First off, two Brit things I love - "smacking" and calling every kind of plan or strategy a "scheme".

Right. So how does the House of Lords propose to determine when mental harm has been done?

Finally, my opinion: smacking your child probably has several results - one is that they will probably stop doing the thing you want them to stop doing at the time you want them to stop. The other several include: acting out in other ways that may appear unrelated, dissociating natural cause and effect relationships for their actions, desensitizing to physical violence, and generally feeling puzzled and unloved, especially children younger than about 2 that don't reason well yet.

That said, I'm not necessarily opposed to it in principle. Raising children is basically one long exercise in warping a kid's psyche. Some good, and some bad. There are better ways to discipline a child, but they are time and energy consuming and that isn't always available in the real world. Sometimes, stopping bad behavior quickly is the best that can be done. Hey, it's a tough world out there.

I think the extent that corporal punishment is mentally damaging is related to its intent. Getting rid of parental stress and anger or exerting control that is not related to an immediate needed behavior change is much more likely to mess a kid up and is basically a form of abuse, regardless of the level of physical force involved.

I think that is the tough question that needs to be asked by a parent: am I doing this with the best interests of the child, or am I doing this because I can?

Short answer: if a parent is going to fuck up a kid, he or she can do it without ever touching the kid. Spanking probably causes less long term damage than some parenting moves where the parent doesn't even touch the kid. That's why I'd be against a ban.

Here's a spanking story from Wisconsin.

I'm all for hitting kids, especially the crying brat who sat in the row right behind mine. No, you can't have your little toy when the plane's taking off, Einstein. Get a brain, moran!

Where ya coming from?

Bermuda. Some pix to be posted later...

Where in bermuda? I'm goin' down there next February.