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...

Nor any legislation that parents must be trained and many mothers frankly are pretty bad at the job. But parents choose childcare that is good and in fact in practice having employed nannies who have done the 2 year course and one who hasn't I haven't found much difference and never found one who was in favour of corporal punishment of children.

All very well thinking you have the choice. But in countries where childcare is cheap and unqualified, you just can't get really good nannies because the "profession" is so devalued. Decent people just don't go in for it. The only option here is to import a British or Australian girl, but then they tend to be really miserable because everyone looks down on them, there's no-one to be friends with etc.

Anyway, in France parents and nannies alike can hit children just about anywhere without anyone taking the blindest bit of notice.

We weren't too keen on the French after 1066 etc and I'm not sure we wholly approve of them now. But lots of good English nannies work abroad all ove rthe world for Saudi princes etc. My grandmother worked for an English family as a nanny in India in the 1920s.

"We weren't too keen on the French after 1066 etc and I'm not sure we wholly approve of them now." are you for real??

most mothers I've met are pretty fabulous at the job of parenting their children tbh

The point I was making was not about the French in particular, but about the realities of cheap childcare.

Xenia has often written about the cost of childcare, and how it should be cheaper in the UK as it is in many continental European countries. The reality of cheap childcare is the reality of cheap anything - pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Actually I may have said cheaper care was one solution (presumably Government funded) but as a free market sort of person I wouldn't really go for interference in that market by trying artifically bringing prices down. If we could get tax rates a lot lower we could afford to pay nannies more easily which would help.

There is no ABSOLUTE right to do anything to a child or anyone as vulnerable as a child. There are certain things children need to be protected from, sadly in some cases they need to be protected from their own parents, relatives, carers, etc.

I think the problem with smacking is that it can become so much more than smacking. A slap on the wrist may become a smack in the face, etc. I am not saying it always WILL, just saying that it is a possibility. Some humans need LAW to stop them from taking things further. I think smacking ANYONE, child or adult, is morally wrong, don't really care about any form of legislation. Some people don't see it as morally wrong, which is why they need the law.

The CHEAPEST care a child can get is their own parent

don't know if someone has posted this as have only read op, but there is a serious physical child abuse problem in NZ as far as i could gather from spending 4 months there and watching news/current affairs progs

sophable - if that is the case - they need to get some real legislation into place very very quickly.

OHMIGOD.

have read thread.

pmsl and almost crying and just rolling around in DISBELIEF that someone is trying to defend james dobson. ffs.

smacking is abusive. absolutely. it is the last recourse of those who've lost it (and any one of us could lose it...) and the thick.

now come and get me.

LOL sophable, I nearly swallowed my own head with pure rage last night

Sodding bloody thread.

if this was RL i would grab you and give you a big half hug half kiss as that is my wont.

as it isn't you'll have to just imagine it.

There is a serious physical child abuse problem in most countries of the world.
Whenever there's a murder of adult or child the most likely culprit is a family member. It's not on the streets we're at risk. It's in the home.

yup

Right I am trying to word this properly so bear with me. I smack my son and in my opinion I am not abusing him. I am teaching him right from wrong in MY way.

I do hope Sophable & Greensleeves that you are perfect parents. Because if you are suffering from depression, have mood swings, are always on your pc, bicker/row in front of you partner, don't get on with your families, then you are also showing your children that life isn't perfect, in another abusive way. You only have to read the posts on here which include, my mother didn't beat me but she had terrible mood swings. So before you both head off thinking that you are bloody perfect, I suggest you think again.

I have not had a proper chance to post about this, and I applaud anyone who doesn't smack as they can deal with bad behaviour with other options. To me, its about showing my son that something is hugely wrong, at that time, and it does have to be really really wrong. I walked out of the room for 10 seconds yesterday and as his sister started to cry (8 weeks) he tried to stop her by putting his hand over her mouth & nose. OMG you are all going to think. Did I smack for that..... No. I had a very long chat with him about dangerous things.

However, he went to walk into the road without looking a few days back, did I smack, YES.

I respect both of your postings normally but to have you both congratulating each other on (as it seems to me) that you are SO right and we are all thick, illiterate and stupid, I felt the need to post.

Thanks UCM, and others, for being willing to say these things. I too smack my son sometimes. I thought about it a lot - after the stuff I read on here - but in the end decided it was the best for both of us. When he is able to understand removal or privileges etc. that can be used, but right now he is too young. I think children and adults are totally different and you can't treat them in the same way, just as you treat children differently at different ages. I would not tolerate my dh 'smacking' me.

Personally I do believe a controlled smack - after 3 warnings - is better than losing it, shouting and getting out of control, even hitting in anger. I was shouting a lot and feeling very unhappy about it, and this decision has helped me. Smacks are rare but I feel a lot more in control of myself and therefore able to be a lot more loving to my ds.

I thought about changing my name as I don't want to be known as 'that one that smacks'. But anyway, I am probably not on here enough for it to matter.

Twiglett, you are right, I was always too petrified of being jumped on to say it! And btw, the smacks never leave a mark.

oh. and i have a first class degree from warwick university if that helps label me into some sort of group.

Well I certainly cannot pretend that it doesn;t shock me beyond belief that people in this day and age believe that deliberately hurting your own child is a valid choice of parenting method

The only reason people hit children is because they can. Children are generally smaller and more vulnerable. A very easy target.

IMO, if you hit a child, you are a very poor example of a parent and you are failing your child.

Pick on someone your own size, you big bully.

And I find the way you describe hitting your child in a calm, controlled way very disturbing, MerryMarigold.

Cause it is just not something that governments should be getting into, otherwise we will all end up like Singapore where it is illegal to chew gum.

NO it IS something govts. need to get into. Singapore and gum is a very poor comparison. Singapore is generally a police state, which is a bloody shame, but we don't need to go that far in this country.

Abuse against a child needs to be controlled as much as wife beating or rape need to be controlled. Some parents are their child's worst enemy, which begs the question, why are they parents ? but that is a different story.

Well, as I said it was after much deliberation I took this route. What clinched it for me is that I was a (rarely) smacked child (in a calm, controlled way I may add). I have always felt very loved, supported and appreciated by my parents. I am also not at all aggressive, never hit people as a child then and, I would argue, now (smacking is not hitting).

What clinched the issue for me is that whislt I may have a few issues with my childhood, none of them as far (as I can see), stem from being smacked. Far more stem from my mother's basically negative attitude to life and critical attitude towards my father in particular. I see these as MUCH worse and having a far more profound impact on me, but I very much doubt anyone would jump on a poster who is constantly whingeing about her dh.

Merry - didfferent things can have an impact on different children. Dh has a very good friend who was always beaten up by the father (I mean beaten up not just smacked) and he absolutley detests his father and wishes him dead. It has ruined his life as a child and as an adult. In this case nothing else matters, all he remembers from his childhood is being beaten.

Of course smacking isn't like hitting or beating, but who knows what impact it has on an individual child ?

Like you I was made miserbale all my life by the fact that my mother didn't love my father and decided that she would put him down all his life until the day he died. He wasn't the perfect man, however to me he was the perfect father. My mum never understood how much I loved him.

Any way, what I am saying is that the situation I have just described affected me much much more than it ever affected my siblings, perhaps because I was the youngest and my father's favourite.

What we do to our children will have a DIFFERENT impact on each child. Smacking may really affect one child, but not another. That is how I see it.