Proposal to Ban Spanking in Massachusetts

Seen in the Boston Herald:

Parents who spank their kids - even in their own homes - would be slapped by the long arm of the law under an Arlington nurse’s proposal to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to outlaw corporal punishment.[...]

If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect.[...]

Corporal punishment in the home is already illegal in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the Ukraine.[...]

An ombudsman is available to children in Sweden to report allegations of corporal punishment. Parents face jail time if it’s found they’ve stepped out of line.

While I can appreciate the concerns of some who believe that spanking equates to abuse, it seems to me that a proposal such as this is crossing the line when it comes to governmental interference with family life.

Child abuse is and should be a crime, and growing up, I definitely encountered situations where my classmates experienced corporal punishment at home that was certainly “over the line” by most folks’ definition of abuse.

However, I’m uncomfortable with the notion that a parent could be sent to jail for even an accusation of or a misunderstanding around a single swat to get an unruly child’s attention.

If corporal punishment is always to be considered abuse, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to invest in education/communication of that message, rather than simply declaring it to be so by legislative fiat, without buy-in from a super-majority of the public?