I often wonder what would happen to our country if we started surrendering many of our rights to the government to police for us. Like raising our kids. I bet the government can do it better than I can, for sure! (Please do note the sarcasm in these words.) I bet it would take care of the illegal immigration debate, for one - no one would want to come here if that were the case.
Yet here is a
print article, and a
video of the interview with the nurse who convinced a Massachusetts state representative to introduce the bill to ban corporal punishment - in other words, this bill includes spanking.
It was one thing for the Patriot Act to let the government come in and listen in on our phone calls. Even if you have nothing to hide, I don't live here in America so they can take away my privacy. But it's quite another when someone wants to decide what I can and cannot do with disciplining my child.
Spanking has been a controversy among parents for ages, so I'll state this: Spanking is rare but necessary. I choose a time-out (which she utterly hates) over spanking, and I've never used an instrument such as a belt or a paddle. But some days, they need that snap back to reality, a bit of a sting to get them back in the moment, not just to "sit and think about what they've done."
Rep. Jay Kaufman mentions in the video that "it's not about criminalizing behavior; it's a matter of changing our behavior." Ah, but you are suggesting to criminalize behavior, and using the money from the fines to build a public awareness program to educate the public. Doesn't that seem backwards to you, folks? Let the parents break the law first, make them pay, and THEN tell them how to discipline their kids the "right" way. Make the kids get a spanking first before we tell them what the parents did wrong!
But laws tend to suppress behavior which usually morphs into another. Tax law is probably a classic example. Everyone who knows tax law knows there are ways to build up your capital without paying taxes on it. There's all sorts of loopholes in those thousands of pages; it's just a matter of knowing how to get through them, and the smart ones manipulate the system to their advantage legally. I don't even want to know what kind of punishment some parents might come up with for their kids without touching them. Are they going to pass a law stating what we can and cannot say to our kids, too? How about only certain times when we can ground them or take away their Nintendo?
Yet the FOX news article says that Rep. Kaufman is not taking a stand on the issue. Well, Rep. Kaufman, if you're going to let your left hand do one thing while your right does another, then let me know when you sync up, and I'll listen to you.
The nurse who convinced the proposal of the bill, Kathleen Wolf, even asserts that a small "swat on the seat" is not abuse. But the bill bans all corporal punishment. Look, I know I just wrote about Riley and the horrors of abuse at the hands of her mother and her mother's boyfriend. The systems in place to protect kids from abuse is overburdened and the reports of abuse have apparently skyrocketed (no numbers provided by CNN). Public education is a good start, I suppose, but is no one listening to these people when a "crime" has to be committed FIRST before they bother to educate others? Who gets to be the poster child for this kind of bill? I feel sorry for the one who does.
What I'm interested in is if Massachusetts actually passes this bill into law. How will this be enforced? Will the police be given the right to enter a home without due process to inspect our children for bruises? What if my kid just fell down the stairs? Does that give DSS or the police the right to whisk away my kids at the slightest cry, even when I caught her doing something wrong? What will the judicial system have to say when a DA is ready to prosecute the first parent under this law, setting a precedent for all cases to follow it? That, to me, is even scarier than the bill passing into law. What will happen to parents who are rightfully, safely, disciplining their children and yet are put on the same pedestal as those who killed Riley?
These are the questions we need to ask before any law goes into effect. That's what the three branches of government are here fore, checks and balances. But I don't need Big Brother in my home making sure I raise a law-abiding American citizen who will obey tax law without a slap on the hand or on the butt.
