Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Why Does Everyone Pretend There's A 'Spanking Debate'?
Aired: 2019-07-13
Duration: 06:14


=== Spanking Debate Debunked (06:14) ===

[00:00:00]  This is from the Huffington Post.
[00:00:04]  Why does everyone pretend that there's a spanking debate?
[00:00:10]  Spanking was a subject of debate on every parenting website on the continent during the past week and I don't understand why.
[00:00:19]  Yes, I know why it was a topic of conversation.
[00:00:21]  The prestigious journal Pediatrics released a study early in the week showing a possible link between childhood spanking and mental health struggles later in that child's life.
[00:00:31]  And that was news worth talking about.
[00:00:35]  What I don't understand is why it was a debate.
[00:00:40]  By definition, that would require two sides.
[00:00:44]  I see only one.
[00:00:49]  At what point does something become simple fact?
[00:00:55]  The Pediatrics article was just the latest in a decades-long march of studies showing that spanking, defined as hitting with an open hand in order to correct or punish, to be ineffective at best and psychologically harmful at worst.
[00:01:12]  In April, an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal analyzed two decades of data and concluded that spanking has no upside.
[00:01:21]  And its downsides include increased risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and aggressive behavior later in life.
[00:01:32]  A few years earlier, another pediatric study, this one by researchers at Tulane University, Concluded that children who are spanked as often as twice a month at age three are twice as likely to become aggressive, destructive, and mean when they are five.
[00:01:51]  And it has been a decade since Columbia University psychologists went through more than 80 studies over 62 years and found that there was a strong correlation between parents who used corporal punishment and children who demonstrated 11 measurable childhood behaviors.
[00:02:09]  Ten of the behaviors were negative, including such things as increased aggression and increased antisocial behavior.
[00:02:16]  Only one could be considered positive.
[00:02:20]  Spanking did result in immediate compliance.
[00:02:28]  So we're pointing a gun in their general direction, but that does not make it the right thing to do.
[00:02:35]  And as other research points out, if that temporary compliance comes at the price of long-term depression or defiance, then what has really been gained?
[00:02:47]  In spite of this mountain of data, though, polls and studies find that up to 90% of parents spank their children.
[00:02:56]  And each time we parenting reporters write about the latest studies, our comment threads fill with practitioners whose remarks range from outrage, I was hit and I turned out okay, goddammit!
[00:03:09]  to despair.
[00:03:11]  I don't want to hit, but it is the only way I can get them to listen.
[00:03:17]  I am continually amazed at what it takes to redirect parenting opinion.
[00:03:24]  It is dizzying how quickly one study or article can sometimes change our ways.
[00:03:30]  We started placing infants on their backs rather than their stomachs when there were hints of correlation, but not proof of causation, with crib death.
[00:03:39]  Pregnant women stopped having sushi, soft cheese, caffeine, and even a sip of alcohol on the remote but striking possibility that a small amount could have consequences.
[00:03:51]  BPA bottles disappeared in certain circles overnight when there was an unofficial link to cancer.
[00:04:00]  But other times, we just don't want to know.
[00:04:04]  In that way, the spanking conversation is like the vaccine debate.
[00:04:08]  In spite of no credible evidence of a link with autism, and many studies that tried and failed to find such a link, there are some minds that just won't change.
[00:04:20]  Your parents hit you, and you were okay.
[00:04:26]  They probably smoked around you too, and they didn't make you wear a seatbelt either, but we know better now.
[00:04:33]  Also, might I respectfully ask, How you know that you're okay?
[00:04:39]  Perhaps if your parents hadn't hit their kids, you wouldn't feel a need to hit your own.
[00:04:48]  It is the only thing that works when your children won't listen.
[00:04:52]  Swedish children are not running.
[00:04:53]  A mock in the streets and spanking has been illegal there since 1979.
[00:04:59]  Sweden was the first of 32 countries, including Costa Rica, Israel, Kenya, and most of Europe, to approve such a law.
[00:05:10]  Some questions really don't have two sides.
[00:05:15]  Is it okay to do something to your child that would land you in jail if you did it to a stranger on the street is one of those.
[00:05:23]  You can phrase it other ways too, like Is it okay to hurt your child because it serves your immediate goal when science shows it can lead to long-term harm?
[00:05:35]  But there is still just one answer.
[00:05:40]  And yet we keep seeing it presented as a disagreement.
[00:05:44]  To spank or not to spank was the headline on both the CNN's report yesterday and the Good Morning America segment on Thursday about the latest pediatric study.
[00:05:53]  The Today piece added the tagline, Mommy Wars, Raging Parenting Debate, and a Babble Blogger was found to represent each side.
[00:06:05]  But there aren't two sides.
[00:06:08]  There is a preponderance of fact, and there are people who find it inconvenient to accept those facts.