tiggerprr’s scratching post

People never cease to amaze me with their stupid selfishness. I read a news article today about this pregnant woman in Illinois who decided to induce labor early so her husband wouldn’t be at risk of missing out on attending a Chicago Bears game for which he had tickets. I sure hope that baby doesn’t ruin his parent’s plans for a good night’s sleep or a quiet dinner out! What an inconvenience! Why people like that are blessed with children and people who would happlily miss a football game, and sacrifice many things they desire to love and feel the love of a child are not, is way beyond me. How ’bout you?

So I’m reeling from reading that, and go to visit my friend Kim at Embracing Momminess. She’s writing about a law that’s been proposed in California making it illegal to spank your child under the age of 3. The thing I couldn’t believe is how close this ridiculous law is to passing. You may disagree with me, but I feel like there’s not enough spanking today. I’m not talking about beating your child, that’s obviously wrong. But many kids today, don’t know or respect boundaries, because parents are either too scared or too self-involved to pay attention to what their kids are doing and set/enforce meaningful boundaries. There are just some behaviours, and some children, that require spanking when all else fails to drive the point home. When properly used as a disciplinary tool, it’s very effective. The fear of the spanking, a consequence of their actions, is often all a small child needs to keep them in line. It truly does hurt the parent more than the child. I vividly remember spanking Ashlyn when she was little for repeatedly lying to us. It was the last resort after a long line of lies and trying other punishments to dissuade her from telling whoppers. That one spanking’s effectiveness lasted through ’til her teen years when she’s become quite the tale teller again. If only she wasn’t faster and bigger than me, I’d spank her again and hope it lasts through her high school days. hehe

I also believe that it was a mistake to remove corporal punishment in schools. Very rarely was it carried out in our school when I was a kid, but the dread of having it happen was enough to keep some kids, like myself, in line. Not that I was a goody two shoes or anything ():)

Anyway, that’s what raised my hackles this gloomy rainy morning. I’ll be back later to discuss 24.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 am and is filed under Claws Out!, News, Parenting, People In General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.