A Proposal to Ban Spanking Sparks Debate

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 20 — As a general rule, legislators tend to begin
their attack on bills once they have actually been written. But not
much proposed legislation involves the backsides of children.

A
Democratic assemblywoman from Mountain View says she will submit a bill
next week — once it is officially drafted — proposing that California
become the first state in the nation to make spanking of children 3
years old and under a misdemeanor. Penalties could include
child-rearing classes for offenders to one year in jail.

Just
the mention of the bill has become a minor statewide perturbation,
sparking denouncements from many Republican lawmakers (the State Senate
minority leader, Dick Ackerman, declared, “I’m trying to pick a word
other than crazy, let me see, not well thought out.”), heated debates
among parents (“A bill should be passed to allow other parents to smack
the parents of undisciplined children,” wrote one Internet poster) and
some self-reflection on behalf of the governor, whose proclivity for
calling others girly men has been replaced of late with dialoguing
about his feelings.

In an interview with The San Jose Mercury News, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that as a child he “got smacked about everything. That was the way Austria worked.”.............