As doctors call for an end to the ‘Victorian’ punishment of smacking, columnist Darren Lewis worries this won’t stop the monsters who abuse children, but will criminalise reasonable parents
Cards on the table, I’m conflicted. I’m not a smacking fan. It does inflict emotional, mental and physical harm. I’d rather ground my kids or deny them the privileges they enjoy probably far too many of.
I do buy into the long-argued position that the ‘reasonable chastisement’ is often misused by violent abusers to mask serious assault.
It happened with Sara Sharif, Victoria Climbie, Logan Mwangi, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Star Hobson, Kyrell Matthews, Hakeem Hussain and, disgracefully, too many more children to mention.
Speak to any of your friends and there will always be one or two who’ll proudly declare they were whacked as a child and that supposedly it never did them any harm. It isn’t colour or culture specific. Some people even use dark humour, looking back, to joke about it.
They’ll probably not make the connections between that trauma and any destructive relationships they’ve had. Or their inability to trust authority figures. Or their inability to articulate themselves in high-pressure situations. Or their children going on to perpetuate the cycle.
But to write this column properly, this columnist has to be honest. And the truth is that my conflict lies in the lack of respect for authority which courses through our society right now.
Only this week, a survey reveals more than four in five (82%) school leaders say they have been abused by parents in the past year.
Most likely the assailants are men and women who were taught by their own parents that aggression was the way to express themselves. The days of kids’ concern that a relative or a family friend might witness their bad behaviour on a bus or in the street are long gone.
Yes, by all means ban smacking. But if you do, what support will there be to educate parents who know no other way to deal with their emotions at the end of their tether?
The monsters who want to cross the line will do it anyway. No law will stop them until it is too late. What about the parents who do want to exercise reasonable punishment? What about a teaching programme for them led by parents with the skills they can pass on rather than parliamentarians on another planet?
The health professionals who want to arbitrarily scrap it often either have no children themselves or live in a completely different world, economically and socially, to the mums and dads navigating the trials and tribulations of parenthood.
A deeper discussion is needed. Not just statistics and politicking.
