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They are wrapping up a week of "no violence" today, these young mothers in Ruth Beaglehole's parenting class.
No slapping a tiny hand that keeps reaching for pieces of forbidden candy. No swatting the backside of a little one who won't stop jumping on the couch or screaming or throwing the remote control.
Today is the third annual National Spank-Out Day, and these Los Angeles teenagers are celebrating their personal victories over the frustration and anger that can make a parent strike a child.
And Beaglehole is hoping that a weekend of rallies across the nation will help spread this message to generations weaned on the notion that a swat to the backside is a sign of love:
"Spanking a child is domestic violence," she says. "It's not an issue of parents' rights. It's a human dignity issue, a social justice issue, a public health issue.
"It is not as complicated as we want to make it. All violence against children is wrong."
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But things are seldom so simple, up close and personal.
On an institutional level, the battle against spanking is being won. Corporal punishment in schools has been outlawed in most states. Child abuse regulations have been tightened to criminalize spanking that leaves bruises or is done with anything other than an open hand.
But on the home front, spanking still reigns as the one method of discipline common to more parents than any other, even among parents who are deeply conflicted about its use.
Although more than 90% of parents admit to spanking their children, 85% say they would rather not, that they resort to spanking only when all else fails, according to a 1998 study in the journal Pediatrics. And more than half of all mothers surveyed said that spanking was the...