Residents of Brookline, MA passed a resolution on May 26, 2005 to discourage parents and child-care workers from using corporal punishment on their children, reports David Abel of the Boston Globe, 5/27/05. This is the first municipality in the nation to officially take such a position. The resolution was introduced last year by Ronald Goldman and was defeated twice before its passage. Goldman says that spanking is not effective and can leave long-term emotional bruises. He says that corporal punishment contributes to aggression toward siblings, bullying, disobedience at school, and erosion of trust between parents and children. He encourages parents to use disciplinary methods that do not cause pain to the child and that promote respect and understanding instead. Selectman Michael Sher said, "I think it's very important to get across the message that hitting kids is not the way to discipline them and it can have a lot of adverse consequences."

Massachusetts is one of 27 states that prohibits corporal punishment in public schools. Aside from discipline that rises to a criminal level of abuse, the state has no law regulating spanking or other corporal punishment by parents; the resolution cited above is non-binding. Whenever binding legislation is debated, the deliberation of definitive studies showing the adverse effects and lack of effectiveness of corporal punishment take the back seat to a sort of one-upmanship among the lawmakers to determine who endured the worst beatings or threats to physical safety as a child. Thus does the vicious cycle of violence perpetuate itself.

As I write, there is a Bill (H.B. 383) awaiting the signature or veto of Governor Rick Perry of Texas that was easily passed by their state legislature. Child Safety Zone advocates beg that we help them lobby the Governor to veto this bill. Under this misguided bill, children can be whipped with belts, paddles, extension cords or any other painful implement with state approval. For unknown reasons, the child fatality rate from neglect and abuse among Texas children is roughly 65% higher than the national average. Please help the children of Texas by writing to Gov. Rick Perry, PO Box 12428, Austin, TX 78711-2428 and asking him to veto this bill.

The lines between corporal punishment, child abuse, and child sexual abuse are very blurry. Guidelines such as "don't do it if it leaves a mark, hurts, or humiliates," or "it's illegal if the parent is under the influence of drugs or alcohol" are not strong enough. And yet aren't laws against corporal punishment an infringement of parents' rights to raise their children as they see fit? Don't such laws give unruly students the upper hand against school authorities? Shouldn't perpetrators of truly antisocial acts of child abuse and child sexual abuse be incarcerated and removed from the lives of children so that they cannot inflict any further harm?

The answers, in my opinion, are no, no, and (surprisingly perhaps) no. The answer in each case is proactive intervention in the form of classes in non-violent conflict resolution and parental discipline techniques before puberty. True discipline comes from teaching and being a good role model. Hitting children with boards, belts or extension cords is child abuse and teaches children that hitting is the way to solve problems. It is so easy to make a baby, but so difficult to raise one. And incarceration of perpetrators is about as effective as spanking of bullies, namely it stops the immediate behavior but does not address the root problem or teach non-violent alternatives.

At the extreme end of the spectrum of violence against children, child pornography enthusiasts derive sexual pleasure from the severe spanking of children with paddles, canes or other devices. Because videos of those spankings are exchanged through the mail, the FBI has been involved. Although this seems to be a rare fetish, the internet facilitates its growth. In 1996, 113 cases were investigated; last year, there were 1,541. The perpetrators find one another and derive mutual support through internet ommunication.

The fetish is not the province of any particular area, profession, or other demographic. There was an assistant principal in Canada, a computer programmer in Georgia, a railroad employee in Wisconsin, an elementary school teacher in Alabama, a scout master from New York, a Sunday School teacher in Illinois, a father of two teenage girls in Ohio. In this last case, it is doubtful if the case would have even attracted the notice of the courts if the father had allowed the girls to leave their clothes on while he beat them. He claimed he was not a fetishist; he only made them strip to add humiliation to the pain.

I'll spare you the gory details such as specific acts, ages, and names, but this is an example of severe domestic violence that deserves our attention even as we work to end the hostilities in Iraq. While we certainly wish to de-escalate international conflict, we must not neglect those here in our own country who need and deserve our protection - our own children, our hope for the future.