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TechnoratiWho needs a family when you’ve got a government?
Instead of supporting the family, many governments are usurping its prerogatives
The late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously said, “The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nations.” The remarks were made by Trudeau when, as Justice Minister in 1968, he sought to decriminalize homosexual acts and relax Canada’s restrictions on abortion. Forty years later, the Canada Trudeau left behind still seems to believe that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation -- but can make itself very active in its living rooms.Three cases illustrate the current extent of state involvement in attempting to usurp the role of parents. Or put another way, the state attempting to parent parents. Canada’s unelected Senate, a body of political appointees, has passed a bill that elected members of parliament have talked about passing but never have. The Senators want to outlaw the spanking of children. Like most Western nations, Canada already has laws against beating your child, yet spanking or corporal punishment is still allowed under section 43 of the criminal code. Activists have tried to use the courts to have this section of the law overturned, but the Supreme Court upheld the law. In its decision, justices on the court set out guidelines, just so everyone would be clear on what is acceptable and what is not. Punching your child in the face, kicking, beating them about the head, all of these go beyond corporal punishment and into the realm of abuse, while an open hand on the bottom or the torso is properly considered spanking. The Senators want to make it illegal to spank a child under almost any instance. The bill still needs approval from the elected Members of Parliament in the Commons, but the signal has been sent; parents will face the long arm of the law reaching into their living rooms if this bill passes.
Many parents already choose not to spank their children and opt for non-corporal punishments such as time-outs or grounding. Those punishments though, are also subject to state sanction in Canada if current precedent holds. A 12 year-old girl in Gatineau, Quebec, successfully sued her father over being grounded. She was told that she could not attend a three-day class trip because she was outright defiant. It seems the father and daughter were battling it out over a number of house rules. After discovering that his daughter had been having what are only described as “inappropriate” chats at “inappropriate” websites for a 12-year-old, the father told the girl she was not allowed on the internet as punishment. She did so anyway. The father found out his daughter was again having inappropriate chats and also posting inappropriate pictures by using a friend’s computer. This is when the punishment extended not only to banning her from internet use, but also from attending her class trip.
Now there is a complication to this story: the parents involved are divorced and the school required that both parents sign the permission form. Since the girl’s mother was willing to sign the form, she packed up and moved in with Mum. Mum helped her daughter launch the court case in which a judge deemed it too severe a punishment to keep the girl from her class trip. She was allowed to go on court orders.
After telling parents they cannot spank their kids and they must seek state approval for grounding their children, it is scary to see what more could happen. How about taking children away from parents based on their political beliefs? Not possible? It happened in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The local children’s aid society was called in by the school district when teachers noticed markings on a 7-year-old girl. The markings weren’t bruises or burn marks from cigarettes stubbed out on the girl’s arms. They were written markings, like tattoos but instead drawn on the girl’s arms and legs with permanent marker. The markings were various white supremacist phrases and symbols including a swastika. When the girl showed up at school with the markings, Child and Family Services were called, who then called in help from the police to also seize the young girl’s 2-year-old brother. Child and Family Services now claim there is concern about drug and alcohol use in the home, yet their initial reason for seizing the children (the only reason they had when they went to the home to take the 2-year old boy) was the political beliefs of the parents.
White supremacists may be a minority group, and their beliefs may run counter to the accept-everyone-or-you-are-a-racist society we now live in, but is that any reason to take their children away from them? This is a classic case of the slippery slope argument; if a white supremacist’s children can be taken away based simply on their politics, can my children be taken away based on mine? If parents tell their children that global warming is not real would those children be taken away by a Green government? If they tell them that communism will replace capitalism after the worker's revolution, would those children be taken away by a conservative government? This all seems like the state intruding far too much into the lives of individuals and families.
I wish this type of intrusion were restricted to Canada yet the headlines prove otherwise. A German family is now living in England after facing prosecution for home schooling their children, they had faced the prospect of having the children taken away from them for refusing the send their offspring to the state run public school. In California, courts have all but ruled home schooling illegal, for the time being – appeals pending, after ruling that parents need proper teacher certification in order to home school. Parents are each child’s first and primary educator, the state when it plays a part must always be subordinate to the parents not the other way around.
There can be no doubt that the state has an interest in protecting vulnerable children when their parents cannot or will not protect them. Children not being provided with the basic necessities of life, those experiencing sexual abuse, real physical abuse, these children should expect the state to step in and provide the care their parents cannot. When true abuse is absent, the state’s role is to support the family, to help make families stronger, not to usurp the family’s prerogatives and interfere in its life. If as Pierre Trudeau said, the state has no place in my bedroom, why does it insist on sitting in my living room?
Brian Lilley is Ottawa Bureau Chief of Astral Media Radio
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Editor
I would like to remind Mark Peters (see July 1st comment ) what Christ has said about children:
“Jesus ... took a child and made him stand in front of them. Then he put his arms around him and said to them, ‘Whoever in my name welcomes one of these children, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not only me but also the one who sent me’ “. Mark 9. 36-37
and:
“Some people brought their children to Jesus for him to touch them, but the disciples scolded those people. When Jesus noticed it, he was angry and said to his disciples, ‘Let children come to me, and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Remember this! Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.’ Then he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them, and blessed them.” Mark 10. 13-16
Certainly hitting children is contrary to that.
I strongly believe in expanding domestic violence to fit all forms of domestic violence no matter what age. You can’t hit your wife so don’t hit your kids. Not to mention children who are beaten tend to grow up into people who hit or people who become hit. I am sure the woman who is hit by her husband remembers the words “I am doing this because I love you” from a much earlier time.
To me spanking, hitting and all other physical “disapline” is the sign of a lazy parent. How hard is it to raise and guide a child without violence. Yes, I use the word violence here because that is exactly what it is. It has gotten out of hand and needs to come to a stop. If you can’t disapline without being violent ( yes, spanking is violent) you shouldn’t be a parent.
Hmmmm… we scorn the beating of women but not of children. I just find this interesting. What I also find interesting and also very disgusting is the joking around that many parents like to do when talking of hitting their children. They try to soften the act up by a stupid comedy routine that is far from funny. If they truely don’t enjoy it, and use it only for disapline then why joke about it??? If you get off on the stuff, go to concentual clubs that cater.
Sorry Christians, Jesus would never hit a child. It is funny that you recite one line from the Bible yet ignore and condem other far out practices in the Bible. Make up your mind. Only true Christians can see how far from Christian this practice really is.
I was spanked and beaten and much more as a child. I grew up to hate and lothe my parents. It was only until I was able to leave and seperate myself from them that I could ever begin to become the loving person I am today.
Sure sometimes I get upset at the government. However I feel that when violence is concerned then yes bans and laws should be made. Think of all the stupid laws and bans on nonviolent acts. Priorities people.
The other issues listed in this article that want to back the spanking issue, in the attempt to find similar comparisons, are simply different and seperate issues. “Open hand hitting to a child on thier bottom or torso,” is physical abuse. Physical punishment to a child teaches them to resort to physical violence when they are angry and it distances the bond between parent and child. It is a loss of control by the aggressive party, and it teaches children a loss of personal control as well. The fact is, that children learn by demonstration, and they mimick what is demonstrated for them. I vote for peaceful demonstration-by any means necessary!
Of course hitting children should be banned. Parents who hit their children do so out of frustration caused by their being too busy or too lazy to teach through a better means.
Jesus NEVER said to hit ANYONE. In fact, he was especially protective of the small and weak. All research points to increased anti-social behaviour, crime, and difficulty in adult relationships caused by being spanked as a child.
Spanking is really very perverted. Do we really want to confuse our children into believing that those who love us should hurt us?
Discipline means to teach, and yes parents should teach their children. This is done by good communication and supervision, and by setting a good example. Also by having reasonable expectations-- they are children, afer all. Controling our tempers will help them to learn to control their as well. You can’t teach a 3 year old to act like an adult by acting like a 3 year old yourself!
Nobody should hit another person. 24 countries now have legislation banning hitting children at all. What is this nonsense about hitting only children between 2 and 12?
Corporal punishment of children is domestic abuse. Many parent sees their child as their property, just as husbands use to think of their wives are property. Hitting wives was once acceptable.
It is now time to put a stop to hitting children. The bottom line is that if assault of an adult is illegal, then it is fair that children should have the same legal protection.
I applaud this legislation. Finally Canada will be joining other first world nations in protecting citizens of *all* ages from physical abuse. I’m glad that children from ages two to 12 will no longer be the only citizens of our democracy who may be struck, paddled, whacked, or slapped with impunity. Only generations ago citizens were likewise criticizing laws that protected wives from abuse at the hands of their husbands.
Hitting is wrong. Hitting hurts. No one should be able to hit someone for any reason whether they’re one, six, 10, or 37.
Have I angered you? You can’t hit me to “teach me a lesson” because I’m in my thirties and can be merely told off if you consider me cheeky (or I’ll have you charged). Here’s looking forward to sensible government adding hitting vulnerable children to the hands-off list.
Isn’t it amazing that in other countries in the world who have banned corporal punishment, there is LESS violent crime, the parents are finding it EASIER to parent, the teachers have FEWER problems of classroom control. In the US, the states with the highest usage of corporal punishment in the schools, have fewer students graduating, lower grades, higher teen pregnancy rates, and higher rates of violent crimes in the schools.
If you teach a child it is OK to hit someone with less power than you, then guess what, they grow up learning to beat up others for power, from frustration, and because they were beat. HOORAY for the Canadian Senate for listening to research and seeing the positive results of similar laws in other countries.
Hitting is not discipline, it teaches a child not what is right or wrong, but that one should not get caught. Discipline teaches a child the difference between right and wrong through caring, thoughtful dialogue and respect toward all humans on this earth regardless of nationality, colour, gender, or age.
This is ridiculous. Young children unable to defend themselves are not being protected? This sounds like Ulster County NY, where the CPS system is an absolute joke..
Part three
The TRUTH will enlighten you with facts and genuine supportive action for the protection of children. Enlightened that the child like all humans in Canada and most civilized societies in the World and even animals in many countries have laws protecting from abuse…But some of the blind, cold and dead spiritually ignorance forever abounds within Canada…saying god no, it is my child and I determine the moral structure I wish to inflict on my child, inflict with pain, humiliation and trauma that may last a lifetime…
You must read in silence and face reality; become enlightened and you cannot ever deny it is you and others like you that abuse children; it is the parents and mostly mothers that abuse children and has been the same forever…
Now go ahead and tell me parents do not need laws to follow and uphold and assistance and guidance…to protect the child. Tell me a child does not need such protection and the World will show your DENIALS.
But some will perpetrate the owning of their children and hit then…. For countless perverted, sick and fanatical religious reasons; all are unjustified.
All should be severely punished all perpetrators of child abuse will should be judged like you judge your children…and may a god somewhere for most gods will tell you hell no, but may we be merciful a god somewhere have mercy on your evil soul, for you like you were hit and hit again; and now you abuse your child; you mommy and daddy deserve the same…Nothing!
Part two
Pull your ignorance out of your posterior. How can you say and it is the law you cannot hit an adult, your wife, your mommy or daddy, the elderly even animals are protected… Without potentially being arrested and tried for a violent crime. But you want to say it is ok to hit a child. You want to be able to hit your child a child about 25% the size of an adult. maybe even 50% the size of an adult, an adult with all the power, the child has none. A child against an adults powerful size, your size, a child with no income no advocate no power…All because mommy and daddy get angry, you damn want to hit your child….
If you look at child maltreatment in the United States the latest available is for 2005…Read it I dare you I demand you ignorance be purged. Face with caution yourselves and please learn, caution your acts as parents in Canada, the United States and the World… as has been the numbers that seem to only increase yearly. In 2005 an additional 20,000 children were abused in America, with better data from several states collecting and submitting more accurately or for the first time. And cry, moan, complain and justify your hallucinated non-facts full of your own make-believe.
The TRUTH will enlighten you with facts and genuine supportive action for the protection of children. Enlightened that the child like all humans in Canada and most civilized societies in the World and even animals in many countries have laws protecting from abuse…But some of the blind, cold and dead spiritually ignorance forever abounds within Canada…saying god no, it is my child and I determine the moral structure I wish to inflict on my child, inflict with pain, humiliation and trauma that may last a lifetime…
You must read in silence and face reality; become enlightened and you cannot ever deny it is you and others like you that abuse children; it is the parents and mostly mothers that abuse children and has been the same forever…
Part one
There is nothing on this planet less thought out than by those who would advocate under any circumstances hitting a child…it starts with ignorance, the quotes of generations that being hit by our parents, who were hit by their parents. We fake in ignorance and pain we were not harmed from that pain , humiliation and loss of full trust…Mommy and Daddy spanked me because they love me…I deserved it…I was bad… You we me all of us were harmed by the hitting, slapping, spanking and/or beatings received as a child…it is easier to deny the pain is less than to admit are parents were wrong and they were beaten by their parents who were wrong and how many generations perpetuate these horrible acts…
Stay blind don’t look at the facts, some mention Germany, which is one of the newer European States that passed laws advocating protecting children and that banned spanking, I believe Switzerland was one of the first, and if you look at Switzerland and other countries crime rates and see the dramatic decrease in crimes since the ban on hitting a child…
The homeschooling family in Germany got into trouble because Germany is one of the few countries where it’s illegal to homeschool. This is a holdover from the Nazi era. Most modern democracies allow homeschooling. The family in California had a history of abusing their children. Homeschooling is alive and well in California, but controlling the “dark side” of homeschooling isn’t very easy.
Tom you make a very good point about the sexual nature of spanking. Children’s buttocks are their primary erogenous zone, a private area that children are taught they should not allow others to touch without their consent. How confusing and upsetting it is to children to try to learn the lessons of being kind to others and not hitting playmates, and to keep their private areas off-limits to unwanted touching, and then be violently slapped on their buttocks! The sexual stimulation is undeniable as well, since slapping buttocks jars the nerves going from the end of the spine to the genitals. Spanking is very close to rape.
I hope this bill passes. It’s long overdue.
Spanking is hitting, plain and simple.
If you enjoy your legal protections against violence, then our smallest and most vulnerable demographic should also get to enjoy protection. Children are also citizens of every government. They are not property, they are not toys, they are not dogs. If you don’t enjoy being smacked around as an adult, then certainly don’t wish it on a child.
Generally gov should stay out, but obviously there are times it must get involved in people’s lives. I’m sure that the author wouldn’t disapprove of laws against murder, for example. Child abuse is one of the world’s fundamental evils and brings about enormous evil, largely through the creation of mental illness and crime. Hitting children doesn’t work anymore. It backfires and creates more problems than it intends to solve. There are many ways to discipline children still left to parents. And by the way, what would you say about grown children hitting their elderly parents trying to get them to behave?
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