By Steve Rhodes
“The only person you can legally hit in the United States is a child,” Mel Robbins writes at CNN Opinion in the aftermath of the Adrian Peterson saga.
“Hit your partner, and you’ll be arrested for domestic violence. Hit another adult, and you’ll be arrested for assault. But hit a 4-year-old, and you can call yourself a ‘loving father.’ That’s completely screwed up.
“It should be against the law for a fully grown adult to slap, hit, spank, punch, switch, whoop, whip, paddle, kick or belt a defenseless child in the name of discipline. But it is legal, and new research in the Journal of Family Psychology suggests that the average 4-year-old is hit 936 times a year.
“If study after study conclusively proves that hitting your kids doesn’t work as a disciplinary method, and worse, it has long-term damaging impact to their psychology and makes your kids more aggressive, why do we as a society allow it?”
That’s a good question for Windy City Live co-host Val Warner and her band of apologists, including Tribune columnist John Kass.
After all, Warner just admitted that she smacks her kid – because she doesn’t know what else to do to keep him from “running the house.”
Maybe take some parenting classes?
*
Meanwhile, Kass is concerned about the government interfering in family business. How so? Should we abolish the Department of Children and Family Services and its caseworkers who investigate allegations of child abuse? Should police officers also no longer consider child abuse within their purview? Just where is the government overreach, John?
Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell is equally confused. Could an editor perhaps have demanded she be clear about whether she was defending Peterson, because she’s all over the map. Maybe the decisive verdict is her headline: “Charge Against Peterson Redefines Child Abuse.”
Really? Stuffing leaves in a 4-year-old’s mouth and then leaving his body – including his scrotum – cut and bruised from a whipping hasn’t been child abuse heretofore? Bear in mind, as well, that this wasn’t a one-time event. According to the child, Daddy Peterson likes his belts and switches and has a whooping room.
No, this looks pretty much like the textbook definition of child abuse – right down the abuser’s own history of being abused.
So let’s end the confusion right here: You don’t hit your kid. Period. Clear?
–
Comments welcome.
Posted on September 16, 2014