Hitting?

Honest question: If a woman is being rude in the grocery store, should I be allowed to hit her? If a sibling of mine is being generally disrespectful, should I hit them? Say there’s a belligerent old man who insults me when I walk past his house. Is striking him an appropriate response?

Is there literally ANY circumstance in society at large under which another person behaving in a way you don’t like can be appropriately responded to by hitting them?

Then why the hell do we hit kids?

I get it, I get it. You were spanked as a kid and you turned out just fine! But here’s the thing: If part of your core philosophy about how you treat others is that hitting people is good because it makes them better people, maybe you didn’t turn out as respectful and upstanding as you think you did.

If you believe kids “need” to be hit in order to learn respect, then you’re not doing a very good job of MODELING respect for them. If the only way you know to get a person to listen to you is to hit them if they don’t, then you haven’t EARNED respect from them. And believe it or not–and this may shock you–kids count as people.

If you honestly don’t know how to handle confrontation with someone 1/4 your size (or less) without hitting them; don’t know how to command attention without hitting them; don’t know how to engage with them when they are upset or acting out without hitting them; don’t know generally how to interact with a child on their level in a way that they understand; then there is a problem much bigger than whatever you think makes your kid deserve to be hit.

And I don’t care how you spin it–spanking is, literally, hitting your children. I don’t care if it “comes from a place of love.”