Kaback: Let’s talk about corporal punishment

I was never hit as a child. I was never hit as a child. “Hit” is not to be confused with getting “hit on,” which I was regularly experiencing through my middle school years. What I mean is that my parents didn’t engage in corporal punishment. Instead of a firm hand, I would get “the look.” One flash of this look and the knowledge that I had disappointed my parents was supposed to compensate for the lack of a spanking.

Now I know what some of you might be thinking. I must have been the ultimate weeny. Or maybe I was just the ultimate awful child, having never learned right from wrong. Probably more along the lines of a weeny though, right?

I honestly can’t tell you why my parents decided against corporal punishment, but I originally imagined it had something to do with my extreme cuteness as a child. I eventually decided that after turning me into a Cleveland sports fan they simply figured that I was going to suffer enough throughout my life.

Right before I graduated high school, the topic of physical punishment of children came up one day in sociology class. The class was discussing how different social groups have different views toward child rearing, and the teacher decided to take his own poll. “How many people in here were raised without being hit?” It was a simple enough question, and one that I had no hesitation in raising my hand to answer.

What happened next? Crickets! I looked around and felt like I had just confessed to being that kid who pulled the fire alarm. It was just like a movie where the 360-degree camera angle showed how completely deserted I was in this classroom of 30 people. I could hear the laughter and chants coming from the back: Weeny! Weeny! Weeny!

The class members then launched into intense discussions on the worst they had ever been hit by their parents, telling stories of slaps, punches and spankings with a survivor-like pride. It seemed as if I had missed out on some societal rite of passage that I was supposed to go through with all of my friends. I felt like I should have taken off my shoes and walked across burning coals. Imitations of angry mothers and stressed fathers issuing threats of violence were followed by laughter in this world that was completely foreign to me.

I was certainly curious after this discovery. I had never known that my upbringing was a somewhat unique one. The more that I asked people, the more it seemed like my parents were downright weird for never offering up a spanking. I started reading up on the topic and looking for related news stories wherever I could find them.

Recently, a decades-long survey has been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that approaches this topic that is seemingly so difficult to understand. The study found a link between receiving physical punishment and anxiety and alcohol abuse later in life.

With some studies concluding that up to 80 percent of American children report growing up in homes with corporal punishment, I was most shocked by a very different number: Thirty-two countries, including Sweden, Kenya and Costa Rica, have laws against physical punishment of children. For something so commonplace in many American lives, the practice is outlawed in quite a number of countries.

I can’t tell you what effect physical punishment had on me, because I wasn’t physically punished. Yes, it always seemed very ironic to me that kids could be spanked by a parent saying, “Don’t hit!” with each pat, but I have no idea whether or not it’s effective. Having been an elementary and middle school wrestler and, more generally, a teenage boy, I’ve had my fair share of physical struggles, although they were never in an attempt to change my behavior.

As the election year approaches and the nation debates many social issues, we see topics such as abortion and gay marriage thrust into the limelight. No matter our individual political views on the subjects, we are forced to think about them and critically analyze our own positions.

As far as corporal punishment, however, national discussion has been swept under the rug. With the practice widely removed from schools, the issue has become one of what we can and can’t do within our own families and private homes. But that shouldn’t mean that nobody can discuss the topic.

There might be an acceptable level of responsible physical punishment, or it might be that every spanking is harmful. Why can’t we talk about it? It seems like 32 other countries found the time to at least discuss the subject, and it might just be time for us to do so as well.

Write Andrew at aak47@pitt.edu.