Since you're giving advice, you should be open to receiving some. As such, you might want to re-read the second paragraph of Spike24's last letter. Apparently, he wants to read such articles in Salon, but, he doesn't think the ones written by Rebecca Traister are insightful or interesting. Can't say I disgree with him.

"Of course, Lansford also concedes that it's hard to tell which problem comes first: Does spanking itself change kids, causing them to assume negative behaviors? Or is it that kids who are fundamentally more aggressive and anxious are simply more likely to provoke their parents' ire? In the end, says Lansford, "on the basis of other work conducted in the United States, the answer is probably some of each."

In other words, they don't know what they're talking about. An eye roll is certainly called for here.

The "reasearch" does not say any such thing. In fact, as I excerpted earlier, the conclusion of the study referenced in the article is contradictory at best.

There is no ideal solution. Different parents do what they think works the best. Also, first you say that discipline and spanking aren't one in the same then you say that spanking is a type of discipline. I think the latter (one being a subset of the other) is more accurate. Whether it's "necessary" or not is up to the parent. I find your personal story interesting because it neatly gets to what I think is an underlying issue and it has little to do with the children. Namely, that one group of people are "right" and the other is "wrong" and the right group must convince the wrong group of it's moral superiority and the error of their ways. All "for the kids" of course....

Apparently, whichever of your parents was spanked by your grandparents turned out to be well behaved and mature too. Now you might say that he/she turned out that way despite being spanked, but, you really couldn't prove that and it would be as meaningless an assertion as your not being spanked and turning out to be well behaved and mature. You might be confusing correlation with causation?

What do you mean where are the men? Let's see here, in the instances described in the article, a married couple had two people working. The woman had a child and decided to "opt out" of the workforce. So, the husband assumed the entire financial responsibility for family. That sounds like a pretty decent compromise to me. Then, the woman decides after several years of raising children that she wants to re-enter the workforce and, for some strange reason, is shocked to discover that she can't pick up right where she left off. Either way, there's no indication that the unnamed men didn't support both decisions and make whatever compromises were necessary. I think you're making another point but are using the wrong reference.

The problem with articles like these is that the "plight" is not particular to working mothers. Most people who took several years away from the careers for whatever reason and then decided to go back them would have an extremely hard time picking up where they left off.

Ah, you've hit on the fatal flaw of implementing the Swedish Solution here. The American expectation of having everything colliding with the American aversion of paying for it.