Valerie

First of all...to Dawn: apology accepted. I'm not trying to pick fights with
anyone or drag anyone down. As Melissa said, this is supposed to be
supportive to all unschoolers. We can disagree and live.

This is my last remark on spanking (promise)(well, for now anyway)....All I
can figure is some people can't distinguish between a single swat on the
behind (that only stings for a second and doesn't leave a mark) and a
whipping, thrashing, or beating. I'm sorry that people have been so abused
that any kind of spanking constitutes violence to them. I mean that....I'm
very sad for their suffering. But that does not make the kind of spanking I
am talking about abusive. If it turns their stomach, by all means, they
shouldn't spank. The same doesn't hold true for me since we are different
people with different children.

The logic of comparing an adult paddling another adult or "would you want
your husband to do that to you?" or "if it isn't okay in public, why is it
okay in your home" also doesn't work for me. The family unit is unique.
Children are not adults. I am not my husband's child to bring up. We treat
each other like a married couple. It wouldn't be appropriate to do many
things in a grocery store....change a diaper for instance. Have an intimate
conversation. Make love. That doesn't make those things wrong...they just
need privacy. It also wouldn't be appropriate for another adult outside our
family to do many things that we do in our home. I wouldn't want someone
other than my husband to walk up and give me a passionate kiss (okay, unless
it was Sean Connery). I wouldn't anyone else to breastfeed my babies. And I
wouldn't want anyone else to spank my children...and I don't spank others'
kids either.

I read a comment once that spanking a bare bottom was sexual abuse. I think
that is insulting to anyone who's really suffered sexual abuse. I wonder
what that person thinks of wiping a poopy bottom? It's certainly more
intimate. These things are just taken too far. Real abuse is criminal. It
shouldn't be muddled and trivialized by lumping ordinary spanking in with
it. I hope I am being more understandable this time.

----Valerie