Well, as usual, my words have been vastly misinterpreted. I understand that people who are against spanking tend to get pretty emotional about it, but please realize I take it very seriously when Im accused of condoning child abuse. You cant just run around calling other parents child abusers and then expect that your accusations will be received warmly. So lets run down a few points here: 1) Nowhere in this post do I endorse or applaud what Peterson did to his kid. In fact, THE WHOLE POINT of this piece, which I explicitly state on multiple occasions, is that Petersons actions were heinous and despicable, and they did not constitute spanking. It was abuse. Spanking is different. Thats not just some subliminal message I craftily hid between the lines -- its something that I state very plainly several times throughout the blog. 2) If you must know, I have no specific plans to spank my own kids. Theyre too young now anyway, but when theyre a little older Im not sure what we will do. My wife and I actually have slightly different feelings on the matter, but neither of us think spanking is automatically abuse, nor do we feel that spanking is something we are compelled to do. She leans one way, I lean the other. We will talk about it as time goes on, and eventually we will figure out what works for our family. The point is, I didnt write this to defend my own actions. I wrote this on principle. Thats it. 3) The term spanking by definition means to strike with the open hand, especially on the buttocks. So when I talk about spanking, thats what Im referring to -- because thats what it means. As I said, if you prefer not to utilize this method, thats fine. I respect that. We might not, either. But its simply absurd to use words like abuse and battery and assault and dehumanizing to describe a swift swat on the butt. I just dont understand how anyone could trivialize those terms by applying them to this kind of scenario. 4) If you havent read it yet, here it is: themattwalshblog/2014/09/18/spanking/
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:49:58 +0000
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