To wonder why on Mumsnet there is a smacking minority and in NZ 85% of people seem to want to do it?

[twentypence]

Lies, damn lies and statistics I know. But apparently NZ's new "anti smacking" law is opposed by 85% of New Zealanders.

Now I haven't looked into the proposed law carefully at all - partly because to actually find a fact amongst all the political posturing and soundbites largely because as I don't smack and never will it doesn't matter to me personally whether it becomes illegal or not.

But 85% just seems so high...

We don't in the UK allow an adult to smack their wife to bring her into line although that's standard practice in many parts of the world and indeed part of many Christian domestic discipline religious relationships. Just because other people are idiots or think violence particularly if the other person is smaller or weaker if fine doesn't mean we have to think so.

All the sheep in NZ may be? More sheep than people so lots of farmers who would discipline sheep with whistles and presumably sticks perhaps or do some people think it's fine to beat a child but not an animal?

Perhaps it's only the anti smackers who can be bothered to post??????

Um xenia, you've lost me.

Message withdrawn

The smackers are too busy herding their sheep and their children with birch rods I suppose....

I'm in NZ and I agree with Sibble.

Last year, a couple of days before dd2 was born, 2 little twin boys were murdered in Auckland. No-one has yet been convicted but only family members were in the house at the time.

I just can't imagine how a smacking bill is going to help children like those little twins and while I don't think smacking is an ideal parenting tool, there is so much worse abuse going on that it seems crazy to be focusing on smacking as a problem.

well said wellie mum

because no one DARE admit it on here

sorry second line was in response to the op

Well, welliemum, it's like banning foxhunting whilst allowing other barbaric treatments of animals such as battery hens to continue. It's all arse about tit and I think it's about paying lip service, picking on the easiest thing to abolish in order to keep certain parties happy.

'I'm anti-smacking but also against any anti-smacking laws.'

'For one thing, I don't agree that the very occasional last resort smack is child-damaging (there are better ways of discipline, almost certainly, but when can anyone claim to use the best parenting method for the right situation every single second of the day?!)'

Agree with rubberduck on this.

Smacking children acnnot be morally justified, but there has to be a distinctuon between this and 'abuse' or criminal behaviour.Most people recognise that thare is a distinction between the two and a line has to be drawn between that indefensible 'very occasional last resort smack' and criminal abuse.

Abuse simply means indefensible ill-treatment though, doesn't it? So HOW can there be a line between hitting a child and abusing it? It's a mild form of physical abuse.

But I find it quite defensible therefore it's not abuse

hello Greeny, just asked you something on the other thread.

I guess abuse, tends to suggest, if not strictly derivatively correct, something, sustained or quite extreme.

For instance with emotional abuse, if a parent in temper shouts 'for Gods sake you're a bloody pain in the neck today' that's unplaeasnt and not defensible but not 'abuse' unless such language is used reguarly to such an extent it damages the child.

And with smacking, a very rare smack, is not defensible butwould not be abuse unless, regular or done to the extent that the child is harmed-which is pretty much what the law is at present-I think?

I don't actually think there is a smacking minority if I'm honest

I think like many of 'Mumsnet opinions' people can't be bothered to enter the fray when they hold a different opinion to the vocally strident minority who make up the vast bulk of mumsnet posters

that should be "vast bulk of mumsnet posts"

but abuse doesn't have to be physical - so therefore one could say taking away priveledges, grounding, being made to sit on the "time out" "Naughty step" (whatever you call it) is demeaning and therefore also abusive........ certainly if I were to tell one of the elderly residents at work that I wasn't going to let them watch their TV because they'd spoken to me nastily I could be sacked for abuse.

But tell a child the same thing and it's ok???

I think you're spot on there twiglet.

Psycho, I'm not sure abuse has to be sustained or prolonged to qualify as abusive - signs such as "Or staff will not tolerate verbal or physical abuse" tend to suggest that a single act of violence can be defined as abusive.

And Kitty, if the definition of an abusive act depended on the abuser's own sense of what was defensible, there would be no such thing as child abuse.

oh yes indeedy annie

That's like saying people murder so let's not make rape illegal as it's not as bad.

I think a lot of emotional abuse is dreadful but it's harder to ban that but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ban the smacking. It's worked fine in the UK although we could do with its total abolition even if no marks etc are left.

I think the term 'child abuse' suggests extreme and sustained abuse greeny.

What about my emotional abuse example where a one off or rare derogatory verbal comment to a child is indefensible, but would we say it is child abuse?

My only difficulty withg your argument Greeny is that you feel (I think) that even people who smack on a one off, from an 'end of the tether' type scenario, are child abusers.

I agree with the moral and intellectual stance of yout anti smacking arguemnt.

I however have very regrettably smacked, do you view me as a child abuser?
O, have I abused my child?

I just think these are very emotive terms that need to be very carefully used, and imply much more than one off failures of parenting.

I've replied on the other thread Psycho

in brief, I think the smack, even as an isolated act in temper, is an abusive act - but I wouldn't call a parent who lost their temper, smacked once, then apologised "a child abuser", because as a label attached to a person's identity, it would need to be sustained/deliberate. It's an interesting distinction though.

In other words - no, I don't think you are a "child abuser" - but I do think that the time you smacked your child, you abused him at that moment. I abused my son when I screamed at him and made him cry too, and I felt mortified and apologised to him, just as any other basically non-abusive person would having done something abusive in temper.