Smack Baby Smack!

24th June 2005

SMACK BABY SMACK

Recently Mrs Kumara and myself discovered we are to become parents. The news has been attended by great joy, wonder (we wonder what the hell we were thinking?)and in our darkest hours - blind terror. The smacking issue, currently worrying some of the slackest minds in our country therefore takes on a personal slant. Will we smack imminent child? How often? With what weapon of slight destruction? The answer to all the above is - Don't know and to a large extent - don't care.

There are so many other things to worry about that is really the last thing on our mind. But this topic seems to preoccupy some people as though it is the most important issue society currently faces. For fallen angel, Graeme Capill's Christian Heritage Party it was the cornerstone of their election campaign. Which is bizzare really. I have looked long and hard at the bible (I've never actually read it but I look at it all the time)and Christian politics in general and it seems to me a real, compassionate Christian should be more interested in feeding the poor, spreading love, eliminating pestilence, and my personal favourite - turning water into wine - than ensuring the right to smack their kids.

If Jesus were to come back today it is hard to imagine that he would arrive and at the first press conference and say -
"I've come back at this time because of the grave problem with smacking. What's up? Everywhere I look the rod is being spared. There are too many other namby pamby, wishy washy, add your own rhyming cliche, crap forms of discipline...'time out' what the hell is that all about?? I've had some 'time out' myself and believe me, it's rubbish.."









"ye shalt whack thine arse"

"My Old Man, who you all know as GOD, did not have that great a work ethic. I know it seems a bit harsh, after all, he did create the entire universe... But, basically he only worked seven days in his whole life and then took the rest of eternity off - because, as he put it "he saw that it was good".
... well HELLO - eternal father. It is not all good.
Why is the TV remote always missing? Why do the Warriors always lose when I watch them? Why are the queues so long in banks?"
(Mikey Havok standing up YELLING): "...and when you get to the teller, they try to sell you insurance!"
Jesus:"I'm sorry. Thou art too loud by half. I am forced to smite you with yonder thunderbolt"
Havok disappears in a puff of smoke, the crowd cheers wildly...
Reporter:"It's a miracle! We've been trying to get him to shut up for years."
"Ok then, to finish up. Remember - more smacking people! When we said 'turn the other cheek' You now know what we meant. Thank you very much.. I'm going to have some lunch.....someone pass me those seven loaves" On talkback radio the smacking debate raged for a good three days and exhibited the sort of logic that would have Mr Spock setting his phaser to 'stunned'.

For instance, the idea we smack our children to show we love them. Oh really. Does that mean the more we smack them the more we love them? Should I use the same rationale in dealing with my friends and start hitting them because I love them? I have a very good friend who has just had a (eventually) benign brush with the big C. Maybe the next time I see her I should go up to her a slap her in the face. Just to let her know I care.

Another idea is to use smacking to alert kids to the advent of potential pain. But won't the pain itself do the alerting?
Just say my child goes up to a heater and sticks it's hand on the element. Then I, to literally add insult to injury, sweep over and whack said child to warn it that it shouldn't do it again. Won't the actual pain alert the child? Why is my kid so stupid? Can I please stop talking exclusively in questions?!?

On the other side of the argument anti-smacking lobbyist Joan Durrant includes on her list of forms of physical abuse -
forcing a child to kneel on hard objects (floor, grate, pencils, uncooked rice).
I'm sorry. Pencils! Uncooked rice!! she must have made those up to make her list longer because ,"kneeling on uncooked rice" was not a common punishment where I grew up.
"Jimi, Dry those bloody dishes or else I'm going to pour rice on the floor and make you kneel in it! and don't expect it to be bloody cooked either!"

If it is true, it is the work of a twisted and sadistic mind, because, while the odd smack may well be harmless enough, premeditated abuse with a known carbohydrate is obviously quite a