Smacking Laws

[ailbhe]

So, the should you be allowed to smack your child law thing has come up again.

I think that this would be a good law. I think that outlawing smacking would make it much easier to police abuse.

I wrote here that:

One reason that the state is imposing so many Good Behaviour laws - like the drinking in the street laws that have recently come into effect all over Reading - is because the population is generally irresponsible and unwilling to become responsible. Most of the adult population I have encountered in this country need a nanny. afpers and their ilk are a minority. Many adults think that TV and PC are a new spelling for Babysitter and Education. People will sue because it rained on their wedding day and the Met Office got the long-term forecast wrong ("It was supposed to be mostly dry in August!").

How should the govt, whose only authority stems from the ability to arrest and detain, make the "adult" population more willing to accept responsibility? It's the only way I can see to avoid the necessity for nanny laws.

I do believe that a no-smacking law would reduce the severity of abuse many children have to experience before it becomes possible to do something about it through the official channels. I also believe that most instances of smacking are not abusive. I think that making it necessary for parents to find a different way of last-resort disciplining their children is less damaging than allowing ordinary abuse (parents who hit their children too much or too hard) and/or the other problem I have seen - parents who believe that ordinary smacking is enough to discipline a child, because look, when I hit her, she stops doing it! (I have seen parents who do this consistently and don't actually succeed in teaching their children anything at all except "stop when they hit you").

It would be lovely if Free NHS Parenting Classes were offered to everyone who got pregnant, along with regular support group meetings until your last child has left home (so about age 26 nowadays), but I can't see people agreeing to pay for this. People already complain about the high costs in this country. I suppose they do that everywhere; certainly they do it in Ireland now, and they used to even five years ago, when living in rural Ireland was cheaper than living in London.

I should use another rant for "you have an NHS! Have you any idea what it's like to live in a country that has no NHS?!" so I'll stop now.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

It's not just the Gubmint trying to encourage parents into work, either. There's an attitude of "but you're educated, why aren't you working?" that comes out among all sorts of people when I mention spending at least the next five years at home looking after smallclanger. Pointing out that we don't need two incomes, and that I'd sooner care for and start to educate my own child rather than go back to a crappy ill-paid job doesn't go down well. I have a degree therefore I should be working. Hmmm.

And yes, ante-natal classes and parenting classes are most often taken up by those who are capable of reading around the subject by themselves and reaching educated conclusions, whereas some of the people who really need the support/education don't go near them, either out of cockiness or fear (who can say which?).

Personally I'd sooner outlaw calling a child "you f**king little bastard" than smacking, mainly because I see far too much of the former and it winds me up something chronic. The smack that (often) follows it is probably less damaging in the long run than the cumulative effect of all that mental abuse. (I live in a pretty crappy area - the only good argument I can see for going back to work is that we might be able to afford to live somewhere where parents don't seem to resent their children quite so much.)

[ailbhe]

"You're too intelligent to stay at home" - yes, I'm going to have to fight this myself soon, with any luck.

I don't believe that smacking is necessarily abusive; I just think that doing away with the grey area of "reasonable discipline" or whatever it's called would make it much easier to police the whole area of physical abuse.

It is already a crime to use obscene language in a public place; it's just that no-one would dream of convicting on that alone these days. I think that might be because law is set by precedent, or something, but I could be talking nonsense.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I suppose if the changed attitude on smacking results in fewer of the swearing/smacking incidents, I would be happier, but I can't see that happening. It is just not "the British way" to intervene, even when you see a law being broken or a child being abused, and although it should be, it's going to be very hard to effect any kind of change in that attitude. (Also, some of these parents I'm talking about would have no problem with turning around and beating the hell out of anyone who intervened, or the police who turned up to try to enforce the law, or Social Services' staff...)

I think I'm probably pro mild smacking (the slapped hand to enforce a "no" or "danger" message), but I'm not sure that legislation is the way to stop more serious abuse happening (it's illegal to beat your children to death but how often does that still happen?), and it may open the way for some very daft court cases that waste everyone's time and money for no good reason, while doing little about more seriously endangered children out there.