I find the hoopla surrounding this to be quite interesting. Hitting a child as a disciplinary action is a very primitive and antiquated way to discipline a child, in my opinion. I'm not a parent, but I have been a child more recently than many of you and I was spanked by my father, who was a bully and a lazy parent. His "discipline" served no purpose but for me to dislike him even more. It never stopped me from doing anything. If anything it made me more defiant of him.

The logic that spanking is okay but other hitting is not is very suspect. Why is this less harmful? Perhaps because it is somewhere where no one will see? Oh wait...I guess that benefits the lazy parent, doesn't it? No matter how you spin it, anytime you hit a child, whether it is across the face or a hard whack on the bum, you are still HITTING your child and causing physical harm as a reaction to something they did (or, as the case may be, hasn't been done). Adults cannot do this to each other, bosses cannot do this to their subordinates, yet the majority of our society says it is okay to do this to children despite the fact that they are a) helpless to defend themselves and b) are developmentally fragile. Children are not property, yet there seems to be a mentality that "this is my child and I can do whatever I want to get them in line." Children do not ASK to be brought into this world; the parents are the one that made the choice. If they are not equipped to set a better example for them or discpline them in a non-violent way (e.g. without taking a shortcut), then they should not be having children at all.

I applaud my home state for proposing this bill, though I doubt it will ever pass.

while i'm uncomfortalbe with any laws prohibiting it, i'm certainly against spanking kids. i think it's only human (when it comes to raising children) to say that because it happened to you and you turned out fine, then it's okay to perpetuate spanking. and indeed, kids can be infuriating and out-of-control. but something i've learned is that spanking often occurs out of anger/fear and your kids in-turn learn it's okay for them to hit when mad/scared- they can't differentiate when it's acceptable that the adult does it and not acceptable from when they do it. yet, i also know that you can't always reason with 2-4 year olds, so i'm not above threatening to swing my child by his feet until he turns into a helicopter and we both fly away. and luckily for all of us, that works just fine (so far).

It would be nice to live a world where people understand that children shouldn't be hit, so that it wouldn't have to be a law. But the fact of the matter is, there are plenty of "parenting experts" who DO espouse hitting very young children. Check out "How to Train Up a Child" by the Pearls. They advocate spanking children who are merely months old, just for acting like babies. Check out James Dobson and his suggestions for breaking your child's spirit. If these things were done to other adults and not defenseless kids, people would wind up in jail for assault, if not worse.

Children deserve the same protection under the law that adults do. I live by what I call the "Bedridden Alzheimers Grandma" rule - if it's not something you would do to your elderly incapacitated Grandmother (striking them, leaving them alone to cry in the dark, having unnecessary cosmetic surgery done to them), then you shouldn't do it to a child. Period.

The article refers to a blanket ban on spanking. However, the bill in question would only ban spanking of children under three years of age. I hope readers will agree that there is a difference between spanking your infant and spanking your second-grader. Personally, I'm not a fan of either, but I think it's very misleading not to clarify what the bill is actually targetting.

Sounds like a case of Stockholm Syndrome here--it is NOT normal for a man to scare his children with his belt, or for a woman to chase her children around the house with spoons or spatulas. That is abuse, plain and simple, and it's hard for me to understand how spanking could be considered any more civilised.

I swatted my child on the bottom once, in a predictable and childish fit of anger over some no doubt minor offense committed when he was three. I swore then that I would never lay another hand on him in anger, and I haven't (he's twelve now, and is big enough to pound me into the ground anyway). Nevertheless, that memory is burned into my mind and I will never forgive myself for losing my temper.

It is well past time that we stopped making excuses for this outrageous behavior. While I'm not so stupid to think this law will put an end to child abuse in California, it's an important first step.

I don't care about the debate if spanking is okay or not. The issue is letting the government and that bureaucratic control into our lives. So stop complaining about parents or what happened to you in your specific childhood. That relevancy in minimal when it comes to creating laws for the whole of society.

I'm sorry if you got a spanking as a young lad or lass and it scared you and now you can't lead a healthy emotional life. Go compose a self indulgent 24 paragraph letter to Carry Tennis about it --but don't support draconian rules to over compensate for bad personal experiences. They're your experiences, not ours.

Bad parents exist, so do good ones. This suggested law won't change anything other than to throw a legal net onto law-abiding folks. No thanks.

The laws for abuse that are on the books are fine. Consider the role of government and if it's overreaching. I'd suggest that this possible bill is indeed just that.