I have to say that I see spanking children as a completely separate issue from abusive relationships between adults. There are a few parents who can actually do a good job raising their kids without ever spanking them, but I think that the message that you must never strike a child leads to more cases of badly raised children than sensible use of spanking ever did in the days before anyone questioned whether it was a bad idea.

I was spanked as a child. Very rarely, but often enough that I knew I could be spanked, and knowing that I could be spanked backed up my parents' and teachers' authority. I am very respectful of rules and authority -- probably excessively so -- and I probably wouldn't have turned out that way if a bunch of people had told my mother she was committing child abuse if she ever spanked me. But I grew up into an amazingly non-violent adult. I have never deliberately hit another person since I was in grade school. I'm not sure I'd be capable of it, even in a situation where my intellect told me I should do it.

Sensible use of spanking as a parental tool is very different from beating your kids all the time. I have no truck with child abuse; parents who abuse their kids should have them taken away and not get them back. But I do not accept the idea that any spanking is abuse.

I'm posting on a borrowed computer, so please don't melt it with the flames.