I
remember the first time the issue of spanking came up in a conversation for me.
I was seven, trading Pokémon cards with my neighbor on my front driveway, when
she told me she had to get home before dinner or her father would give her a
spanking. I gaped at her.
She
noticed how confused I looked and explained to me casually that when she was
bad, she got spanked. I didn’t get what she was talking about; my parents had
never hit me, and I wondered how a parent could ever hit their child, in any
situation.
There
are currently 26 countries in which child corporal punishment is unlawful;
Canada is not one of them. In Canada, the decision to spank or not to spank is
up to the parent (or guardian) of the child, but no one else. As long as the
child is not under two years or over 12 years of age, and nothing but a bare
hand is used, corporal punishment of a child is legal. Essentially, the
government details how parents can legally abuse their children.
Although
provinces are able to implement tighter legislation regarding spanking, none currently
do. In the 2004 legislation Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth, and the
Law v. Canada,
the Supreme Court passed a 6-3 decision legislating that the use of
“reasonable” force is acceptable, and rejected claims that moderate spanking
violated the rights of children.
Monitoring
the level of force parents are using while hitting their children is seemingly
impossible. The only way to know when a parent has overstepped the line is when
the child cries foul. As long as we treat children as second-class citizens who
are sometimes deserving of physical abuse, the notion of a child stepping out
of their role to challenge their guardian on a technicality is unlikely.
Researchers
have studied the effects of spanking and other forms of child corporal
punishment, and although the results depended on variables, they were almost
always negative. Many universities and health magazines, such as Pediatrics, have investigated the
effects of spanking, most of them recording results that label spanking as a
poor parenting skill that can create lasting negative effects on the child.
Some
experts claim spanking can lead to sexual deviancy or violent and delinquent
behavior. Sexual deviants, violent offenders, and other “problem” citizens are
for all of society to burden. The attitude that spanking is “okay” creates a
societal cost easily avoidable had the children in question been protected in
the first place.
Some
victims of spanking insist that they learned their lessons and suffered no
lasting effects; other victims claim that they felt humiliation and fear during
and after a spanking, and it made them mistrust their parents, even to this
day.
For
those who believe spanking a child helps them to learn right from wrong,
consider this: is it also okay to hit an adult spouse when they don’t listen to
us? When some parents' children disobey them and cause them grief, they may get
hit, so what’s stopping them from disciplining their other loved ones? This outdated
form of thinking belongs in the time when wife beating and lynching was seen as
normal.
//Victoria Fawkes, staff writer
//Graphics by Kailey Patton
//Victoria Fawkes, staff writer
//Graphics by Kailey Patton
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