The work will teach you how to do it. -Estonian Proverb
Imagine if we taught our children to be good people the same way we are taught to be good parents. If done the same way, we would wait until they did something wrong, criticize, possibly incarcerate and then instruct.
Somewhat counterproductive, right?
That is what I think about the recent attempt to ban spanking in Massachusetts.
When we first become parents, our hope is that parents raise good people. On the surface that seems relatively simple; almost too simple. In reality, it is simple for a very short time; when our children are completely in our care, before the outside world has an influence. The bottom line is that parents are never taught how to be parents, and many of parent the way we were parented. If our parents spanked, we learned to spank and fear it will become out of control because we’re not the parents who go anywhere near abuse.
By doing a little homework on the topic of spanking we would learn that it is harmful. Children that hit are children that hit others; the lesson is that it is ok for the bigger person to hit. Furthermore, if we are spanking, we have probably lost our temper, which teaches our children it is ok to lose our temper, and does put us in the danger zone to become abusive. But still creating laws against spanking is simply wrong.
Consider education before legislation.
