Thread: Proposal Aims To Ban Spanking In Massachusetts

Proposal Aims To Ban Spanking In Massachusetts
Poll
Do you think spanking children should be against the law?

(WBZ) BOSTON A controversial proposal that would make spanking illegal in the state of Massachusetts is being debated on Beacon Hill.

Kathleen Wolf, an Arlington nurse, is spearheading the effort to make Massachusetts the first state to outlaw corporal punishment.

"My 16-year-old daughter came home from school and told me about a friend of hers who was being hit," Wolf said. "She said, 'Mom, we have to do something.'"

Wolf said it was then that she began to look at the issue of corporal punishment and spanking after she, too, had spanked her daughter and seen it as a child.

If her proposal becomes law, parents could be charged with abuse or neglect for forcefully laying a hand on their child unless they are trying to wrest that child from danger.

"I remember from being a 10-year-old kid and being in a family where there was a lot of corporal punishment and thinking, 'Why isn't anyone doing anything?'" Wolfe said.

The proposal would ban spanking of children under 18 years old in the home as well as in public.

The State Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that parents can spank their kids provided they don't threaten bodily injury.

Sweden was the first country to ban spanking in 1979. Numerous other countries have also banned corporal punishment, including Greece, Germany, Israel and Bulgaria.

Wolf's proposal will be debated at a State House hearing Wednesday morning.

State representative Jay Kaufman, who is presenting the bill for Wolfe, says the issue isn't about punishing parents.

"We need to have a serious public conversation, not about spanking -- that isn't what this is about -- but where people cross the line and are abusing their children," Kaufman said.

Author and psychologist Teresa Whitehurst is working with Wolf on the legislation.

"It's important to set limits," Whitehurst said. "I've seen children who have either become very fearful of authority or very defiant of authority when there is a lot of spanking used at home."

Wolf and Whitehurst plan to testify Wednesday when the bill is presented. The legislation process is long and will likely involve some changes to the language of the bill.

While the bill may not pass this time around, Wolf said it has already done part of what it should -- to get people thinking about the issue.

http://wbztv.com/local/local_story_331113115.html

Now hear this (I hope you're paying attention Hellary!)

It does NOT take a village to raise a child! It takes two attentive, loving parents who have learned to work together for the benefit of their whole family.

This "spanking is abuse" crap is just that ... crap.

But I bet this moron Wolf would be the first one to swear that a foster parent would never ever hurt a child (even when DNA evidence proves the foster father impregnanted a 14 year old foster child!)

She needs to shut up.

There is a big difference between spanking and physical abuse! Most kids I see today could use a good spanking. They have no respect for their parents or any other adult. My grandmother had 18 children they were all spanked. Not one of them or any of my cousins (98 of us) has used any kind of physical abuse. We were taught the difference between a swat and a punch!

If it is OK WITH GOD, it’s ok with me.
GOD smacks us around much worse than he said we can smack our kids. GOD smacked the nation of Israel over and over because of their disobedience and it was not pretty.
Because GOD loved Israel and loves us and he does not hold back discipline.
The day the government tells me I cannot spank my kids will be the day that they pay their medical bills, feed and house them and send them to college.
God said;
Rev 3;19.."All those for when I have affection I reprove and discipline."
Pro 13;24..."The one holding back his rod is hating this son, but the one loving him is he that does look of him with discipline.
Pro 23;13,14..."Do not hold back discipline from the mere boy. In case you beat him with the rod, he will not die. With the rod you yourself should beat him, that you may deliver his very soul from Sheol itself."
Pro 29;15.."The rod and reproof are what give wisdom; but a boy let on the loose with be causing his mother shame."
Heb 12;11..."No discipline seems for the present to be joyous, but grievous; yet afterward to those who have been trained by it, it yields peaceable fruit, namely, righteousness.

Rom 1;29,30,32., Ezel 9;5,6, Deut 21;18-21
(I will not quote because it is not pretty.)
=======

This is what is wrong with the world now, mankind thinks they know better then GOD.
Jer 10; 23...It does not belong to man, who is walking even to direct his step.

My parents certainly visited my backside with a belt on occasion. Additionally, my backside received the dubious honor of catching a paddle or two (maybe three) during my elementary school years too.

Originally Posted by Cliffdid

There is a big difference between spanking and physical abuse! Most kids I see today could use a good spanking. They have no respect for their parents or any other adult. My grandmother had 18 children they were all spanked. Not one of them or any of my cousins (98 of us) has used any kind of physical abuse. We were taught the difference between a swat and a punch!

EXACTLY, CLIFFDID!

There is a huge difference between spanking and physical abuse! And I am sick and tired of government interfering with 'good' parenting! Social workers et al need to concentrate on removing children from abusive parents and leave the rest of us alone! These legislators are CRAZY!

Parental spanking targeted by ban
'What's next, jail time for parents who raise their voices at their children?'

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Posted: November 29, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A proposal in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to ban "corporal punishment" would turn good parents into criminals, according to a family advocacy group leader who battled the same idea earlier this year in California.

"This bill equates loving, corrective discipline with hateful, harmful abuse," said Randy Thomasson, the president of the Campaign for Children and Families. "Just as California's proposed spanking ban was stopped cold, [Rep. Jay] Kaufman's bill should be rejected by lawmakers who respect the sanctity of the home.

"Why are Democrat politicians like Jay Kaufman so intolerant of parents who occasionally spank?" Thomasson asked. "Do they have something against good, responsible parents who teach their children to respect authority? This bill would turn most parents into suspected child abusers."

Thomasson met Kaufman in a debate yesterday on Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends as the proposal, House Bill 3922, was headed for another legislative committee hearing.

It states that "it shall be unlawful" for a parent to provide corporal punishment to their own children. Specifically, it bans "the willful infliction of physical pain," even temporary pain to a child's buttocks.

"This punish-you-if-you-spank-your-children bill is intrusive, unenforceable, and a blatant violation of parental rights," Thomasson said. "What's next, jail time for parents who raise their voices at their children? We already have enough legitimate laws prohibiting physical abuse of children, and this proposal is certainly not one of them."

Thomasson, whose organization worked to oppose the Assembly Bill 755 proposal in California last spring, said the Massachusetts plan is a "nonsensical" plan that injects "the big nose of government into the family home, where it doesn't belong."

"Some parents spank and some parents don't, and that's their right as parents. Government regulation of parents' discipline wipes out the right of parents to raise their own children. This is wrong. God gave children to parents, not to the state," he said.

"Appropriate spanking is not 'beating' or 'abusing' a child, which is a ridiculous and offensive comparison. When appropriate spanking is lovingly administered, it greatly helps a disobedient youngster to become a well-adjusted adult who respects authority," he said.

The family-oriented organization noted that top child development experts teach that the very young children, under 15 or 18 months, shouldn't be spanked because they don't understand the lesson, but appropriate spanking of those between 2 and 10 "is the shortest and most effective route to an attitude adjustment."

"Being a parent carries no right to slap and intimidate a child because you had a bad day or are in a lousy mood," writes James Dobson of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, a child psychologist and best-selling author. "It is this kind of unjust discipline that causes some well-meaning authorities to reject corporal punishment as a method of discipline."

But he continued, "Just because a technique is used wrongly … is no reason to reject it altogether.

"Many children desperately need this resolution to their disobedience. … When he lowers his head, clenches his fists, and makes it clear he is going for broke, justice must speak swiftly and eloquently. Not only does this response not create aggression in children, it helps them control their impulses and live in harmony with various forms of benevolent authority throughout life," he wrote.

Thomasson had said earlier that the California plan, which died at the end of the legislative session, could have biased "police officers, social workers, district attorneys and juries to regard traditional methods of child discipline as hateful, harmful abuse."

That plan brought forward by majority Democrats would have made criminals of any parent who uses "a stick, a rod, [or] a switch" to discipline their misbehaving child.


The proposal was brought forward by California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View.

She would have had the state put parents who spank their child on probation for four years, forced them to attend a "nonviolent parental education class" and be the subject of a criminal court protective order "protecting the victim from further acts of violence."

The California lawmakers wanted to provide penalties even for parents who use a bedroom slipper to swat an unruly child.

The California plan drew ridicule even from the media. The Contra Costa Times said the bill, "is completely unenforceable. Are we to expect a 2-year-old to dial 911 and report a parent for swatting him or her on the behind?"

The editorial took a straightforward shot at the issue.

"With all of the pressing problems facing our state, what issue has the knickers of our esteemed lawmakers in such a twist? What burning concern has the ponderous pundits on the cable news shows frothing at the mouth?

"Global warming? Plunging real estate values? Good-paying jobs being shipped off to India every time you turn around? Maybe the governor's new health care proposal?

"None of the above.

"The latest meaningless, national distraction, is a silly bill proposed by Assembly Pro Tem Speaker Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, that would make it a crime to spank any child 3 years old or younger."

The editorial's suggestion? "Get real."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=58923

I knew before I even read the article it was a Democrat who introduced this bill Got help this country if Hildabest becomes president.