Tigermoth
agree with what you say re smacking.
I was devastated by what my sister said - it came as a real shock because my parents were never cruel. It was like a hidden aspect of her life and I think it was brave of her to tell me cos she knows I am very close to my father.
Re abuse, I don't think an anti-smacking law will affect levels of abuse. My sister (mentally handicapped) has been abused in virtually every care situation she has been in - local authority that is. It is standard, though covered up and accepted by weak and colluding social workers across the land (meaning my mother looked after her til my sister was 40, more or less full-tim - and my mother was dead on her feet). Abuse in and out of the home has nothing to do with mothers infrequently smacking the bottoms, hands of children when they are playing up. I think most
Abuse - as someone pointed out here - comes in may different forms. I personally - and controversially - feel that dumping babies in fulltime childcare is pretty callous and insenstive. But few people question that practice. The idea of sulking with your child, as someone mentioned here, is horribly cruel.
Also, the systematic use of violence eg taking a child to one side to administer it in a premeditated way as the way in which a child is punished in very cruel. Like you say, struggling with a child to get them into a car seat which is aabout asserting your strength over the child's is a neccessary form of physical dominance for teirown saftey.
also, most children know that if a smack on their hand is likely to come their way if they tip their meal on the floor they don't do it, so smacking is a deterrent, something that DOESN'T get used unless you drive mummy BONKERS!And even in this case, you know yourself asa parent that you are unlikely to use it.
I don't think most people ENJOY hitting their children unless they are sadists. But sometimes they are frightened because a child runs into the road/ runs away (the only two times when i actually recall being smacked) and in fact I am assuming that most children will remember why their parents lost control (as I do). Or maybe you know yourslef, as a child, that you are pushing the boundaries and winding your mum/dad up.
Also, punishment for really doingg something you know as a child, because you habve been told it is wrong - eg hitting your sister or brother - in some ways is supposed to upset you. To drive the message home. Youi can't get round that. SO it is always difficult to discipline children because at some level you are going to make them temporarily unhappy. Life isn'ty a bed of roses and I think the home has to prepare children for the fact. In the home, it can be done in the context of love.
Anyway, that's a rable - back to work!
J