Why does everyone seem so proud of this headline?
The responses to the the “Anti-Smacking” bill as reported by the nightly news and major newspapers leave me quite frankly gob-smacked. Now there is a petition to repeal the bill and put the motion to referendum. There seems to be a lot of anger directed towards the government around this legislation.
Here are some genuine things people should be angry about:
-There are children who live in real fear of excessive violent discipline from their parents.
-Parents who are genuinely abusive towards children are often not prosecuted because of ambiguities in the law, the “anti-smacking” bill is basically an attempt to correct this.
-The bulk of popular media outlets have accepted the blatantly inaccurate description of the bill as an “anti-smacking bill” as verbatim and turned an important issue into an anti government mud slinging fest.
The common lines of protest seem to fall into two general categories:
1:We will end up living in a draconian police state where good parents will be prosecuted unjustly for even the slightest “light smacking” (what ever that means).
This is absurd, does any sane person honestly think this would be the case?
2: The Labour government is trying to tell people how to live their lives and raise their children.
This issue is more complex, but not especially so. Through the process of law making we establish the collective rules which define acceptable behavior for our society. Deciding on the content of laws is one of the things we elect our government to do. The details and precedents for the enforcement of important laws are fleshed out through the process of trial by jury on a case by case basis. The opposition to this bill indicates two possible things in my opinion:
1: People think the use of violent force to discipline children should be considered acceptable in our society.
On this point I disagree and this is where the debate should be focussed.
2: Historically New Zealand’s politics tend to swing towards change every two terms or so, the Labour government has been elected for three and counting. What ever they do is going to be subject to a negative public backlash no matter how irrational.
Popular news outlets seem very comfortable riding this trend and are irresponsibly airing the opinions of all sorts of extreme (and probably of partisan political motivation) quacks who fuel the debate in no helpful way.
I would have assumed most people desire to live in a society where they do not have to worry about being physically injured by another person.
There are plenty of effective ways to keep a kid in line without giving them a whack. Watch Super Nanny if you are really short of ideas.
Violence breeds violence and kids who get hit by their parents are more likely to go out in the playground and hit other kids.
Trying to break the cycles of violence from previous generations can only be seen as a positive thing. How is this view not mainstream?
The bill is not about smacking. It is about belting and beating.
What is it that is so special about children that should make it legal to hit them when it is not legal to hit anyone else?
We have assault laws to prevent this sort of behavior between adults and we do not see the law running wild and prosecuting people who do not deserve it.
What is it that the people who oppose this law are really trying to say? Could they please get to the real issue and leave kids out of it?
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4 Comments
You said… “The bill is not about smacking. It is about belting and beating.”
So why was the bill referred to as the “Anti-Smacking Bill” on the Green’s website? Read the law - it outlaws smacking in any degree.
Hi, I can’t find the example you mention, could you be more specific?
As I understand it there is no new law being drafted, they are repealing a section of the law because it had let serious offenders off the hook.
The Green party post their policy here.
I love this post - it’s such a lucid comment on the issue. I think it’s interesting that some people are so outraged by the idea that what happens behind closed doors in the privacy of the “family” might be subject to intervention from the outside - in the form of ” the law” or interpellation by the police. This used to apply to women also - it used to be legal for husbands to rape and beat their wives. And legislative changes that make this fully unacceptable, and changes to the power that police have to enforce prosecution have been extremely important to changing the way that people view these kinds of activities. It’s only one step - people outside of violent relationships still won’t intervene and those within may not ask for help, but as a society we’re clear about what’s right. And I don’t see people attempting to make violence of women within the family legal again. Granted, women within marriage are now regarded as autonomous adults in a way that children simply can’t be either philosophically or legally, but the idea that physical violence is an unacceptable mode of interaction between people who are intimate is something that seems intuitive - as Rowan says, “how is this view not mainstream?” Perniciously I think it actually is - but we’re being held to account over the anti-smacking bill by a few people who have a really knee-jerk reaction to the intervention into their “privacy” that I mentioned at the start of this comment, and for reasons that are probably to do with their own political and personal positionality. I have to assume that Rowan is such a lucid commentator on this particular legislative change because he has no kids and is thus not directly affected by it except as a member of the society to which it applies. Which is interesting. I’m not letting that change the fact that I agree with him 110 though.
“1: People think the use of violent force to discipline children should be considered acceptable in our society.”
No, there are a lot of people who feel that the use of ‘physical’ force should be an option. Far too many people fail to make the distinction between physical force and violent force. The Heimlich Maneuver, which saves lives, is very likely to cause harm to a person, should we ban it on the same grounds? What about a Tracheotomy?
I reiterate, there is vast difference between physical force and violent force. Do we stop police using physical force to restrain people? No, but we do stop them using violent force.