Nice analysis by Eugene Volokh on this FoxNews story about the Horrors of Spanking.
If Madelyn Toogood delivered that same beating to anyone other than her own child, her actions would not be subject to debate or interpretation. The fact that the perpetrator gave birth to the victim should not open the door to justification. Society has recognized a wedding license is not a license to assault a spouse. Why don’t children deserve the same protection from their parents as their parents have from each another?
Volokh notes the fallacy in that argument by positing the following statements which parallel assertions in the Fox story:
“If [a mother locked] anyone other than her own child [in the child’s room], her actions would not be subject to debate or interpretation. If we were to decide as a culture that [imprisoning] children is an immoral and unacceptable violent crime, as wrong as [imprisoning] a spouse or a stranger . . . [then] the issue is really not so complex or delicate.”
“If [a parent called the police to complain about] anyone other than her own child [voluntarily leaving her home], her actions would not be subject to debate or interpretation.” The police would tell her that anyone can leave home whenever they want to.
“If [a person threw out alcohol belonging to] anyone other than her own child . . ., her actions would not be subject to debate or interpretation. If we were to decide as a culture that [stealing from] children is an immoral and unacceptable [property] crime, as wrong as [stealing from] a spouse or a stranger . . . [then] the issue is really not so complex or delicate.”
Of course we’d reject these arguments, because we realize that children aren’t just small adults. Children lack the full intellectual faculties of adults, and therefore don’t have the same set of rights (at least vis-a-vis their parents) that adults have.
The trick, of course, is that we want an easy, black-and-white solution, so that we can, both as a society and as individuals, point to an action and say, “That’s wrong,” or, “that’s right,” or, “that must be allowed,” or, “that must be punished.” Out at the extremes, that’s relatively simple. We do much more poorly — and thus are much more uncomfortable — with the analog greys of reality towards the middle, where the answer might be, “That would be wrong for some people, but not for that person,” or, “that might be wrong, but it might be more wrong to stop it,” or (worst of all), “I don’t know enough about that situation to judge if it’s right or wrong.”
(Incidently, it is this schizophrenic grey area that CPS departments usually have to operate, which is why they manage to outrage both protectors of children and protectors of parents alike.)
That’s why we’ve tended to give fairly wide latitude to parents. Not because children are their meat puppets, to abuse and carve up as they choose. Not any more, at least. But because society is not wise enough to understand all the particulars of every given situation to be able to dictate with absolute confidence what is right or wrong. That’s the same reason we have freedom of expression, and of religion, in recognition that if individuals are sometimes lacking in such discernment, the collective society may not be any more accurate.
Obviously there is a tension there, a grey area, some indiscernable line where society has to say, “Enough, we can’t let you go any further than this.” To pretend that the line is something as simple as spanking/not-spanking is to engage in the sort of fallacious thinking demonstrated above.