Parents, Not Politicians, Should Decide Whether A Child Is Spanked

09 Jun, 2005 by John Hawkins

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Uh oh, it looks like the Democrats up in Massachusetts are getting worried that there are parents getting a little too “Gitmo” on their kids. So, they’re proposing a bill that would make it illegal for parents to discipline their children via spanking:

Should parents be allowed to spank their children? Massachusetts lawmakers will be debating that question following the filing of a bill that would ban corporal punishment in the commonwealth.

NewsCenter 5’s Kelly Tuthill reported that (Democratic) state Rep. James Marzilli, Jr., of Arlington, Mass., is one of the sponsors of the bill, which prohibits everything from spanking to “hot saucing,” which involves putting undiluted Tabasco sauce in a child’s mouth.

In April, a Plymouth, Mass., father landed on the front page of local papers and behind bars after he used a belt to spank his son Josh, 12.

“He forgot his book. I went upstairs, I got my belt. I came downstairs. I gave him three swats on the rear end, with his pants on, like any concerned parent would do, and scared him, of course, you know. Hopefully I got the point across,” Charles Enloe said.

But now, lawmakers are considering making “the willfull infliction of physical pain on children under 18,” illegal.

You know, it’s every bit as obnoxious to try to ban spanking as it would be to make it mandatory for all parents to spank their children. That’s because whether a parent spanks a child or not is simply none of the government’s business.

Parents deserve to be given an enormous amount of latitude legally to raise their kids and, quite frankly, the idea that a widely used and very effective method of disciplining children could be ruled illegal at the whim of some bunch of liberals in Massachusetts is ridiculous to the point of being farcical.

If James Marzilli, Jr and Company don’t want to spank their kids and would rather rely on “time outs” and positive reinforcement to raise their kids, wonderful, more power to them. But, they should also respect parents who don’t agree with that philosophy instead of trying to tell them how to raise their kids…