Listener reactions to
"The Ugly Sounds of an Actual Spanking"
 
 
 

 

To those who think this soundfile doesn't fairly represent the practice of spanking I hereby extend the following invitation:  make a .wav file of what you consider a proper, "loving" spanking and email it to me.  In the interest of fairness and equal time, I promise to place the "loving" spanking .wav file on this website alongside the present one.  In this way, visitors can hear for themselves what your idea of a "real" "nonabusive" spanking actually sounds like.       No one has accepted this offer...  Could it be that ALL spankings sound UGLY when put on tape???  -Chris

    When is the world going to wake up? Spanking, "swatting," slapping, even  tapping a child are forms of violence and should not, UNDER ANY  CIRCUMSTANCES be okay. There are long-term consequences to doing any of  these harmful things to children. Children grow up to become the expression of the way in which they were treated. And, besides, we don't let adults hit adults; thankfully, we are in the process as a society of  trying to do something about spousal abuse; when are people going to see  that hitting their children and allowing teachers/caregivers to do the same (lightly or with an item like a paddle - a sure sign of the depths to which our society has plunged)is akin to an adult assaulting an adult (for which adults are routinely arrested!)

     Kids are beautiful and should be cherished not abused. I don't question anyone's love for their children,  but I do question their ability to parent well and with self-discipline if the only way they respond to a given situation is with violence. Parents who are hitting their children now in effort to discipline them should seek professional help if they have to in order to stop this negative soul-destroying behavior. The connection between hitting, and growing up to be violent is very strong.  All the justifications in the world do not take away the FACT that if you hit your child you have broken a trust bond. We need to get people to stop doing this. please. . .

     Emotionalistically inflammatory, hyperbolic and hysterically misrepresentative tripe.

     Yup... right up the alley of Gestapo CPS apologist anti-parent, anti-family anti-spank zealots of the <6% fascist extremist lunatic fringe such as yourself, little Chrissie.

      I am sitting here crying and I can hardly see.  That girl screaming and begging was me dammit.  My mother did that to me almost everyday for something or another.  Every little thing I did.  I was made to pull my pants down and lay on my stomach on my bed while she "spanked" me with my dad's belt.  It is so horrible to hear that sound file.

      I used to wet the bed until I was in second grade.  I got the belt every morning because I wet the bed. My own 5 year old wets the bed.  I want to grab my mother and shake her and ask should I beat my daughter for it?   For sticking my tongue out at my brother, or looking mean at my mom, or not saying ma'am or talking in church.  Stupid little things warranted me a spanking.  It's so hard to live with it now, to deal with it.  I have nightmares of hitting and hurting my mother, and screaming at her.

      I'm depressed all the time.  I yell alot.  My husband doesn't understand because he was spanked with the belt and "is fine."  Well I am not fine.  Very far from being fine!  And one of the worst things, I can't go to my mom and scream at her for it and ask her why.  She regrets what she did and she is very sorry for abusing me.  So I have nowhere to put my anger from the abuse.  I turn to scratching my arms, inflicting pain on myself.  I am so messed up from how I was "disciplined" I don't even know where to start getting control of myself.  I can't sleep at night b/c I'm scared my bladder won't be empty enough and I keep going to the bathroom.  I'm scared to speak my mind.  I walk on eggshells around people.  I can't believe people think it's ok to spank, especially in that way.  My mother did it with good intentions. She thought she was right.  But *I* know it's not right!

      I wouldn't dare hit my daughters like that. Why do I know it's wrong and others don't (my mom?)?  Hearing that file was like being back in my old bedroom again.  I actually felt the pain.  I hope soon people will realize how wrong it is to hit children and it will end.  My abuse started back with my great-grandfather and was passed down to my mom, and it ended with me.  I hope all the lines of abuse will end soon. I can't bear it."

      Nice propaganda page Chris unfortunately it has little to do with reality.     The reality of your agenda is to subject the world to a global dictatorship under the guise of the U. N.

      I just wanted to let you know I love your website, and I read  everything there. But I did unplug my speakers. I know there's no way I could emotionally handle such a flashback to my own childhood. Reading the responses to the soundclip was saddening enough, because I saw myself.

      I have heard the sound wave thats on here about spanking, I am a senior in high school , I was looking through these newsgroups, and I don`t remember spanking being like this when I was a kid, I mean yes me and my siblings would cry but our parents were not yelling like this. I was spanked up until the age of 16. What would normally was (sic) that it would be for something like lying, stealing or cheating. Generally serious offenses and the spanking was planned, in the sound wav the woman is yelling and talking abusively. My stepdad was always the one who spanked us, the spankings were generally planned and he always waited until he had cooled down enough to deliver a loving spanking. We always knew we deserved the spankings we got, they were always given in his study, privately, he never abused any of us, I have two brothers and one sister, It was never in the way spanking is depicted in this terrible soundwav.

     In my opinion, the sound file you refer to is incorrectly titled.  It sould (sic) be "The Ugly Sounds of an Actual Whipping".  Everyone I know agrees that a spanking is when a hand, or an implement, (OTHER THAN a belt) is used.  Just as if a person is hit with a paddle it is called a paddling.

     Unfortunately, Chris Dugan the poster of this sensationalistic wav file, has a real, exaggerated "hang-up" with any type of spanking.  He even started the NG alt.parenting.spanking to disseminate his views.  Unfortunately, only around 3 people agree with his extreme views.

     To those of you who spank your children, especially those parents that are like I heard in the sound file "The Ugly Sounds of a Spanking" you may think spanking works. Short-term, it might. Because your children are TERRIFIED of you and getting spanked, they may do what you want. But in the long run, you are playing RUSSIAN ROULETTE with your CHILDREN'S LIVES. To me, spanking is like spinning a loaded gun in your child's direction. Of course, you may get lucky and your child will turn out ok, in spite of being ASSAULTED in the name of discipline. But just as likely, your child will turn out like me. Bitter, and ruined, with a whole host of psychological disorders, and learning problems. Why take the chance? Especially when there are so many other alternatives.

     Please listen to me. I am not telling you how to raise your kids. I have no business doing that. They are your kids. But if anything good can come out of the mess of my life, then it will be at least worth it. Please don't spank your children. There are other ways to discipline. Just be creative. It is not necessary to strike your child.

     [Y]ou want to see what a spanking is like in the life of a helathy (sic) family that chooses to use spanking (not abuse) as a disciplinary tool, then spend time with a family that is raising children that are healthy happy and you will not have a need to play this crap. This sound file has NOTHING to do with the truth, you are so totally deluded it is unbelievable... Yes this sound file is ugly and exploitive, however it has nothing to do with the spankings that have occurred in my home nor those of many others who use it as I have described.  You will never have heard anything like this from my children, so it actually has nothing to do with spanking as far as I am concerned...Better yet Chris, you come to my house and see how healthy and happy my children are, see how my oldest daughter is NOT spanked because it is not necessary to use spanking, see how my youngest has now begun to outgrow spanking as a necessary tool, and how effective it has been for her, and the fact that she laughs, loves, smiles and is a very happy little girl.  Then talk to me about it.

[Chris's note: I accepted this writer's offer and asked her to send me her street address and phone number so we could firm up travel plans for my visit to her home.  I said I would bring my tape recorder so that she could demonstrate the right way to hit and hurt a child, proving just how different it sounds from the hitting and hurting in this sound file.  She has not replied.]

     This demonstrates your well established ability to misrepresent those who disagree with you. I am in favor of the use of spanking, and nothing that I heard on that recording is anything like what happens at my house.

[Chris responds: Perhaps you are right.  Perhaps spankings at your house don't sound ugly when put on tape.  Please send a recording of yourself hitting your kids and I promise to put it on this website so that everyone can hear your version of what a spanking really sounds like.]

      Get a better actor dweeb.  I've heard kids sound more pitiful and upset than that because their mom wouldn't buy them a hot wheels car at the grocery store.

      It is apparently quite common for adults who endured childhood spanking (nearly all of us) to minimize the assaultive quality of the act...  I would say that most of us are unaware of the degree of trauma, if any, that we have suffered at the hands of our parents or their surrogates.

      One, albeit crude, way to test your degree of trauma would be to go to Chris's sound file and find out.  I assure you that your emotional reaction is unpredictable, that the sounds can indeed be extremely upsetting and that anyone contemplating taking the risk should do so only after recognizing that it is an individual choice and that responsibility can be assumed by no one other than the individual and whomever spanked him/her.

       I could not finish the recording and wished that I had not started.  Use discretion before you dare.

     For the record, I went to your web site. I sat and waited for 30 minutes while this huge file downloaded. While that was happening, I read through your bold yellow diatribe containing the usual anti-spanking junk, including your appeal to the bogus studies, the rhetoric about equating spanking with all kinds of abuses and atrocities, and your appeal to the emotions of people who fall for your line of garbage.

     Then the file finished and I played it. I listened to it for about 10 seconds before I had to shut it off. You see, it broke my heart. Did it change my mind about spanking? Of course not! What you have on your web site is, in my opinion, abusive, sick, and twisted. It has nothing to do with legitimate use of corporal punishment with the intent of guiding a child towards proper behavior. What you have is a child being beaten by an enraged mother in a violent, unloving fashion over a situation that she cannot control. It is not spanking. I spank my children, and although it is a hard job to do, I don't have a problem when it comes to doing it.   I had a major problem listening to your recording of this abuse. It bears no resemblance to the discipline that is practiced in my home.

     My daughter and her friend were here while I listened to this recording, and the 5 yr old wanted to know who was crying, I said a little girl... she then asked, who is 'hitting' her?  Even a child knows that it is hitting.

     I listened for the swats... they were actually not very hard from the sound of it.  The parent was not screaming incoherently.  She was explaining exactly why the child was being spanked.  We have no documentation that there was any permanent damage caused.  The child started howling at the loudest right at the start.  As such it is more likely the child was trying to put on a show.

     Perhaps [the little girl in the sound file] was so afraid of being punished for a bad report card that her mind went blank whenever the teacher asked her a question.  Perhaps she was so afraid of giving wrong answers that she kept changing from her first (right) guess to some other answer.  Perhaps she believed she was no good and that became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

     That sound file just broke my heart.  I wasn't prepared for it when I first heard it.  I had to go to work the next day and all day I kept thinking about that little girl.

     I wonder why she really was doing badly at school.  It was certainly not because she wasn't sufficiently afraid of punishment.  Her whimpers of dread make that plain.  Perhaps she had a learning disability and needed special help.  Perhaps she was being  bullied at school and the anxiety and stress were adversely affecting her scholastic performance.   Perhaps she was being sexually abused and this was affecting her grades.  Perhaps she needed glasses because she couldn't see the blackboard.  Perhaps she was dyslexic.  Perhaps she has a lousy teacher at school. We will never find out. And it doesn't sound as if this child's mother was even trying to find out.

    I listened to it a few times.  The girl starts crying before the first stroke of the belt, and the mother can be heard saying "report card" and "move your hands" as the girl tries to protect her stinging bottom.  The strokes of the belt are not hard.  I think it is probably authentic and if you are going to spank a girl it is a reasonable dose of the belt.  It sounds like the sort of spanking that I give.   Certainly it leaves the mother enough leeway to give a stronger dose, if it becomes necessary.

    I'm sorry but your (sic) wrong I love my Mother ok yes it hurt me  it me made cry ok  but if the Mother needed to do it than (sic) it is right not yours ok no necesarly (sic) sometime spaning (sic) is done love ok I'm I have to disagree with you on that ok it hurts yes I have to hurts I know it does mother did it me ok I don't hate for I love her it  I am not injail (sic) and I don't hold up store and don't steal from others either. I'm I totaly (sic) disagree with you.  I love my Mother and now she dead ok .but that is that Mothers right ok  I am sorry but you can find some anti CP sympathizer   Good Luck.

    That was EXTREMELY disturbing...as a new single mom I find myself losing patience with my 22mos old sweetheart.  At times I do slap his hand, and I feel that it is just to snap him out of his obstinance.  Just one time, not to hurt him....what I have heard is clearly ABUSE!!!!!  Control issues maybe on behalf of the parents?  It is terrible what some parents do to their children.

    The little girl used her hand to block some of the blows. So it didn't hurt very much anyway. Children always do this. It's common sense. The little girl was bawling 'bloody murder'. She was using this tactic as a defense mechanism to get her mother to hurry up and get it over with. (And it worked!) As soon as her mother heard the  bloody murder scream you will notice she let up almost immediately. What I am saying is that the slapping was not hurting the child as much as she was making out that it was. All children scream like this to get their parents to let up. It almost always works. Notice that the mother had the child lay down across the bed. Spanking a child in this manner is safer than having the child stand up. Reason being that the child is less likely to fall down and injure some more vulnerable part of their body. Such as the head by concussion... In conclusion: I would rate the spanking she received as mild. If you listen to the wave file again, be sure and time just how long the spanking lasted.

    Well Thank there is one amongst us that hasn't suffered mental damage due to parental topping thank you everyone has their minds set ridiculing our parents for turning us over the knee barbottomed (sic) while kick and scream oh mommy no more nomore mmmmm I  didn't do us harm I can't these smartass shrink these felling (sic) people head with alot nonsense about domestic C.P. hey let them raise they're (sic) monsters and see how many times they bail kid out jail for their stuipid (sic) time out crap. what's with these new parents these days  they spoiled little monsters that get no matter what they end only getting time out in their bedrooms where they had planed (sic) in the first place  are parent really stupid are they don't they knnow (sic) that childredn (sic) aren't as dumb as they appear do (sic) be  children devient (sic) and they plan things well in advance  they crafty and mindfully constructive  only because they their going turn over momma or daddies knee. and their bottom blistered. they know this all too well.

     I listened to this recording, and I must say that I find it unimpressive.  I heard an adult voice - probably a woman's - explaining (presumably to a child) why the child was getting a "whippin", the sound of nine impacts which were indistinguishable from the sound of an open hand striking a child's nude butt, and a whole lot of loud whining that is typical of difficult child protesting a punishment of any kind.  However, I did not hear anything that leads me to believe that the impacts were more than an ordinary spanking.

  [Chris responds: Yes, that was the point.  These were the ugly sounds of an  "ordinary spanking," not of an extreme case of child abuse.  What happened in this soundfile is legal in all 50 US states.]

     I have visited your site as an exercise for Open University in UK.  I was  impressed with the issue over the spanking event.

     I have a 6 and a half year old boy who was smacked and spanked (not with a barbaric belt, no way!), just with my bare hands.

     I have to admit, I am ashamed for having done this to him because, after all these years, I can see very clearly that ALL his achievements came from taking time and spend it with him, teaching, showing him how to do things, things HE likes not the ones I prefer.

     There was never a good result out of spanking and every time I 'lose' it I promised to myself to make it the last time.

     From my personal experience, when the child misbehaves in 'grand style' the root of the problem lays with the parents who inadvertently project on the little human being their insecurities, nervousness, temper, lack of self confidence, you name it, they will have it.

     I feel sorry for the American society who believes that a belt who would be humiliating for animals will ever make 'real' humans.  The more frightened you become, the less the good results will be and the more belting you will get - the vicious circle has to be broken somehow for this to stop.

     There are many forms of abuse and some of them are quite extraordinary.  My mother didn't punish me physically too much, she mostly neglected me and sometimes I used to think that ANY attention from her would be better than  none.  Sad, isn't it?

     Anyway, to return to the little girl, I simply don't see how a battered child will improve her grades at school if no one will help her to revise the material - wouldn't that be a good alternative to spanking in this case?

    Why is this such an ugly sound?  It is the normal sound of any child being spanked.  I fail to see what's so ugly about it.  What other sound would the child make?  Would she be laughing?  She is making the appropriate sounds for a spanking, and it's not so horrible.

     I think this is a little thrown out of proprtion (sic).  I do not believe in hitting you (sic) child harmfully, or with objects that are just "there."  Obviously, this should NOT be legal.  I believe a swat that doesn't hurt is harmless and can get to them enough to think it could hurt.  I raise horses.  When they misbehave, a smack on the neck, or "rump" can usually do the trick.  Are my horses going to grow up all screwed up lick (sic) the kids are?  Never mind the fact that they sit in a field all day long and kick each other to hell with one pound of metal on their hooves....I must be hurting them if I swat them.  I'm so abusive, take me away.

[Chris responds: Physical punishment has long been out of favor among professional animal trainers, who have come to recognize its negative effects on the animals.]

     I ran across your site because I am writing a paper on spanking and if it actually results in antisocial behaviors in the child.  Anyway, I listened to the wav file you had a few times, and I don't think it seems 'ugly' at the least.  I have been spanked when I was young (I am 19 now) and the screams of that child is the scream of rebellion (which I remember using to stop the spanking).  The sounds of the blows don't seem as hard as it seems either.  I think the parent had a right to spank her child that way.  The things you say how the belt hurts and stuff, actually, it doesn't hurt as much as people think--after all spanking children is to show them how their actions are wrong and if it doesn't hurt how would they know?  Sure I was angry after I was spanked (I was spanked until around 15 years old) and I was mad, but I understand why, because now I'm not in trouble with anyone and am attending an Ivy League University.  Did those spankings help me stay on the right track?  Probably.

     i want to shoot the F&*ker who made that sound file child abusers must die

     i never remember rything (sic) and screaming and begging when spanked... i say spanked, not "whipped" i believe there is a difference. that girl was being  whipped! my parents used their hands and yes it hurt, but at the same time got  it's point across... they also never yelled at me like that, they made sure i  knew they loved me. my husband agrees. he remembers being spanked by his  father and what hurt the most is when his father left his mother so obvioulsy (sic) he still loved his father. i don't get these anti-spanking pages at all... i  am perfectly normal as is my husband. we both boad (sic) very well in society, have many friends and love our families very much. so whatever this "spanking causes anti-social and deviant behavior..." tripe is is (sic) news to us. no, we do not have children, but we know when we do, if warrented (sic) they will recieve (sic) a punishment to fit the crime as we did : a spanking across the bottom w/hand to get the point across, but our children will know we love them as my sister's child knows and his sister's child knows (yes both have been spanked) they are loved very much.

    I couldn't help but notice that a great number of the responses from those supporting corporal punishment came from people who misspelled words and had a pretty poor command of the English language.  I wonder if they were spanked for poor report cards.  I, unfortunately was viciously abused by my mother (belts, sticks, etc) and somehow performed well in school in spite of the abuse.  However, the pressure of the consequences of poor performance was enough to effectively extinguish my desire to learn and took all of the potential joy and pride out of my straight-A report cards.  So, I graduated HS as an honor student and promptly found an abusive man to marry and, after leaving him became an alcoholic and then a heroin addict.  I have terrible self-esteem, horrific nightmares and want to die a lot of the time.  This is what my "spankings" did for me.  Thanks, Mother!

-Crippled Inside

   That sound file sounds fake to me but anyway, it is not ugly. Look at the kids today, disrespectful in trouble all the time stealing they don't care about anything or anyone but themselves but yet 40  years ago and farther spanking was common and kids were alright they were respectful well behaved they actually cared I say they need more spanking these days. I was spanked growing up until I was 8 or 9 and think now that I am 19 that my parents should have gone longer. I think kids these days need to know what it feels like as long as they know why they are spanked and they are given a hug afterwards and told everything is all better now they they will turn out alright. I know these views are against yours so they won't make it on the site and that's fine but plane (sic) and simple I think you are full of it and maybe your kids can end up in jail but you can bet mine will be spanked when they deserve it and they will turn out just fine.

[Chris responds: Contrary to popular misconception, juveniles in America commit much less crime on average than their parents did at that age.  For more on the good news about the remarkably low crime rates of today's youth in comparison with a generation ago, click here.]

     I am shocked at what your website is trying to tell people.  You are trying to get people to believe that by spanking children, we are making them violent.  I have five children of my own,  I spank when they insist on not doing what I ask them to do.   We do not BEAT our children, nor do we spank them or  every little infraction.  I am a firm believer in parental rights, and I am on a mission to set the record straight on this issue.    You people truly make me sick, you are trying to tell  people that spanking a child is abusive and mean.   What would you call a parent who doesn't control their children?  I am sure that all people would much rather see a parent have complete control of their child, rather than just letting these children run around doing whatever they want.  I myself, will gladly tell a parent who does not  exercise control of their child, to buck up, and make that child behave.  I spank me [sic] children, and when we go out to dinner, we usually have some stranger come up to us and tell us just how well behaved our children are.  Do you think that people who don't exercise control of their children get people to compliment them on their childs behavor (sic)?  I think not.  Please stop trying to confuse people with all the garbage that you are feeding them.  They are not hurting their children, they are only making them behave, and they are only doing what GOD tells them to do.

     I listened to the little girl getting spanked or whipped, however you wish to refer to it. I'm not the less [sic] bit disturbed by it. The mom sounds very calm, and the child is doing what any child would do under the same circumstance. I feel there is no fair way to judge the mother whipping the child for a bad report card, there is just simple [sic] isn't enough facts. I have gotten whippings (I refer to a spanking as a whipping, not that they were any harsh [sic] then what most people call a spanking) for a bad report card before, which can sound harsh but there was much more to it. Like, me playing around at study time or me lying about not having home work. My mother made it perfectly clear that if I brought home a bad report card due to playing around at study time, or a lack of studying in general that I was going to get a whipping.  So, basically it was up to me. You have to know the conclusion of the whole matter before opening your mouth to give an opinion.  Now I know some people are just simply oppose [sic] to spanking or whipping in general, but some of the explanations are just ridiculous. I have read a lot of the comments and the general consensus is that it isn't right that your child should fear you. Well, why else would they obey you? It is human nature that most people will try and get by with whatever they can, children learn this at a very early age. They will try you. Fear brings about respect.

     The problem with kids today is that they get this weak "time -out" ish (sic) that does absolutely NO good. Kids have the power to prevent a "spanking" by not repeating what they originally were spanked for.

     I am 21 and was spanked and realize it doesn't do anything but distance the parent from the child and encourage sibling violence, such as hitting and bullying. I had bad flash backs after hearing that sound clip. The truth is there are so many defenseless children who are at the mercy of adults who give none. Fear is not good, no one should feel it. Instead we should be taught to enjoy doing the right thing, explanations go a long way. I can't wait to be a parent and prove everyone wrong. I will help set the standard for healthier people.  Hearing a child plead, makes me sick. I feel hate towards parents that hit their children. It's a vicious cycle. As you can tell I have very strong feelings against it. If Sweden can do it so can the US and Canada.

    Keep it up, you're doing great.

     You know the real shame of it all is that you try so hard to make decent hard working people believe  your crap.   You try to make us feel that we are evil, mean people because we use corporal punishment on our children[.]      Its (sic) bleeding hearts like you that have our prisons overloaded with hard core criminals.   [A]nd you are the ones the (sic) coddle them till they get out and perform criminal acts on the rest of us,,,(sic) our children also i am a firm believer in having a whipping post in every prison, and using it.

     I listened to this sound file, and it's totally horrible!  Like I was against corporal punishment before, even thinking of starting my own group in Canada in a few years, but this has bolstered my determination!  That girl is obviously in a lotta pain, and I don't see how a person can inflict that much trauma, pain, and suffering onto another person, especially their own child!  It is never a means of "cool down and act rational" punishment, it is a way of letting out stress, it's all the human brain's fault!  A truly nice parent would pay attention to their stress as much as her child, in order that they don't ruin things for their child's personal future!  I am a high school student in Canada, and I urge all of you to take a stand against this!  If we all show people how much we hate this practice, we can help abolish it!!

     The beating sounds terrible. The woman should have been reported for child abuse.  I was spanked as a child it was never like that.  My dad only smacked with his hand.  It was only occasionally and I think it was only 6 or 7 times in my childhood and it was never as bad as the sound file describes.  You know today kids can be expelled or suspended, thrown to case workers in social welfare but never spanked.

                [Chris responds:  In fact, spanking in the home is legal in all 50 U.S. states.]

    Dogs and cats have more protection then our children...  How degrading, cruel and ignorant...   In my state, and many others we have generations of good, successful and honest citizens who grew up without being hit by their teachers and parents for that matter. How can these hitting people be so ignorant? There is overwhelming proof that children can be made to behave without corporal punishment...  I have three children who are well-behaved, do well at school and socially. I DO NOT hit my children. I certainly would never let other adults hit them... There is absolutely no reason to hit unless you are too uneducated and sloven to find a way other then hitting.  Restraint, removal from a situation, time alone, conversations, consequences and other non-violent approaches are so much more effective and do not abuse the child.

    I have a comment I would like to share.  I  am amazed that you have so many  rude, unarticulated responses from PROUD spankers.  If you are so proud, lets have your name and address and I will personally send you a PROUD PARENT OF A SPANKED CHILD  Bumper sticker!!  Then I dare you to put it on your car.  Bet you won't. For the simple reason that other drivers would accost you - and you the spanker know that.  If you are so proud of what you do, stand  tall announce it to the world, see what kind of response you get.
 

[Chris reponds: As a matter of policy, names, email addresses and other identifying information are not posted here.  However, it is a simple matter to have a custom "Proud Parent of a Spanked Child" bumper sticker made and place it on one's car.  Any readers who are willing to accept the above writer's challenge and do this are encouraged to take a family photo  standing next to the car with the bumper sticker in view and send it to cddugan at the email address at the bottom of this page in *.gif or *.jpg format for inclusion on this web page.  If you are really so proud of what you do, why not proclaim it to the world???].

   I have listened to the sound clip and read the listener responses. I am not one to think that the state should regulate how a parent disciplines his child.  It is up to the parent as it is the duty of the parent to teach his child.  But what I would ask parents to consider is what good such discipline actually does?  How can anyone listening to that sound clip not pity the child?  How hard of heart people can be! Of course she was crying before the punishment even began.  She knew what was coming to her and she knew it would be painful. She's a child and like children do, they mess up. Does she deserve such a punishment?  Will it teach her about the value of school? Probably not.  I did not in the least get the impression that her cries where manipulative, they were sincere.

   I think it is a great pity that this girl in the sound clip will have to learn lessons through fear.  But so long as people think what holds order in society is fear, then this is how children will  learn. Her mother is only wanting what is best for her..to do well in school.  And I seriously doubt the  mother likes to dish out this punishment.  In fact I bet it was painful to her as well. But, this is not the way to teach a child to do well in school. I wonder if it is really a way to teach children any lesson at all. After all, do you trust  those you fear? The question of  corporal punishment of children is one that will always be debated.  I do not claim to know the answer.  But these things I do know, treat children like slaves and they will most likely retain that  slavish mentality into their adult years.  Only doing things because they get something out of it or  because if they do not do it something bad will happen to them.

   My two kids have been told that they are not allowed to watch scary movies. I made that clear to them. Nevertheless, one day I came home early and found my son and daughter watching "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" on TV. I told them they were going to be  spanked severely for this. They ran into their bedroom and locked the door. I picked the lock, and cornered the kids, who whimpered and tearfully begged not to be spanked. I was not swayed, of course. I first grabbed the boy and forced him into my lap, and rapidly slammed him good and hard again and again while he cried and screamed. Then I put the girl in my lap and did the same to her. I gave her a few extra slams for screaming too much.  This might sound a bit harsh to some people, but my kids have got to learn that I will not let them get away with defying my rule against watching scary movies.

   After all, I wouldn't want them to get scared.

   I just listened to your sound WAV.  It was definitely disturbing.  I  was .....um...well, (hit to teach me a lesson?) only once in my life by my dad who I think just uncharacteristically, lost his temper.  I've never believed in spanking and I still don't and the thing that disturbs me the most isn't the actual spanking but the people who actually believe, STRONGLY I guess, that it's needed.  Some of the people's responses to your sound WAV really made me feel like the world is always going to be   hopelessly violent and that disturbs me.  When one of your replies tried, in no uncertain terms that it's YOU whose the extremist and not the people who hit their kids.......well.......

   I work in a group home for abused kids.   A problem that I've noticed in abused kids is that they learn to lie.  Now, everybody lies, that's true. The thing is, when you're faced with getting a severe punishment and the only way out of it is to lie you're forced to make that choice more often.  If this kind of thing happens when you're young enough, lying becomes a habit so ingrained in you that it's a part of your personality.  You end up lying all the time.  There are many personalities out there like that:  people who have no problem lying if it gets them what they want.

   There are different kinds of spanking and depending upon the severity and when and how it's used, it's going to have a different effect on a persons learning process.  But, that doesn't change the fact that representing yourself as a hurtful person will turn your kids on the same OR opposite path.  Some might say that being a push over is just as bad and I'd agree but I'm not saying that anyone should be a push over.  The best way to set an example is to set an example.  Be strict......That doesn't mean hitting your kids when they do wrong.  It means doing the same thing consistently ALL the time regardless of how you're feeling that day or how good your kids happen to be at smooth talking you.  It means ALWAYS sticking to the rules.

   OK.....that's all I had to say....I'm real happy that there are people out there saying something about this kind of thing.  Good luck.

   the mother only hit the girl once or twice....and doesn't sound that bad.

    I just heard your sound file of a an actual child getting spanked. It was informative. Recently, I have been trying to understand my childhood memories of the spankings I received and witnessed.  I think they did sound like your wav file and the adult didn't always use a belt.

    I now believe that the more you hit your kids, the more you will have to hit your kids. When a parent uses spanking as a prominent way of regulating a child's actions, that parent weakens the emotional bond his or her child has with that parent.  That bond is what makes youngsters value what mom or dad think of what they are doing.  The regularly spanked child cares less about what his or her parents think than about what the parents will do if they find out about this behavior or that.

    In fact, I have read accounts of youngsters getting spanked all of the time for various misdeeds. So if spanking is so effective at stopping bad behavior, why does it have to be repeated so often?  Are we saying that without regular corporal punishment that children would behave even worse?  I find it hard to concur with that view of humanity.

    There is another problem with spanking children that I almost never see discussed.  It is a form of sexual abuse.  It is even more so if a child's under-pants are lowered or removed. The parent may not intend this sexual aspect but the affect getting spanked has on some children's sexuality shouldn't be ignored.

    I don't claim to know all of the psychology involved but I do know that a lot of adults, myself included, have a sexual interest in spanking.   Most of us got this bent in childhood.  A good indication of how pervasive this interest is can be seen by entering the word "spanking" into a search engine on the Internet.

    The debate on this issue is far from over.  Good luck with your work.

    This sound wave was a very upsetting thing to listen to. I had an extremely difficult time with it, because of my own abusive upbringing. My reaction was intense. I cried, my heart pounded and I trembled all over. I didn't sleep well for several nights. The day after hearing it, I was moody and impatient with the most trivial things. Fortunately I was able to discover the source of my tension and just that realization helped me to settle down.

    The body memories imprinted upon an individual from being beaten last a lifetime. The last whipping I got was 34 years ago and yet this recording reduced me to a shaking, sniveling mess. I see an important connection between the body memories acquired from being struck repeatedly on the buttocks and sexuality. I believe that a child who experiences this type of trauma and its accompanying and inevitable genital  stimulation due to the buttocks and genitals being in such close proximity, can have trouble setting appropriate boundaries regarding their bodies.

    It can also create a situation wherein a child or even an adult is at greater risk when it comes to authority figures preying on them sexually. This was my experience. I was robbed of the necessary tools I needed to expose or to fight five different male predators that sexually abused me in my childhood. I felt completely vulnerable and powerless at their hands, because submission had been beaten into me. I have had to work very hard to overcome the disastrous effects of these abuses. Some of the scars will be with me until I die. People need to know that when they hit kids, they steal their power and their innocence and heap upon them burdens that are impossible to calculate.

      I just listened to your sound file, of a child being spanked - and bravo to you for putting it on the internet. Too bad it isn't clearer, and too bad you don't have one of someone really being belted severely. But it's bad enough. I was beaten as a child, until I started to literally fight back and refused to stay in one place. My father was a Navy PTI, (Canada), and he knocked me over once, I came back with both feet as hard as I could into his stomach and winded him. (13 year old girl). He was still trying to hit me when I was 19, and thoroughly beat my brothers.

      I have always said, to supporters of spanking -- if this is an acceptable thing to do, then why is it always kept private??  Why isn't it done in public then, where people can see it, then we can judge whether or not it is acceptable. The tape seems to be a start.

        I have just had the unpleasant experience of listening to the .wav file of a girl being spanked, and I have never felt so angry in my life.  What makes me even more more angry is the number of responses attempting to defend the parent's actions towards her child.  Would these people who so vociferously defend this form of punishment be happy to receive it themselves, perhaps from an employer or from a police officer?  One of your respondents stated that 'fear brings about respect'.  Does it?  If my employer wants my respect, should he spank me in order to make me fear him?

     The fact remains that there are far better methods of bringing up children, which are based on focusing on and rewarding good behaviour, rather than ignoring good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour with spankings.  Punishments do not remove the desire to misbehave, they simply increase the desire to misbehave without being caught.

        Although spankings are legal, what I heard on your web-site sounded more like torture.  Was this  mother prosecuted?  She should have been.  She sounds like a sick animal who should have never had the privilege of bearing a child.

         Who recorded this incident?  Why didn't anyone stop this woman?  If I would have been in that room, I would have taken this woman out.  If I were her husband, I would have been seeking a divorce and sole custody of that child.   That woman is the reason Southerners are portrayed as belligerent and ignorant people.   Please tell me that you intervened on behalf of that little girl and that she is no longer being hurt.
 

[Chris responds: This sound file was sent by a man who downloaded it from a long-defunct members-only newsgroup.  I have no information except what is in the soundfile itself, and neither did my informant.  Perhaps the recording was made by the woman's spouse in preparation for an anticipated child custody battle with her.  Perhaps it was made by a vindictive sibling who wanted to play it back to the girl later on to torment her and who put it on the web somewhere so as to be able to tease her about having done so.]

        I'd like to start out by agreeing with those who have already stated that  what the sound file contains is not suitably called a "spanking".  It may better be described as a beating, if not outright physical and psychological abuse.  I agree also with those who stated that any such person caught in the act of beating their child in that fassion (sic) should be prosecuted.  I make this assessment largely because it is quite clear to me that the mother was far too enraged to be dishing out any kind of punishment at the time of the incident.  All punishments should be measured and should appropriately fit the circumstances, neither of which seemed to be the case in this recording.

        To those who would say that spanking is never an appropriate punishment, I would disagree.  Equally though, to those who say that spanking is always an appropriate punishment, I would also disagree. If it is done correctly, the only spankings which should be given are those which are truly deserved, and of appropriate severity.  Only then, in my opinion, can such be qualified as "loving" spankings.
 

     [Chris responds: The mother in the soundfile doesn't sound "enraged" to me.  She seems quite calm and rational, explaining to her child why she is about to experience pain.  The only time the mother raises her voice is when she tells the daughter to "move your hand" and the daughter doesn't obey the first time. 
   Where are the prospank websites with soundfiles of "loving" spankings done the "right" way?  There aren't any. 
   Spankings always sound ugly when made into sound recordings.  If anyone disagrees, they are welcome to send a sound recording of a spanking done the "right" way and I promise to put it on this website side by side with the present soundfile for the sake of balance.  The soundfile and this Responses page have received tens of thousands of hits.  Tens of thousands of people have heard my challenge to send a soundfile of a "loving" spanking done the "right" way and not one of them has risen to the challenge.]

        Yes, Mr. Dugan, you have made your trivial point.  Give yourself a gold star.

        Yes, a properly administered loving spanking does bring carefully controlled limited pain. A child in pain cries. And a child's cries of pain are never pleasant to hear. I love my daughter with all my heart and soul. An (sic) recording of me lovingly chastising her when she was younger would no doubt resemble yours.  Listeners would hear her whimper as I  took her over my knee and explained why she was about to receive correction. And the hearts of your listeners would naturally go out to her and harden against me, which is just what you would hope for Mr. Dugan, am I right? Next the sounds of a little girl's tears and a little bare bottom receiveing (sic) a few well-deserved smacks would tug at listeners' heartstrings. Then a flood of new converts to your crusade would write messages deploring all the mean Mommies loose in the world who ought to be behind bars.

        You'd like that wouldn't you?

        Such a sound file would misrepresent nonabusive loving discipline and you know it. And one word sums up this misrepresentation: context.

        Listeners will never hear the dozens of kisses, hugs and I love yous which passed between my child and me from one spanking and the next.   Listeners will never hear the sweet conversations we had while lap cuddling in the rocking chair. How about that for a sound file Mr. Dugan?  Listeners will never hear her remembering me in her bedtime prayrs (sic).  If I sent a recording, would you put THAT on your webpage??  Listeners will never see the Valentines and Mothers day cards she crayoned for me, still lovingly tucked away in their special folder. (Wold (sic) you put images of them on your webpage too if I sent you scans??) Of course you wouldn't.  How would something like that promote your humanistic crusade against Godly traditional loving discipline??
 

[Chris responds: My point is not that parents who spank never love their children and that their children never love them back.  My point is that you can characterize painful whacks on your daughter's bare skin as "loving" as often as you like but a critic needs only to put a sound recording on the web and let it speak for itself to refute your contention.   You need to face that something is not right with the way you rationalize your painful "loving" method of punishing your child.  Many many parents who punish your way do love their children very very much.  But that just makes the whole thing even more appalling.
        If anyone sends a complete unedited sound file of themselves spanking their child the "right" way, I will not only put it on this website side by side with the present sound file, I will further devote equal bandwidth to the child's Valentine's day cards or "God bless Mommy" bedtime prayers or anything at all you would like to send to show how much your spanked child adores you.
        It would promote the antispanking "crusade" if listeners could view cute little crayoned "I love you Mommy/Daddy!!!" cards on their screens while their desktop speakers blasted that same child's wails of anguish and heartbreak as that very same parent deliberately struck the child again and again.   Spanking is an ugly practice in any context, no matter how much the parent and child love one other.]

        Authoritarians don't like being shown what they do to others first  hand.  They hate insubordination by lessers.They are arrogant petty lords.  It's ugly to hit someone as an adult, but the adult can fight back,so it's rationalized easier, it's uglier to hit a kid, a sick person or an animal because excuses do not come so easily.    Abusers know exactly what they do and they are ashamed of it and don't admit it lest they be forced to stop it.  That is why you have been sent no recordings of "nice beatings".

        I could not listen to the audio file without having a panic attack. But I hope this control-freak beating this kid was arrested for it in a public trial.

        That is why I love your site,You hide nothing to spare an abuser.

        Your heart is like a golden falcon who sees my pain, gently plucking the despair out of my heart and replacing it with your golden feathers making a soft nest in a cold dead place.   Your site doesen't let abusers hide from their ugly domination games they do and get off on.  The best they can do when faced with the truth is blame the victim and cry how the recording must be fake, because they know deep down it's real.They hear something similar every time they whip their own kid in the most secret part of the house where nobody but the terrorized will hear it and forget.   You broke the silence. You showed the secret. You take away their power with compassion for the subjugated.

         Thank you.

         I will NEVER forget.

       I once heard something almost identical through cinderblock wall in a studio apartment building in which I was living. This was complete with "move that hand" and screaming. I went to the next apartment and banged on the door and was confronted by a young mother with two, maybe three young children living in an apartment like my own. She had been whipping her son of perhaps eight or ten. It had gone on for some time. She told me she was 'chastising' her child. The next day I called DCFS (Dept. Child and Family Services) from a number on a poster on the el train and reported a case of potential abuse.

        I was contacted by a caseworker who seemed rather hostile. He said he had interviewed the family and found the kids showed no fear of the mother and had no obvious marks. I believe it is pertinent to mention now that I am caucasian, the family black, and (I believe from speech patterns) the case-worker was black. It was as if he told Honky to mind his own business.

        I was discouraged and depressed by this until, in the next few days the mother stopped me in the hall and thanked me, with great sincerity, for having intervened. She seemed to realize the over-the-edge nature of the situation. This made me feel better, but I still remember those sounds coming through a wall too dense for me get any attention by pounding on it.

       The sound file on your website of the mother whipping her daughter is hilarious!  I laughed for 45 minutes when I first heard it, and even now everytime I think of it I have to chuckle. :-) I whip my daughter the same exact way, only she doesn't scream like the brat on the sound file. She knows that if she did then she would get much, much more of the same. :-) Thank you for posting it. I really enjoyed it.

           I read your site and it sickens me that anyone could hear that recording and somehow find a reason why it was okay. Also, the Dobson review was right on the money. I teach Sunday School, and let me tell you, the kid who hits and grabs is always the one who was spanked - who was raised up "right", "God's way!!"( Lord help us.)

         Might I also refer you to another pathetic example of someone with a personality disorder masquerading as child rearing expert - Michael and Debi Pearl. They have a website and are quite popular with some of my fellow Christians. They too support beating children, along with not picking up your infant too many times so as not to "spoil them".

        The story about Dobson's dog - from my experience with pets I know dogs never lie. If they growl at someone there is usually a reason. I have had dogs disobey me, but never growl at me. Surely " Siggie" had tuned into the fact his owner is a TOTAL NUTBALL.

        There are so many people who have written saying that the sounds of that child being spanked were horrible, and that it was obviously abuse, and that it was not "proper" spanking.  There are an equal number of people that say that it was not abuse, and some that say she even deserved worse.  To all of you out there who say that it isn't abuse, but that corporal punishment itself isn't wrong I have a question to ask.  How do we regulate corporal punishment?  Do we say that you can't spank until they are at least two, or that you can't hit them after they reach puberty; or you can only hit them with your hand, or with a belt, or with a paddle; or that you can only hit them so many times; or that you have to sit down with them and explain to them why they are getting spanked; or that you have to give them plenty of hugs and kisses and tell them how much you love them;  or that you can't leave any bruises; or that you can't hit a child that has a mental disorder; or that you can't hit a child that has a physical disorder; or that you also have to use other forms of discipline.  When proponents of corporal punishment can't even agree on what "proper" corporal punishment is, how do we regulate it?

        I know abused children  who have never been spanked, and  better adjusted children who have been spanked, but that's not the point. Any form of abuse can be countered by awareness that it is wrong - but abuse of any kind will always leave scars, and there is proof that spanking fits this criteria as much as any other form of abuse.  Those who are not spanked or abused in any other way...well, they are the best off, and it is my hope that anyone who realizes spanking is wrong, however they realize it, will help change the world.

        it has been months since i heard your sound file for the first time.  it was so triggering for me that i could not bear to write you, even now i am fighting back tears.  if someone had made a soundfile from my childhood, that is exactly what it would have sounded like.  being spanked during my childhood has done more damage to me than i could ever put into words.  but if i could, any parents who read them and truly loved their children would never dream of spanking them again.  being hit by my parents only caused me to fear and resent them, not to mention feel like i deserved to have my body violated.  even today i constantly put myself down and i don't feel like i deserve to be treated with respect.  i let people walk all over me and i constantly wonder about the person i would be today if i had just been treated more gently during my childhood.  i will probably enter therapy someday to try and reverse the effects of my parents' "loving discipline" but i believe some of these effects will last my entire life.  spanking is physical and sexual abuse and i would never dream of inflicting it upon another human being, especially a helpless child!

     Statistics and studies done at UCLA dictate that the majority of convicted criminals were spanked/whipped, or even abused as children. [Maurer and Wallerstein (1987) -Chris]    Draw whatever conclusions you like from this, but it kinda condradicts a lot of you who are saying that kids will become delinquents if you don't use corporal punishment. Parents are afraid of what their children learn from the media (violent movies/ video games, music with violent lyrics, etc), yet at the same time, some parents use violence to control their children... Yeah... It's kinda funny, though, if you think about it; this girl was whipped with a belt for having bad grades, while many murderers and rapists are walking free.
 

[Chris responds: Maurer and Wallerstein (1987) quote Dr.Ralph Welsh, a psychologist who studied a sample of over 2,000 delinquent youths.  Welsh writes, "The recidivist male delinquent who has never been exposed to the belt, extension cord or fist at some time in his life is virtually non-existent. As the severity of corporal punishment in the delinquent's developmental history increases, so does the probability that he will engage in a violent act."]

    The reason why no one has sent you a sound file with normal spanking is because a normal spanking doesn't hurt. It is only to get the childs attention, to realize that what he or she is doing is completely unacceptable. I was beaten as a child, thrown down stairs and had many bald spots from my mother dragging me around by my hair. Do I believe what she did was right? Of course not!!! But tapping my childs hand while using a firm tone in my voice to stop my child from playing with an electrical cord and her Grandmothers house. Damn right. And your bumper sticker offer I will take you up on it. I am not ashamed of the Bible telling me to teach my child right from wrong and I am not afraid of what people will think of me or my family.

[Chris responds: I am glad you aren't hurting your child when you physically strike her.  But is hitting, even painless hitting, really the best way to "get the child's attention?"  Children are extremely intelligent creatures.  It is not necessary to hit them in order to train them.
   You model hitting behavior to your child whenever you spank her.  Imagine that your child has a little friend over to visit and you hear a crying commotion and go in to investigate.  Your child's guest indignantly tells you that your child hit her.  You ask your child, "Is this true?"  Your child replies, "Yes.  I had to hit her because she wasn't paying attention to me!"  Would you deem this acceptable behavior in your child?  If not, then which non-hitting alternative would you suggest for your child the next time she wants to get someone's attention?  And the next time you need to get her attention, why not do the same yourself?  It makes no sense for grownups to haul off and hit to get a child's attention while holding the child to a higher more mature standard of conduct.
   As for the bumper sticker offer, I look forward to receiving your photo of you and your child standing with the "Proud Parent of a Spanked Child" bumpersticker in readable view.  If you really do send such a picture, I will keep my promise and post it.  (I'll believe this when I see it, though.  In the unlikely event that you do send the photo, it will appear in the space below).
 
 

This space reserved for a photo  of the above writer standing with her child  next to her car and with a "Proud Parent  of a Spanked Child" bumpersticker  visible on the car. [May 5, 2004]

     I have listened to the "Ugly sounds of an actual spanking" soundfile, and it is something that I never want to hear again.  Having said that, I wish there was a way I could force my pro-spanking workmates to listen to this barbarity.  It might help them to change their minds.

     You may be interested to know that here in the UK, we may be about to enact laws that at least limit the physical punishment that may be inflicted upon children, in much the same way as has been recently done in Canada.  It may not be much, but it is at least a start.

     Yes it broke my heart, I couldn't listen anymore.  Good for you.  I think any parent who listened to this would remember not inflict this on a child in a moment of anger.  So proud of you.

     I hope whoever taped that used it to get help for that family.

     Hope your good work effects some social change.  It is hard for me to believe that so many countries have outlawed that and we are not one of them.

    I was moderately spanked as a child and although my relationship with my parents was undamaged, we all have negative feelings associated with this "disciplinary" tool. As grandparents, my parents unreservedly support our family's decision to discipline without violence. When my children inevitably strike out at one another in frustration, I am able to ask them with full confidence, "Has mommy or daddy ever hit you when we didn't like what you did?" or "Have you ever seen mommy or daddy hit one another when we disagree?" Parents who spank or strike one another, even just once, cannot use these powerful reminders when coaching children to resolve conflict peacefully.

    Hitting another adult is assault while hitting a child is spanking. One action can land you in jail while the other is perfectly legal. Hitting someone who can defend himself risks imprisonment, while hitting a defenseless child is just another parenting choice. I will never understand how anyone can simply ignore the logic of this.

    I wonder how many people realize that the same Hebrew word for "rod" used in the oft-cited Proverbs is the very same word found in Psalm 23. "thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." How can a rod that beats offer comfort? Because like the Psalm, the Proverbs are also metaphors and refer to shepherding. A shepherd never beats his flock. He gently guides them and his staff points the way.

    Your sound file cannot be dismissed as a strident attempt at propaganda. That is nothing more than a typical spanking. Which should speak volumes.

    Best wishes with your anti-spanking efforts.

   the mother onb (sic) that tape sounds like a man not a woman  and with-out photos of you getting spank (sic)  how we know for sure it's actually you and not some-one (sic) else  show me photos and I support your anti- spanking sitre (sic)

    If you heard yourself spanking your child on tape after you have "cooled" off, I bet you would be disturbed!  I was spanked as a child.  Not severely, but still, I don't believe that it did any good at all.  I'm not sure which of mine and my sisters' "issues" are attributed to it.  I think that my Mom (a single Mom of 5 girls) didn't know what else to do.  We were out of control.  She was very loving in every other way.  It didn't even hurt when she did it.  But all of my sisters, including myself have very bad tempers that we have trouble controlling.

    I have lost my temper several times and hit my daughter once on the leg or arm or covered her mouth when she was screaming.  I always feel so incredibly terrible afterward... The more that I read, the less it happens.  Good book:  How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So That Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.  They illustrate real life scenarios and show alternative ways to speak and listen to your children so you do not have to get to the point of spanking...  I do not want my child to hit her children and I do not want to hit my sweet child.  EVER.

    I  listened to your tape and it brings shivers down my  spine.     I was wondering, why didn't anyone step in and call the police?  That recording alone would have sent her to prison for child abuse.   A child should be loved not Tortured - even though it 's not the same thing.

    Proponents of this behavior call it "safe" and "loving" but the very same behavior when visited on an *adult* would never be called such...in fact it would be assault and battery worthy of arrest and possible jail.

    If people would only be honest about what it's actually like to be held down at the hands of someone extremely physically powerful and then to be physically attacked, and you cannot fight back, and you're screaming in pain; and the beating is extremely painful from the very first strike; on top of which the person doing this to you is the very same one you rely on for absolutely everything - for love, comfort, security, food, shelter - it is a horrendous, horrible, brutal crime.

    Your web site is part of the vigorous campaign to end this horrific practice and I applaud you for it. Keep up the good work and know that there are many of us who think alike on this issue.

  Thanks for the great page, and the audio clip...

  The story on the page from the woman who was beaten for wetting the bed and other stuff sounds a lot like me. It has been a large journey. It sounds strange to say that we were beaten like that every day... I think we were. The day I left for college, I decided to do all I could to forget everything that had happened to me before that day. I did a pretty good job of it.

   I know from my own experience that that IS what an actual spanking sounds like.  I agree that it's actually fairly mild, but it's still HORRIBLE.  Now, I AM a Christian and I am NOT pro-UN or liberal or anything.  I believe that, in general, the State should keep out of people's business.  But abuse is different, just like murder is different.  Why can't people understand that!!!  If a stranger did that to your kid, would it be okay?  So how is it okay for you to do it?  People spank their kids because it's easy and effective in the *short-term*, but there are more intelligent parenting techniques.  The spanked child will grow up with problems like any other abused child.  Now this doesn't go for people who are "swatters."  Swatting isn't child abuse, but really, what's the point?  Read a parenting book and get some GOOD advice.  I like "Smart Love: The Compassionate Alternative to Discipline That Will Make You a Better Parent and Your Child a Better Person" by William and Martha (PhD) Peiper.

   Here's a thought-- hypothetically, do you think Jesus would use spanking?  Umm, I think not . . . Those who quote the Bible on that ONE "spare the rod" verse forget that the Old Testament also says to "hate your enemies."  Jesus taught a higher way of living, a loving, turn-the-other-cheek way of living.  Yes, it's a harder way to live, but let's make the effort.  If you personally have a problem with losing your temper, being violent or abusive, or you just don't know how to control your children, you can seek help.  There are a lot of resources out there.  You can pray about it too.

   I was spanked as a child.  It terrified me.   So yes, I would start screaming in fear before the blow fell and I would try to protect myself with my hands.  I don't think that's rebellious.  I think it's a normal response to being attacked.  It hurt so bad.  When I heard your recording it didn't actually sound that bad to me, which tells me how warped my mind is from years of maltreatment.  My mom yelled a lot more than the woman in the recording and it usually lasted longer.  She used wooden spoons to "discipline" us at first, although in a fit of rage she might use her bare hands.  But the wooden spoons broke all the time so she switched to dowel rods she would buy for that purpose.  These broke too, but they were cheaper to replace.  She would say things like "it doesn't hurt that bad" and "I didn't even spank you that hard so stop crying" all in a shaming tone of voice -- probably to make herself feel better.   I would like to see how she would feel to be spanked in that way!  "Stop crying Mom, it's not that bad!"  I bet she would cower and sob too.  I love my mom but she was wrong.

   I pray that I will be able to completely forgive my parents for the legacy they left me with.  It's something I struggle with every day.  I don't agree with everything you say, but someone needs to stop the violence.  Thank you for putting this sound clip up.  I applaud that.

--Heart-Broken

  How is it that people need a license to own a car, or a dog, or even a TV, but anyone can become a parent?

  If the little girl in the recording had been over eighteen, the woman would have been arrested for assault and rightly so. Should this assault be tolerated simply because the victim is a child? In my opinion, the victim's youth makes the beating more appalling.

  How does the woman expect the little girl to concentrate in school and perform to the best of her ability in exams if she is terrified of being beaten for results deemed less than perfect? Did the idea of helping her daughter with her schoolwork ever occur to her?

  How anyone can claim to love a child, yet be prepared to torture them with a belt is beyond me.

  As for those who back up their decision to spank their children with the fact that they were spanked as children and it never did them any harm, the fact that they continue to perpetuate the cycle of abuse tells me that they were harmed, whether they can accept and admit it or not.

  Keep up the good work with your website. Hopefully parents will come to realise that spanking is never a solution.

  I have listened to the recording and based upon what I heard, I believe the punishment was warranted and properly administered.  The punisher made sure that the culprit knew why it was going to happen.  There was continuous scolding by the punisher during the time that the strokes were being applied.  It sounded like the the punishment was being applied to the bare which is the only way it should be.  Anything less and you would be wasting your time as well as the time of the culprit.  If the culprit is to receive this punishment it should be complete and thorough so as to prevent any future repeats of the violations.  Yes the sounds are ugly and disturbing but a whipping is always ugly and disturbing and is a necessary evil so to speak. I commend the lady who administered this punishment.  It was done 100% properly from beginning to end.

  I was not hit very often, I certainly was never abused.  But when I was spanked, it was rather harsh, and I sometimes didn't know why it was happening, or felt that the punishment was too extreme for the crime.  My father often acted out of passion, he was mad and he wanted to take it out on someone, and the flow of his anger would be easily redirected (as in, if he were mad at my brother, and I dared to intervene, he would then turn on me).

  For all those that believe that spanking is a good thing, I ask you this: what good comes of hitting your child?  My father would punish me by spanking.  Then as soon as he would turn his back, I would go and do whatever he was punishing me for again, if only to defy him.  My mother never hit me.  When I did wrong, I actually hurt her, and I could see it on her face.  On rare occasion, I even made my mom cry.  Nothing changed my behavior quicker than hurting my mom.  If I did something that hurt her so bad that she cried, I never resorted to that behavior again.  I feel horrible inside if I hurt my mom.  I would never do something just to spite her.

  My relationships today with each of my parents is very different from each other.  My dad and I cannot be in the same room for more than about an hour without a fight breaking out, an argument starting up, or one of us deliberately picking on the other to get a response.  I do not like this relationship, and I wish very much that we could get along together.  But it just seems too impossible.  My mother and I, on the other hand, are best friends.  I mean literally best friends.  I tell her just about everything that happens in my life, we try to have a girls day out as often as possible, we can do anything together.  I can't even go run errands with my father without someone to act as referee for us.

   I don't frankly give a damn what my dad thinks about me these days.  My mom will always be involved in my life and my children's lives (if ever I have any), I couldn't imagine it any other way.  My dad, well, I have gone as long as four months or longer without even talking to him.  I love him dearly, but I can live my life well with only a long distance relationship with him.

   There is something more ugly than this audio: the reaction of the people minimizing it or making mockery of it, taking it as a “normal” part of a kids life, just because they were educated in the same way and don’t have the intelligence or culture to search for other ways. I have many friends who were not spanked and they do fine.  At the end it’s not true that non spanked kids really “need it”; so I don’t understand why in the XXIst  century such things are still acceptable.  Bad news - your spanked and sore kids are nothing special nor are they better then the non-spanked kids.

   Yes the sound is ugly but most parents can overcome their powerful instinctive reaction to the cry of their own kids because they are too lazy to search for other more powerful methods.   Spanking is so easy and requires so little involvement with kids; so parents get used to those sounds and become familiar with them.

   Just read the dumb excuses here; “she is acting up” “I have heard kids crying more for a toy.”   That shows a lack of sensitivity and cold heartedness of people who should not have children. So sad!  I feel sorry for such people but sadder for their kids.

    And someone called this site twisted.  It’s not.  The twisted and sick thing is the idea of some people who call this “love” and “discipline.”  It is a blackmail imprinted in the minds of spanked kids to carry this abuse to the next generation with the same twisted idea equating this with “love”, “responsibility”, and “discipline”; my god!!   Many kids are loved and disciplined and are not spanked!!

     Nearly 17 years after the last "spanking" I got from a parent, I can distinctly remember the sights, sounds and sensations of the "loving" punishment.  It is NOT discipline to spank.  It does NOT teach correct behavior.  Yes, children who are "spanked correctly" will not think of themselves as abused, because there is an equalizer in the human conscience.  They know they deserved consequences, though said consequences should not include being hit!  Spanking is violent and wrong.  My worst memories are of hearing my brothers and particularly my sister scream and cry.  As I read the responses on your site, I find myself shaking as I did when I was a child, the fear and terror in my brain and stomach are still there.  Thankfully I've been able to overcome the "desire" to be "loved" by being switched as an adult.  I am so grateful that it has only ever been a "desire" and not a reality!  I've felt degraded and humiliated most of my life by the treatment I and my siblings received.  Yes, my dad also bragged on his well-behaved children because they were "beaten."  Now he's a grandpa and he thinks my brother is "too hard" on his oldest son.  Who is he to judge?!?  He taught him!  too well.

     Thank you for standing strong and being up front about this.  It's a terribly emotional topic - so divisive - but people have to realize that "perfect love casts out fear."  Spanking is mostly about fear - the parent fears not controlling the child, the child fears angering the parent and ultimately fear teaches NOTHING - that is, nothing good or positive.  Only true, gentle love can teach anything good!

     I see, first hand, how "sparing the rod" has effected the children.  Each year discipline degrades more and more and little by little. (much like our freedoms in this free nation.)  Comments that a child in my era would not dream of making to an adult are being made countless numbers of times in a day.  Call it fear or whatever you want.  The child is not afraid of the adult, they are afraid of the consequences of misbehavior.  Spanking, or it's absence is not the only contributor to this failure.  the lack of a complete family unit must also take the blame.  But really I'm getting into another issue entirely.  Was I disgusted by the sound clip?  No, that sounded to me like a pretty reasonable sound of a child being spanked.  that's pretty much what it sounds like.  Did it hurt my feelings to hear that little girl getting it?  Yes.  the same way it hurt my feelings to have to swat my niece for reaching into an open heat vent for a toy, after being told not to, that I would get the toy for her.  The swat did not bring that type of reaction from my niece, but it was one swat.(sharp but not too hard.)

        [Chris responds:   Back when we were children, adults used to make these same sorts of comments about our generation: how discipline had collapsed and how we youngsters behaved in ways the adults never would have dreamed of when they were our age, etc.  This is a pretty standard thing for adults to say about children down through the generations.  If one wants to look at the objective data of juvenile crime rates, though, today's youngsters are markedly more well behaved than their parents' generation at that age.  For more on the good news about the remarkably low crime rates of today's youth in comparison with a generation ago, click here.]

    The people who are replying to the soundbite with that 'you are a wacko with a sick agenda', 'that soundbite is an exaggeration/fake', 'this is pure propaganda', and 'well, that sounds nothing like the spankings I give', are embarrassed and ashamed because the truth hurts, and they do not like the truth of what they are doing rubbed in their face in all its ugly realism.  Those who say it 'doesn't sound like a normal spanking I would give', can't accept that it does and that they are guilty of this.  Or, perhaps they do not hit as hard or their child does not scream quite as much, but they know in their heart of hearts that both their spankings and the one on the soundbite boil down to the same exact thing at the core, and it is neither a pretty sound nor a nice thought when confronted with it head-on, without the usual sugar-coating society applies.

   A satellite group of the brainwashed are those who are saying: "The girl sounds like she is over-dramatizing to manipulate her mother into easing up." and "She is just acting like a crybaby who needs more swats."  This group also cannot accept the fact that spanking can cause the true trauma they are hearing in this girl's cries.  They are in DENIAL because, for their own selfish reasons (convenience, power kick, control freak, sexual gratification etc.), they want to believe that spanking is a good, appropriate thing that benefits everybody.  Therefore, they refuse to believe the mother is in the wrong, they instead attempt to somehow shift blame onto the GIRL, to the VICTIM, by saying: "Well she's just being an exaggerating, whiny little brat about it!  It doesn't sound to me like she's being hit too hard!"  They are another example of the truth hurting, and they don't want to hear it.

   Someone in another post barked in an accusatory manner:  "You-You terrible people are trying to make people think they shouldn't spank their kids, and you're trying to make them think they're horrible parents and should feel guilty if they spank!"  You're damn right we are.  And one day our efforts are going to be effective and children will be free of deliberately administered physical pain and the potential for fetishism in their upbringing.

   first of all i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for every word you wrote on your site.  i grew up with people around me telling me i deserved every "swat" [as they liked to call those savage smacks they gave me], and telling me that its what a "bad boy" needs to be a good boy again ..

   yes i was spanked , and i failed to see which part contained the "love" everyone on their side is talking about.  i didn't turn out ok- i DID NOT turn out ok .  i cant love anyone anymore, i try to.  i WANT to. but i cant, i just dont care about anything anymore.  my social life is crap, yeah pure crap. i don't see myself in the "good man who follows god's words" that they described to me every time i wailed in pain as the belt came striking down at me .

   the cries and screams of that girl made the little boy in me explode his way out. i cried, those were real tears, i cried  .. the girl is being hurt. her mother who's supposed to love her and care for her is hurting her.  that was me again .. from what i read in the "responses of the listeners to the tape" some people were okay with it. it's as if they're repeating every word that was told to me when i was a kid.  it's as if they're saying "you deserve it -every swat-you deserve it."

   when you destroy a person's life from when he's only 5 its like you killed him. he grows up to become a sick dead f**k. they kill him.

   so all i wanna say, your a great person working for a noble reason.  please keep it on.  thank you .

   This is in response to the father who wrote about "controlling" his children - who gets "complimented" in restaurants on how well behaved his children are.  I noticed he receives the compliments; not his children.  Its obvious he sees his children's behavior as a reflection of his worth as a person.  How many other spanking parents feel that way, i.e., a child does something "wrong" therefore they, the parents, look stupid and wrong, too - so they slap it out of their children until the child does the "right" thing and has the "correct" attitude - then the parents look perfect again.

   I don't believe Jesus ever used spanking in his lifetime to teach a child a lesson - what was it he used...oh yes, parables.....stories...  When my two were small, I told them ahead of time what behavior was expected of them in whatever situation we were going into that might be new for them.  Children often "misbehave" not because its in their nature but because they don't know the correct way to act in certain situations, i.e., being in a formal restaurant for the first time, going to a party.....My children also knew if they didn't behave as they were supposed to in that situation (with a few reminders - after all,t hey were children) we would leave.  I never forced them to go anywhere they didn't want to (If they really preferred staying home, I got a sitter or Grandmom for them).

   My daughter is now twenty; my son is twelve.  Neither has experimented with drugs, alcohol, premarital sex, cursing, cruelty to animals, drop out behavior - and neither were hit at all.   Gee, how were they able to make do so well without being spanked?

   I had to hear the sound file of the little girl getting a spanking from her mother, and unlike a lot of the namby pamby responders to your sound file, I will have to agree with the less grammatically correct (as you put it) responders, and say that that little girl got off light.  You see I was spanked as a child, and yes there is the fear and pain factor involved, as well there should be.  A properly administered bare bottom spanking, is supposed to send a messege (sic) to the child; 'This is what happens when you defy authority', it is called teaching respect.  If a good sound spanking is done properly, it will have that effect one (sic) a child, it needs to be done methodically and rationally, never abusively.  Quite frankly, I don't really care if its (sic) done with 'love'.  In its centuries old design, it was taylored (sic) to teach a child; 'If you don't do what you are supposed to do in this life, there are consequences.'

   Take the 'Time Out' children of today, what we see of them are complaining, whining, self-mutalating (sic), creepy little 'Gothic' assholes, who don't have a clue, don't want to learn, and don't want to work.  Generation 'X', ah yes, brings to mind scenes from Columbine, Pearl, Mississippi and the like.  Say what you want of us 'Boomers" there Chris, but you could never tag our generation with horrible epitaphs (sic) like that.  We were spanked.  Mothers talked over a fence, or over a cup of coffee, about the last time one of their 'little angels' was put over her knee, for a bare bottom spanking.  They didn't have to worry about the Child Protective Services Nazis, coming to take their children away.

   Funny thing is Chris, I have always been very close with my daughter, and her friends, some were spanked, some were not.  Do you know what they all say after seeing the miserable brats at the malls and restraunts (sic) they frequent; "My kids aren't going to act like that, or I'll beat their ass."  There's your future Chris.  Its (sic) like everythig (sic) else; Doctor Spock, Bullshit Child Psychiatry, it fades.  What was old is new again.  So Chris, why don't you save your bleeding heart pablum for the tree huggers, and the bleeding-heart-cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hatter's and leave child rearing to those of us who actually have children to rear.

[ Chris Responds:  You are, of course, entitled to your views on spanking and its alleged positive effect on juvenile criminal tendencies.  However, attempts to empirically demonstrate this alleged positive effect have uniformly failed.  Research on spanking has found that the practice correlates with greater rather than lesser rates of antisocial behavior over the long run.  This relationship holds even when the researchers were expecting and hoping to find the opposite of what they found (such as Gunnoe & Mariner's study in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 151:768-775).  As for juvenile crime rates in general, the distinction between the rates of serious crime of today's juveniles versus the crime rates of the Baby Boom generation in its youth is a striking one: today's juveniles commit dramatically less crime than their parents' generation did as juveniles.  For specific numbers and links to official government sources on juvenile crime, click here.]

   I really wish you wouldn't try to get parents not to spank their children.  By doing so you are ruining more lives than you can possibly imagine.  Many children require spanking in order to grow up properly, other children are harmed by it.  By convincing all parants (sic) not to spank any of their children you are doing irreparable harm.  What parents need to learn is HOW to spank, not HOW NOT to spank.

   My parents spanked me as a child, and it did me no harm whatsoever.  In fact, it did me a lot of good (as much good as the two years I spent becoming a man in the U.S. Army).  I spanked my children, and they weren't harmed by it.  And my children spank their children.  I would put my grandchildren up for comparison with any group of unspanked children you could assemble and have them judged on the quality of their spirit, their attitude, their manners, their courtesy, their levelheadedness, or any other measure you might conceive of, and my grandchildren would win that competition.

   I was disturbed by the venomous remarks directed at you by various conservative 'Christians,' who were determined not only to assert their 'God-given'(?) 'right' to beat their children but are openly hostile and hateful towards anyone who dares question them or attempt to hold them accountable. Some sounded like they were brainwashed by the likes of Gary Ezzo, James Dobson, or Michael Pearl, who speak of children in condescending, belittling terms in their books, call them 'manipulative', and who preach ABSOLUTE deference to parental 'righteousness'. And still others sounded like they craved the power they had over another human being - these folks were probably spanked/whipped as children and later became bullies.

   Keep working on behalf of the beaten children, Chris. And to the corporal punishment boosters: You ought to be ashamed of yourselves - it is YOU who are fostering the hatred of authority you so often complain about.

  So I just heard that file and read the comments, and the whole thing makes me feel kind of ill.  I'm a senior in high school, and those days weren't all that far back from me.  Some people on the line talk about the girl screaming "bloody murder" before she even got hit the first time, and how that proves it's not a big deal.  But I want everyone who reads this and calls Chris an "Anti CP pansie" or whatever to understand something.  If you live in absolute, abject terror of a spanking from Daddy or Mom, you get physically ill at the very thought.  And these spankings aren't just "brutal" or "Beatings".  I'm talking about a clothed spanking, with a parent's hand.  A "normal" spanking.  One that's not abusive, or cruel, per se.  But you forget that to a child, one smack on the backside is enough to cause a lot of pain because honestly, adults don't understand that what doesn't seem very hard to them is rough on a kid's body.  Now, repeat that twenty or thirty times.  Add in some anger at the fact that I, the child, am crying and screaming in pain, and also add in the fact that you, the punisher, think that I am throwing a fit or something, so you tell me to stop crying or you'll give me something to cry about.  And then, don't tell me how abnormal this is -  friends and I have talked about the subject a few times over the years, and this is definitely well within the norm.

   Sure, someone can spank their kid and not hurt them - if they only use their hand and the kid has on clothes, and you tone down the strength of your hit, and, importantly, hit less than ten times for teens and less than five for kids younger than ten or so.  How many parents, though, really spank like that?  I mean, seriously? You know what happens otherwise?  I'm eighteen years old, and yet, if you say "spanking" to me, I still get a huge jolt of "fight or flight" adrenaline.  This would be five years after my last spanking.

   I've been working with children and families for more than 18 years in a community mental health center. For the past 8 years, I've been supervising the therapeutic nursery. We have an intense parent-oriented program. Our explorations of parenting styles have yielded very painful and sad stories of their own childhoods which included neglect, physical/sexual, emotional abuse, and/or poverty which deprived them and their families of quality time together and play. In response, we help to reparent the parents in a positive manner... [P]arents are amazed that they can get children to cooperate without hitting them. I've developed a "touching without hurting" approach, where the parent sits down with the child after an "incident" and gently holds their hands in order to maintain their bond and then focuses on the rules of the home rather than on the child's being "bad".

   Unlike those prospank parents who feel that it works, most of our parents who've used corporal punishment have admitted in parenting group that ultimately, it does not work and in fact, takes its toll on the parent who winds up with headaches, high blood pressure, upset stomachs and "cases of nerves." The child is traumatized, the parent is sick and nothing has changed.

   I did not listen to the audio - I've heard enough spankings (some of them with me under the hand, belt or hanger) to last me a lifetime. I was well behaved, alright, but it came from fear and anxiety and left its toll. I remember a grandparent who proudly told me that her mother had beaten her and she was okay. I then had to remind her that she was an alcoholic with 8 grown children - the males were all in jail and the females were all mothers early on, were substance abusers, and one had 8 children who were being abused by the mom. The level of denial would be amazing if we didn't remember that it's very difficult for folks to admit that their parents did something terrible to them (whether intentional or not).

   Well, this was long winded, but I really was impressed by your articles (particularly your critique of the Wall Street Journal propaganda) and your own involvement in the antispank movement. Thank you for providing a place for us to learn.

        I am the mom of 3 boys. I stopped spanking and coercive discipline 2 years ago (my oldest is now 6) due to essays I found on the natural child website. I really enjoy my kids so much more now than when I was trying to punish and control them. I hope your web site helps enlighten parents to alternatives to punishment. I have learned that you don't have to parent the way you were raised. Thanks for your website. God Bless.

       If spanking is such an effective tool for disciplining (really punishing) your child, then why do you have to continue to use it over and over again? Discipline means to teach, punishment means to inflict pain. Are you hurting or teaching your child? If you teach your child, they learn not to repeat the offense. If you inflict pain, they learn to lie, to cover up so as not to be hit by you. They go behind your back which shuts off honest, healthy communication. The feelings at the time of the spanking is not love, its hate, its humiliation and its degrading and hurts a child's self worth and self esteem. It is even worse when used on babies and small children who are still learning the rules, exploring their world and do before thinking instead of thinking before doing, which comes later in their young lives.

       It just gets to me how people justify spanking their child. A small child much smaller then them and they hit them to control them. They teach their child that hitting is the way to solve problems.... then when their child uses this method to solve problems they hit them again for doing it.   Like I said if spanking works so darn well then why do they have to keep doing it?

      I have a question for you...are you serious??? Do you really believe that stuff you have on your website? ... I don't know what tree hugging Liberals you have spoken to, but I actually spoke to a Child Protective Worker with a Master's (sic) in Social Work and I was told that it is perfectly fine and acceptable to pop or "spank" on the butt or thigh. Nobody, except for you so far and I guess your "cohorts" that call it violence or beating. This is exactly what is wrong with the youth of today and the future.......the (sic) don't get their butt's (sic) spanked....therefore, their behavior is"You can't touch me", "I don't HAVE to listen to authority because nobody is allowed to touch me" BULL......some of these kids need their butts beat hard!!!  You think pussy footing around them and patting their heads is going to teach them to be fine upstanding citizens of society...???? I think you can look around and you would have to be either blind or ignorant to see that this type of attitude does NOT work for the good of society. Society has taken something good and decent and screwed it up!!! I have such pity for you and anyone who reads your crap on the web. I couldn't even stomach to read more than two articles. Maybe you need to get some childhood education, sociology and possibly some psychology courses behind you. And if you have already, maybe you took them too long ago, because sonny, things have changed!!! Wake up!!!

     You do your job well at twisting words around and putting words in other's mouths. Exactly where do you get your "backing" from to keep your "wonderful" opinions in such plain site (sic). You obviously must have someone like ACLU backing you financially. If you would like to share I would really like to know who you are affiliated with.

     The child on this sound file was not overacting.  This child was surviving with the fight of flight instinct.  If you can not fight and can not run, you scream.  Screaming is part of fighting.  You could, I guess, run by withdrawing into yourself .  That is another option.  I have to say I am always screaming now.  I always overreact.  It is like my whole system is ready to do battle.  I can hear myself in this little girl, carrying on, just trying anything to have the most important person in her life, understand her.  Not hurt her.  Just stop hurting.  That's what I hear her pleading in her sobs and wails.  Yes she doesn't have to sound like she is being ripped apart.  Certainly she is not.  But she is fighting!  Should she not fight?  Do you want her to grow up not fighting for herself?

     In all likelihood this girl will never get good grades.  She will probably find someone who treats her bad but fulfills some need for love.  She will probably have an unsuccessful and strife filled life.  She will probably spank her kids.   Well unless she is like me, and she decides that she will be perfect (if she is able to be) in order to stop the hitting.  Of course that will not stop the hitting, but at least she can be successful enough to try to work on the scars that were created.

    The following is a description of the whipping I gave my daughter this morning. There were no unpleasant sounds whatsoever.

me: "Bring me the belt."

daughter: "Yes, ma'am."

[a minute later...] daughter: "Here it is, mommy."

me: "Bend over the couch."

daughter: "Yes, ma'am."

What followed was very quiet. My daughter did not yell or scream. She did not say a word. She did not make a sound of any kind.

[Chris responds: And your point is...?]

     Spanking, by whatever description, puts the child in a deeply disadvantageous situation where she/he will feel completely cornered. This situation can easily lend itself to resentment as well as future deceit, not to mention a growing distance between parent and child. Even if the spanking doesn't produce physical pain (and I've seen this in a family I know who barely tap their children on their fully clothed behinds, maybe twice), it does bring about humiliation which is in some ways worse than a beating. An emotional pain is something that we carry very far in life and a child's emotions are too raw to be accosted in any negative way. Granted, there are many children who take spankings as matter of course and do not show any negative long term issues (or at least not visibly so) but there are also children out there who are crushed irreparably by spankings. In courts we have the concept of reasonable doubt and in this case if there is reasonable doubt that a child can be hurt, is it really proper to gamble with your child's life?

     More so, we advocate that adults resolve their issues with conversation and we look unfavorably upon individuals who would rather use their fists than words in the adult world, thinking of them as inferior and unintelligent. This, sometimes, translates poorly to how parents treat their children and that has more to do with the fact that a child cannot reciprocate the violence than most of us would like to believe. Most adults would not allow another to hit them without hitting back or at least filing charges against the aggressor. A child does have a shorter attention span and personal discipline and is bound to be, at times, irritating to an adult. However, think of any irritating adult that you know in your life and I doubt that to make him/her pay more attention to you, you would strike him/her. Granted, you may want to but you would not. Most people actually go the opposite way when they have no other options and try to be extra sweet. In our adult world, handling another person physically is punishable by law in all aspects of life from marriage to work environment. If we take a fair look at this and other facts, it seems hardly just that enforcing something physically on children would be acceptable, more so because they have no independent voice and are more delicate. And just think, it hasn’t been that long since delivering beatings to a wife was acceptable social practice. Do we really want to insist on such behavior when history shows everyone is happier when violence is not part of the picture?

    I am Canadian (from Toronto) and I am proud that we have laws against spanking. And if I may be allowed a moment of righteousness... no, it isn't telling parents how to raise their children, it's asking them to think and create better ways to raise healthy children instead of falling back to what's been done even if it isn't reliably effective.

    That's the first time I had heard the little girl being beaten.  Wow...I just cried.  It was horrible!  I cannot imagine ever doing that to any child.  There are people in this world that do NOT EVER DESERVE TO BE A PARENT!

    I remember this old saying... and it rings home so true: Anyone can be a father or a mother... it takes a special person to be a mommy or a daddy.

    I wore that on a shirt my parents gave to me on the birth of my first son.  I wore it proudly.  I raised two sons without EVER hitting them.  To me, any parent who spanks is lazy.  To me, any educator that hits a student is both despicable and incompetent.

    Let us all spread the word about the UN Children's Rights proclamation.  Let us all hope and pray that some day we will educate the parents and educators of this country to STOP HITTING CHILDREN!

   You're right of course - this doesn't sound particularly abnormal. It doesn't sound like any severe injury was inflicted, the beating was not particularly prolonged, and accordingly it's unlikely that it would constitute unlawful child abuse in many jurisdictions. It's more severe than a slap, but less severe than an injurious and abusive beating - it's quite mainstream.

   In fact, that wouldn't have been out of place in my house at the same age. And I turned out just fine. School valedictorian, went to a good university, made the Dean's List and graduated with a high GPA. Several degrees later I'm a professional success, well respected in my field, and financially secure.

   And I've battled depression all my life, with periods of panic attacks, hallucinations, insomnia and anxiety. The years of bottling up hatred and rage have left me almost incapable of expressing emotion except for the occasional violent rage. I've struggled with personal and professional relationship issues all my life, and trust no-one. Oh, and I've left out the most serious consequences which I'm not prepared to talk about. I celebrate the day my mother died (almost 30 years ago) as the defining event that gave me a chance at an almost normal life, and will hate her until I die. I wish for the death of many people who (in my world) "deserve it." In fact it was the fear that I would take matters into my own hands that finally convinced me to get help for mental illness before I really messed my life up. Therapy helped me to understand this stuff better and resume "normal" function, but I'm certainly not "cured."

   I've seen a lot of people say they weren't harmed by "normal" correction. Quite true. Maybe 90% of you are fine - there might only be a 10% chance. Maybe only the most emotionally fragile 10% will suffer serious long-term harm.

   Would people allow their kids to play with explosives, guns or dangerous heights on the basis that there is a 90% chance they will NOT cause themselves life-long injury? If so then keep playing the odds. If not, don't take the risk - it's not worth it.

   I am a 56yr old grandmother.  Listening to that spanking was terrifying to me.  Because it took me back to my young life - where my parents spanked me by hand and slipper.  I loved them - and with the first smack ... it died.   I felt I could no longer trust them, that they didn't love me  - never mind the after event speech of 'It's over and by the way we love you.'  No .. they didn't, they had just demonstrated that.  Like the child on the tape - I would say sorry and expect it to be accepted - and couldn't for the life of me understand why I was having my panties ripped down, and a huge adult hand or leather slipper thrashed against my little bottom.   They 'explained' all right - but it made no sense to me and still doesn't.  I was terrified, traumatised and screamed far worse than even this poor little mite on here.  I learned too ... that whether I screamed and raged made not an iota of difference.  They were going to 'teach me a lesson I would never forget' and I would be in the same amount of pain.  And guess what folks ??  I 'forgot' instantly - the pain and fear wiped their 'chatter' from my brain.  Oh I know abstractly - like spilling milk, or not eating my dinner, and not being able to stand still when mum brushed my curly hair with no care to the knots etc.

   What if .. we had an adult on the tape, being 'spanked' by another adult?  I am not allowed to slap or 'spank' my husband if he forgets to take the bin out - so how on earth can I be allowed to hit a child!  WHY would I want to?? Why would I do that when there are better ways and safer ways!!

   I never spanked my children and they are well behaved, well adjusted, educated adults, and also kind and caring. 

   Thank you for your site.  I feel that you know ... how I feel ... how as a child I felt.  Spanking should have died out years ago ... hundreds of years ago. 

  I thank God that there are some loving souls out there in the world like yourself, that want to see the end to this barbaric and evil practise.

   Many spanked children (like myself and my sisters) will end up perfectly fine.

   I wasn't spanked hard.  I wasn't purposefully, "spanked to tears", or even put over anyone's knee.  I was smacked, immediately after having done something wrong, with the flat of my mother's hand, on a clothed bottom; or, when she felt it was warranted, with a thin leather belt.  Never more than three or four times, never on bare skin, never accompanied by shouting or anger.  I was only spanked until age 7, and then never again.

  And I knew then what I know now and have always known, that my mother loves me.  Absolutely, unconditionally, and to the very best of her ability.

   But none of this kept those spankings from hurting me.  More than physically.  I can't really explain it, except to say that those seemingly benign incidents were huge to my tiny self.  It shaped who I am today.  I, as a very small child, feared my loving mother's hand and her belt.  The mother who, otherwise, laughed with me and played with me, taught me to sew and cook and do so many of the things I still love doing today.  Because she was also the mother who spanked me.

   I harbor a lot of resentment and anger toward my mother that directly relates to the spankings I received as a child. 

   I know a lot of people will dismiss this sort of story as me being a sissy, or a whiner who's never learned to take responsibility.  And that's okay with me.  I come from a very conservative, small town, Christian background.  I understand why parents spank and I understand the inability of most people to recognize the harm it can do.

  Spanking may not visibly affect a child.  Maybe, like me, your child will seem to benefit from it.  Because, at the time, even the child doesn't know she's having adverse psychological affects.  The same way she doesn't know not to play so close to the street, or touch the hot stove.  That's why you're the parent.  To love and protect.

   I just want to encourage those who *are* willing to listen.  Don't spank your kids.  It won't necessarily teach them to hit (it didn't for me), it probably won't make them dreadful, abusive people, but it *also* won't help them any more than one of a hundred other parenting tools.  You are a smart parent.  You can come up with other ways to raise your kids.

   And I want to say, that if you do spank, it may not matter how well you parent otherwise.