Spanking

The Supreme court ruled that spanking was permissible under certain rigidly controlled circumstances. In particular:

[The Judges] declared corporal punishment off-limits for children under the age of 2 and for teenagers. And they outlawed the use of objects such as rulers or belts, as well as slaps or blows to the head.

To put it succinctly, the ruling was perfect. As in any controversial issue, there are two sides to the argument, and both have valid points that need to be considered.

Some parents believe that they have the right to raise their children as they see fit, and that may include corporal punishment. They are, of course, wrong. Children are not property of their parents, and they must be accorded a certain minimum of rights. However, with a few exceptions, most people in Canada do not want children to be singled out for physical assaults, and a protective law is appropriate.

The other side of course believes that the ruling did not go far enough. For example, Segacs did not appreciate the ruling at all:

This is a complete outrage. The spanking law on the books is an anachronism and a disgrace, and deserves to be struck down. I was encouraged to see the Supreme Court considering a challenge, but I'm disheartened by the result.

Her arguments against spanking are solid, there is no reason that parents should be hitting their children as a corrective measure. However, parents do many suboptimal things: they don't provide nutritionally balanced meals, they ignore their children, they belittle them for not living up to expectations, etc. etc. In an ideal world, all parents would be understanding, caring, thoughtful, and involved in their children's lives.

This is not an ideal world.

As a society, it is important for us to support a certain standard of caring for children. We need to encourage parents to be as competent as they can possibly be. Do we expect parents to be perfect? I would hope not, in most cases all we should be asking for is a reasonable effort. Criminalizing the behaviour of otherwise good parents is a dangerous road to be taking.

And it gets worse.

Who is charged with enforcing this law? While the police may be the initial contact point, the real damage gets done when the Children's Aid Society decides to move in. Do you think that the children suffered because they got spanked? Those were the good old days for those poor kids. After CAS gets involved, the children are forcibly removed from their parents and are placed in foster care. This may last for days, weeks or even months before the parent's get their children back. In the meantime, the children have just been put through a special CAS version of hell. Remember, the children don't get placed with some loving family looking to adopt them, they are dumped with some caretakers, since the situation is only temporary.

In the case where a parent is seriously abusing her child, the law already provides a means of protection. CAS has very broad discretionary powers, and is often very happy to use and abuse those powers. The last thing we need is CAS destroying even more families over small insignificant matters.

Is spanking wrong? Yes. But the answer is education, not criminalization.