A bill that would make it a crime in California for parents to
spank children under age 4 sounds a lot like the heavy hand of
government wielding a sledgehammer to sway a fly.
A bill that would make it a crime in California for parents to spank children under age 4 sounds a lot like the heavy hand of government wielding a sledgehammer to sway a fly.
Please don’t get us wrong. We’re not advocating spanking as a form of child discipline. And we certainly don’t think anyone should be abusing their kids.
However, Santa Clara County Assemblywoman Sally Lieber’s promised bill – which would make spanking a young child a crime punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine – not only ignores fairly obvious problems with enforcement but also intrudes on the rights of parents to discipline their children as they see fit so long as they don’t hurt them.
Reasonable people understand that there is a big difference between a quick swat on a child’s behind and a beating.
But Lieber, who has no children of her own, doesn’t seem to make such a distinction.
The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Lieber last week as saying, “I think we ought to have a law against beating children.”
In fact, California already has laws against child abuse. If a spanking turns into a beating, parents could already face fines and jail time. The law can and should be used to prosecute parents who injure their children. Already, state law requires that teachers and others who suspect a child is being abused to report their suspicions to proper authorities.
Lieber further told the newspaper that she wants to make physical discipline of children a “black and white” issue. But there are many shades of gray found in good parenting.
This would seem to be nothing less than a do-gooder trying to use the force of law to impose her own philosophy of appropriate child-rearing on everyone else. Raise your kids as I see fit or go to jail.
How is putting a parent in jail for spanking a child remotely in that child’s best interest?
And, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the Associated Press when asked about Lieber’s spanking bill, “How would you enforce that?”
Joseph D. McNamara, a retired former San Jose police chief who is now a research fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, said such a law would put police in “everyone’s living rooms” where their job would be to supervise parenting. This, he said, would turn California into a place where “parents are afraid to discipline their child.”
Again, how is that good for parents, kids or families?
