Slate's Bizbox
fraywatch: What's happening in our readers' forum.

Low-Carbon DietThe merits of a global tax on CO2 output.

Compiled by Adam Christian
Updated Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007, at 2:26 PM ET

(Continued from page 5)

An advocate of the occasional smack to the backside, kjm rails against the underlying ego psychology of modern parenting:

Just follow a badly misbehaving kid thru a store while his mother is busy telling him, "Mommy said for you to stop that," Mommy said for you to be quiet," Mommy said you won't get a candy bar if you don't behave," ad nauseum, and you pray they will pick the kid up and deliver two quick smacks to the backside.
A couple of swats on the hind end thru layers of clothes (the classic definition of spanking) teaches a child that he owes you and others around him respect and good manners and that, as a parent, it is your obligation to see that he learns this valuable lesson so that others will like him.
Letting a child grow up thinking he is the center of the universe, which many unspanked children seem to feel, is a disservice and poor parenting.

janeR agrees: "A sting to the behind is better than letting the child go beserk in a tantrum or run out into traffic if they don't get their way." Arkady makes a compelling argument for preserving parental authority in matters of discipline:

In short, there's almost no reward or punishment that someone couldn't see as doing a terrible disservice to the child. The "ban spanking" crowd wants to prevent other parents from using one tool that they don't approve of, but they don't seem to have considered that they could as easily have taken from them the tools they consider appropriate. Each parent decides what rewards and punishments to use. To the maximum reasonable extent, I'm in favor of leaving those calls to them, since they know their children best.

OskarS, a "25 year-old Swede who has never been spanked," writes in to register strong opposition to any form of corporal punishment:

Since I grew up in a world were harming your child was illegal, this whole discussion is completely baffling to me. To say that you can't raise a kid without spanking is so absurd that I can't believe what I'm hearing…

Now, you might say that I'm extremely pacifist, or that I'm too much of a bleeding heart liberal, that I'm out of the norm. I'm really not. Every single parent of small children I have ever known (quite a number of them) would say the exact same thing.

We don't grow wilder or out of control, we don't grow up to be criminals. For those of us who do it's not because they weren't spanked, it's because of bad parenting. And having a lousy parent spank you would not help a whole hell of a lot.

Ouch. Ouch. Geoff, stop that! More in Family Fray. AC … 5:19pm PST

Sunday, Jan. 21, 2007

Information wants to be free. Labor wants to get paid. Is it any wonder nobody's satisfied these days?

The American worker is sick of getting dumped on, judging from responses to Daniel Gross' articles on Unwilling Americans who won't do any Dirty Work. Sarvis, the Fray's resident Upton Sinclair, expresses the prevailing anger most succinctly:

VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Moira Redmond is a freelance writer and a former Slatester. You can e-mail her at .
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Imagine if...
Hiatt | What if McCain had waged his campaign based on respect?
Editorial: Meddlesome PalinKing: The Danger of Palin Power