Spanking: Ain't nothing wrong with that 6.15.01

(This is the one that got me my Master Columnist Award)

You know you are getting old when you start thinking of teenagers as the "kids these days." I suppose it was inevitable I would hit an age when I could no longer maintain my hipness in the face of change. I have tried for as long as possible to maintain my youthfulness. I have used a combination of staying in college for an obscenely long time, only making friends with 20-year-olds, avoiding long-term employment and never saying things like "well, THAT'S different."
Most importantly, I remain willing to adapt to new and bizarre trends like the Internet, hard-core white rap, bare ass on TV, stuffed crust pizza, a president called Dubya, MTV's "Jackass," a world without Walter Mathau, people who think latte is something more than really strong coffee with milk in it and FoxNews.
Failing to keep up with change will give you a case of future shock big enough to kill a llama. The worst cases leave you a broken shut-in afraid to leave the house, but the mild cases are almost worse. They create in some minds the idea that what is cool peaked in 1985. People stuck in another decade will tell you no good music has been made since Starship broke up and that rap cannot possibly last even though it has been around for nearly 30 years.
I will admit that I am more old-fashioned than I care to admit in some areas and on one subject in particular. That subject is more taboo than strip poker on Sunday. If you are sensitive, turn away now because no one wants to force you to absorb the following opinion. Ready?
I have a lingering attachment to corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is a fancy, Latin way of saying "hitting people." We need to bring hitting back into vogue.
When did corporal punishment become synonymous with abuse? I decry abuse and despise the abusive, but I think it is wrong to dismiss simple spanking as abusive, in fact, it is quite the opposite. When you spare the rod, you spoil the child.
Grandma was right because children are not morally responsible individuals capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. You cannot have an intelligent discussion with a 5-year-old about the ethical consequences of their actions. You cannot explain to someone who has no real understanding of pain let alone a realistic concept of their own mortality why they should not run out into traffic. "Why" shouldn't enter into it, only "because I said so."
By the time most kids get to their teens these days, they are uncontrollable, borderline sociopaths capable of anything from harassing the elderly to school shootings. Don't blame video games, the media and Marilyn Manson. Blame the namby-pamby policies that make it impossible for a parent to grab their kids by the arm in a public place and tell them if they do not stop screaming, they are going to get paddled.
A quick survey of the malls and grocery stores of Council Bluffs should be enough to convince most intelligent, moral and right-thinking individuals that not enough children are being hit in just the right way to convince them that proper standards of behavior must be observed.
At exactly what point did it become acceptable for kids to walk around like a bunch of little animals? As the French say, here's an example: I'm walking into Super Saver last week and some 13-year-old, white, middle-class Snoop Dogg wannabe is walking out behind his mother who is pushing about $165 worth of groceries. I was minding my own business, though I might have been wondering why this kid wasn't pushing the cart for his mother, when Lil' Eminem fixes me with a steely, Clint Eastwood-style glare like he's gonna bust a cap in my face for looking at him the wrong way. And I think to myself, what kind of "Children of the Corn" guano is this? Back in the day, kids didn't mess with adults. We weren't smarter or better, we just had a healthy fear for the consequences.
So many kids today are ill-mannered thugs looking for an excuse to prove you are powerless to stop them from going all "Lord of the Flies" whenever the urge strikes.
When it started to occur to me that "these kids today" were worse than when I was a kid, I dismissed it as the first sign of old age. A quick survey of friends, family and former teachers convinced me I was not just getting old, but that we have created a generation of mean-spirited monsters. One teacher I talked to said any complaints he had about "dirty hippies" in the '70s was premature because those students were at least civil to each other once in a while. Students of the '90s were so mean, he said, it was truly frightening. And the cause for all of this incivility? People just don't hit their kids enough.
What happened to the America of the past, the one I knew and loved growing up? When parents could spank their kids for pushing at the public pool or give them a mild slap on the mouth for cussing? What happened to that country where parents could threaten their kids to keep them in line? Does anyone honestly think we are living in a better country for sparing the rod?
I believe wholeheartedly that there is nothing wrong with your kids knowing that if they cross the line, they've got a whoopin' coming to them. Respect, common courtesy and healthy fear are not always things you can teach a child about. Sometimes it takes a spanking.