            The question therefore remains, why more legislation? In order to find the answer to that elusive question we must seek out the author of this newfound proposal, Democratic Assemblywoman Sally Lieber. She intends to propose a bill that would for the first time in the United States make spanking a child 3 years old and under a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by a year in prison or a fine upwards of $1,000. In an interview with the Sacramento Bee, Lieber defended her proposal by contending that “there’s no amount of physical force that’s appropriate on a child 3 years old or younger.”

Lieber seems to be of the feminist brand, since she apparently sees the spanking debate through an idyllic feminist lens. She sees the act of spanking as an instrument of oppression taken from a larger societal toolbox with the sole function of exacting control over those who are most vulnerable.  Lieber, in an interview with the Sacramento Bee, compared the opponents of her legislation to the “opponents of laws that protected women who were victims of domestic abuse.”

The assemblywoman comes from a school of social thought that is premised on the notion that young children are impressionable individuals, looking for a societal template upon which to build their lives. In most cases this template is set by the parent or guardian of the home and thus is incumbent on the parents to advance morals that facilitate the growth of a young child. Lieber and her proponents argue that the use of force by parents in the home sends the message to the impressionable child that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution.

Most can remember the dynamics of elementary, middle, and high school environments; students tend to carve out niches for themselves on the school campus and often the most evident are the school bullies. They see themselves as the unofficial enforcers of the school campus, ready to “correct” any behavior they see as out of line. Lieber and her proponents argue that the school bully is a natural byproduct of a parent’s use of physical force in the home, forcing the child to logically conclude that violence is an acceptable means of punishing those who have wronged in school or on the street.

The other contention made by those in favor of the impending bill is that physical force cannot be carried out on an individual who is unaware of his or her deeds. For instance, the penal system treats minors and adults differently because one party is aware of the consequences of his actions and the other is not.

The opponents of the bill have been numerous and vocal. Republican Assemblyman Bill Maze told the New York Times that Lieber’s legislation “doesn’t stand a chance of passing.” The Campaign for Children and Families added to the chorus of protest by branding the new proposal as “the wackiest bill of the year.” The president of the CCF, Randy Thomasson, issued an official statement in a news release on January 19, in which he stated, “This punish-you-if-you-spank-your-children bill is intrusive, unenforceable, and the most blatant violation of parental rights I’ve ever seen.”

The main argument against the proposed bill is that it deprives parents of their fundamental right to raise their own children. Thomasson represents a school of social thought that has certain similarities with the Lieber faction but also strong differences. Both factions are founded on the premise that the young child is an impressionable individual.

They both also embrace the same fear that a young child may grow up to be a violent bully aiming to dictate his terms to the rest of society’s ears.

They differ, however, in what they believe forms the most constructive environment for a child’s learning. While the Lieber faction believes physical force is counterproductive, the Thomasson camp believes that learning in life is not prescribed through happiness but through discomfort and disappointment.

For example, when a 2-year-old touches a hot stove and burns his hand, he experiences a slight degree of pain, but he learns not to touch the hot stove again. When a 2-year-old runs with his shoelaces untied and trips and falls, he experiences a degree of pain, but he learns that running with untied shoelaces is not a wise thing to do. These experiences instill within the child a sense of right and wrong, informing him about life’s natural parameters and an individual’s intrinsic limitations.

Parents seek to inculcate within their children a sense of awareness of the dangers that exist in the social world. Thomasson and his supporters argue that just like physical pain inhibits dangerous actions in the physical world such as touching a hot stove, minor physical pain inhibits dangerous actions in the social realm and facilitate the maturation of a child into the early stages of adulthood.

However, whether some people believe spanking works in practice or not is beside the point. The idea that government will supplant all parents as the disciplinarian of their children is a scary prospect. What’s more, unless the California legislature plans to implant every newborn with a spank-o-meter designed to register excessive amounts of spanking delivered to a child, the bill simply cannot be enforced.

            Spanking probably works well for some situations and some children and not for others. Faced with the choice of letting the government make a unilateral ban on spanking versus individual parents making rational decisions about how best to discipline their own children, the latter is a far more compelling option.

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