Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette has once again introduced a bill that would make parental spanking of children a criminal offence. We speak here not of abuse, not of a closed fist on a child’s face or any other such horror. No, this concerns the occasional and moderate use of an open hand on, perhaps, a child’s buttocks. The bill is nothing new and nor, forgive the pun, is the sentiment behind it.
The state has for some time assumed that it can raise families more efficiently and compassionately than, well, the family itself. The arguments against such intrusion are legion and will doubtless be repeated in the coming weeks. But first we should think of the Perry family. It was a decade ago and 5-year-old Gavin had kicked the cat. His father told him to stop but Gavin was in a bad mood. So Joe Cleary did what many parents might do and spanked him. It left a very slight mark and this was noticed by Gavin’s swimming teacher. She reported it to her supervisor, who in turn reported it to the local Children’s Aid Society.
The first thing that happened was a telephone call from a young social worker to Joe’s wife, Perry, the mother of their six children. The social worker asked to interview little Gavin. “I’ll have to speak to my husband first”, said the heavily pregnant Perry. The social worker was incredulous and asked why a woman would have to speak to her husband? “Because” replied Perry, “he is my husband, because he is Gavin’s father and because he is the head of the house.” One could have heard a radical feminist pin drop!
A month later the police came to arrest Joe Cleary. They handcuffed him in front of his workmates and employers, arrested him and charged him with assault. This honest, hard-working man was now incarcerated for two days. “It was hellish, it really was. I had to fend off sexual advances from other men, had to watch out for some guys around me who were in there for horrible, sadistic violence. Forgive the cliché, but it was like a dark, dark nightmare.”
The court appearance was brief and bail was set at $1000. Perry raised the money but her offer was rejected. Back to the dropping of the radical feminist pin. The 22-year-old social worker who was handling the case explained that Perry had referred on the phone to her husband as being “the head of the house” and that this was to be used by the prosecution as evidence the couple had a “slave-master” relationship.
It wasn’t easy for the money to be found elsewhere but somehow the family managed. Bail conditions initially prevented Joe from having any contact with minors, thus stopping him from seeing his family. Perry, now with a 10-day-old baby in her arms, protested and eventually her husband was allowed to return home. There were seven more court appearances, with the crown demanding continuances and further investigations. “It was almost as if they were trying to punish us, as though they took a special delight in treating us as criminals” say the Clearys. Finally the judge dismissed the charges, but the couple’s legal bills came to more than $10,000.
The entire family was in shock and Joe is sure that if it hadn’t been for the strength of his union he may well have been fired. As for young Gavin, none of the people responsible for this persecution seemed to care about him very much. This happy, loving little boy was left to wonder why police officers and social workers were hurting his mum and dad.
No apologies, no contrition, no explanation. Nor is the case in any way unique. Spanking is illegal in Sweden, for example, and there are horror stories of families being torn apart on the flimsiest of pretexts. There, and elsewhere, it seems that over-zealous social workers take a particular delight in targeting Christian families. Beware those who would try to fix what is not and has never been broken. Their smiling concern tends to be enforced with a brutal rigidity. A rigidity, by the way, that stings far worse than a spank on the bum.
“A popular slogan these days is, ‘What would Jesus do?’ This becomes the most reliable Biblical authority for Christians when it comes to hitting children. Jesus just wouldn’t do it. Why, then, should we?”
-Rev. Thomas E. Sagendorf – Senior Pastor, Bexley United Methodist Church (Ohio)
So what you are saying is that the system works. Good…..good. Maybe what the young boy needed was some good catholic priestly guidance. Nope…sorry; that still would have involved swelling of the bum.
She keeps introducing the same bill year after year and it has zero chance of passage.
This will lead not only children to Disobedience to their parents but Disobedience to God! & as Christ mentions what will be consider good(a little spank) will be considered bad & what is considered bad will be considered good in the age of Discouragement & Deceit.Another attack on the family.
But I bet the good senator would have no problem letting James Latimer get away with killing his less-than-perfect daughter.
At least PETA didn’t go after the child for kicking the cat.
Rock that Hobby Horse any faster and you’re going to have to apply more graphite soon. My question is not with the spanking, but the mark and how many days after getting whacked did his swimming lesson happen. Spanking is a last resort, for most good parents, but hitting that hard so as to leave a mark, small or not Michael is really questionable on the fathers part.
I can remember each and every time a parent or grandparent struck me. The idea that they were doing what was best for me and it was for my own good never entered my mind. To my way of thinking,back then, they were beating me. However slight the assault. Didn’t matter to me whether it was a cuff on the back of the head or a severe whipping with the barbwire wrapped hockey stick (Dad and Grampa were Catholic). It was still hitting. Nice thing to teach a child; if you don’t like what somebody is doing—hit them.
Toby:
Byron: Good point. Kinda puts things in perspective.
Broccoli: Hard to get around that one, but not-spanking is another ideal we have trouble living up to. But do you want to see spanking become illegal?
I wish parents would do something with those rugrats that don’t know how to behave in public. How about we spank the parents instead?
So where’s the outrage for the Child-Abuse in Toronto every year when naked men get to expose themselves to little boys during the PRIDE parade as Miller and Barbara Hall allowed it to not offend the Rainbow thugs wanting a special dispensation from the U.N. Convention for Children’s Rights that details how the nudity is a violation along with the same-gender parents allowed in Canada now.
AND……since females have the highest murder rate for children( majorty are relations) and babies,why not question the safety issue for children when we allowed 2 females to be parents which doubles the risks for the child being killed. We also see the new crisis for Domestic violence among Lesbians that is 2 to 3 times the Str8 population so now it begs the question for Susan G. Cole’s odds for being a risk as a lesbian with a child and lesbian spouse in the house.
NOW newspaper loves to portray men as violent by birth , but Susuan has a son and is she telling him who evil and violent he will be one day just because a Muslim went Jihad in a Montreal school to kill 14 females because of his misoygnyistic father that practised a strict Shariah Law?
How quickly the enlightened Liberals toss our children to the abusers and quasi-pedophiles while demonizing the Str8 parents who shouldn’t have the Charter Right to raise their kids with some spanking to correct bad behavior.
Someone ask this Nabob if she agrees that it is unhealthy and Child-Abuse for naked men in public to expose themselves to children as the Police and Mayor of Toronto do squat to stop it. If it is wrong and Child-abuse, does that make the Mayor compilict by his failure to stop it and give Tax Dollars to fund it while the Mayor also promotes the Parade as a “family Event”.
Maybe for John Wayne Gacey ( the pedophile) it’s a family event for tourists, but shame on Toronto for enabling and endorsing Child-abuse in public with our money.
@Gary Woodhead. I too am outraged. Where do I sign up for your team. I want in. Liberals want to jail parents. Moral conservatives want to beat children to death. Toronto wants to legalize baby raping. Ontario wants to aid and abet animal sex. Where will it end? Where does it start? Who ya gonna call? Tourists taking child-sex vacations to Missasauga? I’m beside myself. Gary, send me some pictures. Make them lurid,please. I need to disgust myself in preparation for the march. The sky is falling.
There is no excuse for hitting children anywhere, anyhow, anytime.
A child needs consistency; clear boundaries must be set; reasons must be given when a child is told to stop doing something, even if the reason is “because I’m your dad and I said so.” If, after explaining to your child why a certain behaviour needs to stop the child continues, there should definitely be punishment. There are any number of ways to discipline a child without resorting to violence; I had my TV and road hockey privileges revoked and it was extremely effective.
Unfortunately many of the “time out” generation of parents cannot tolerate the sound of their child crying when he’s sent to his room, nor do they have the guts to stick to the discipline arrangement. Don’t say “no TV for 2 weeks” and then cave in after 3 days.
Poor child behaviour is the fault of the parents. Don’t make it worse by beating the children.
I had the strap from teachers for minor things, it didn’t bother me, nor did the spanking from my parents, as they thought enough of me to teach me Right from Wrong. The kids now a days sure need something as they are terrible. They don’t care if hurt or they kill people being they have never been corrected properly.
I spanked my daughter once and she came and said Mom, I didn’t know you loved me anough to hit me. I said if that’s what it takes I can do so. She is the very best of my children.
Old rule was spare the rod spoil the child. My view is if my parents had not spanked me when it was felt needed, I would likely be dead or in prison for something I did to someone else, like what is going on now days. Spanking is not abuse if done when needed, it is when the problem keeps going on till they just blow. I am 72 now and still do not harbour any ill feelings against teachers or parents.
Actually, it is more than to spank and or not to spank. It the fact that this very controversial issue and the proposed law to make it criminal, is now yet another strike against so many, who do indeed do spank and would now are be labeled as criminals. Of course I suppose this would end the controversy of spanking, since now, and no matter what, it is indeed a crime to spank. So as the pendulum of law swings, it could soon be considered abuse, if a child/teenager doesn’t have a cell phone. In most statutes, laws, etc. there has been an attempt to define abuse. And apparently the definition of spanking is indeed still too much of a gray area for those agencies who are appointed to save our children in the name of abuse.
To C. Bell I wonder why you know so many terrible children. I’m thinking it’s not them; it’s you, and your perceptions of them. You can tell yourself your daughter thanked you for beating her but that does not make it true. By the way …are you John’s wife? I sense a common thread.
People like you make my gorge rise. You delude yourself into thinking you beat your kids into greatness and that should be the norm. It’s really just stupid and lazy parenting as you will not bother to use strategy over the strap. I bet your daughter resents you and she does not even know why.
Also…”spare the rod and spoil the child” does not bespeak of beatings. The rod in the old saying is the stick olde tyme shepherds used to herd the flock. They did not beat with it; they used it for direction and guidance. Why would you beat a sheep? Why should you beat a child?
I’m only using StatsCan numbers and the Police reports for Domestic violence among Lesbians as reported in the STAR in late 2009.
Currently I’m about to set up a Website to expose Canadian Corporations that have Businesses in Sex-Tourism Nation that also enable Pedophile Sex for Str8 males. So don’t think I’m not aware of the Heterosexual violence and Abuse to children , and don’t think I won’t go after the Public Sector Unions that are Pro-Hamas and do not denouce
the murdering of Gays in Gaza .
Then we have the Teachers and CUPE/OPSEU/CUPW members that give our Tax Dollars to the Communist Cuba that jailed Homosexuals with AIDS so they didn’t bother the Tourists.
The new generation of Students that wear Che T-Shirts and Hamas scarfs are merely useful idiots not aware that Che used to beat-up and rape females and then kill the odd one for kicks, so this begs the question for when the Feminists will start wearing a Marc Lepine T-Shirt in support for the end to Islamophobia that drove Gamil Gharabi to kill 14 female students.
Those that want to be Pro-Child Abuse do have that Right in the Charter, but to enable and endose Child-Abuse in Public during the PRIDE parade is more of an indictment to the Rainbow movement that asserts
that 2 same-gender parents are better then the abusive Str8 couples.
abe:
Tell me why you feel so Threatened by someone wanting to put Pedophiles in jail and stop the Child-Abuse in all its form ????
Susan G. Cole does bash men and Str8′s on a regular basis as she pretends to be a Comedian and do it in the guise of “Artistic value” , StatsCan and the Police just proved that a Child is as higher risks for being killed in a 2-female rearing home and having 2-lesbians as the Parents since they have a disproportionally high rate for spousal abuse above the Str8 Stats for spousal abuse.
Michael :
I really sorry if some of the people that post here are living in a false-reality and become defensive when it is threatened with the Facts that force them to accept they are wrong and then experience personal growth.
I used to be young and stupid which is normal as most teens think they know everything , but I used foresight to see how pathetic I would be in 30 years if I chose to stay stupid as tyhe World’s oldest Teenager.
Well said Mrs. Bell. God disciplines those he loves.If you are not disciplined;you are not loved. Period.
Just another note about the bi-Polar disorder that is tied to the Arts community , while the truth of it is kept quiet in canada to not offend people….I know for a fact that any APA or canadian Psychological Scociety medical journal has proven that Homosexuals have the highest rate per-capita for bi-Polar . This explains the high rate for depression and suicide that is NOT from Homophobia but a existing mental illness , when we choose to ignore the reality of a crisis it merely causes more harm to the victims that are pushed off to the side or sacrificed on the altar of Political Correctness from the Thought Police at the Human Rights Commissions.
Don’t blame me because the facts offend someones version of reality.
During my childhood I was spanked regularly and to this day still enjoy a good spanking.
Michael,
If Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette were to introduce a bill to ban abortion would you be against the state intruding on the right of a woman to control her reproductive capability?
Steven:
When the Scientists and Computers get the ability to decode the DNA and find the Gay-gene , will you still support Abortion on demand if it’s gender-cide abortions and Homo-Cide abortions by the mothers not wanting to put their child though a life of harm?
We already have the majority of abortions done to female babies, so I can’t see how the RAINBOW/Femisists could one day change their tune to deny the Pro-Choice females the Right to abort a gay baby.
Early tests can prove the high % chance for a disease and sexual preference and gender of the child before the actual baby is forming in the 3rd to 4th month, so how would the pro-choice people get to over ride the Charter Rights for private Medical records to know what females is aborting for what reason?
We have no Abortion Laws , and I predicted in the 1990′s that the feminists and Homosexuals will rue the day they Marched for Abortion On Demand because Politicians will one day claim we are so far in debt that it’s cheaper to put-down ill seniors and to Abort disabled babaies or abort a baby to a poor parent. Margaret Sanger was all for Eugenics and want Blacks to have forced Abortion and sterilize the mentally ill females or disabled.
I guess when the right people can package the Eugenics plan better than Goebbels and Hitler did, it will become easier to accept because our leaders will use it to promise there will be “No new taxes” in Ontario.
BTW
Steven, when Abe Lincoln abolished Slavery was that State interference? , because the same types of Lawyer’s and Judge’s that defended Slave owners are the same ones today that look at laws and don’t see the Moral wrongs in them or the harm.
Just because South Africa’s treatment of Blacks didn’t effect me in canada, it didn’t mean I couldn’t have an opinion or Human Rights stance to oppose it.
I think the Public Sector Unions in canada should stop excusing away the actions of hamas, Hezballah, the taliban and Cuba that jailed Homosexuals with AIDS to hide them from the Canadian Tourists with their CUPE buttons and OPSEU hats on the beaches. Omar Khadr is in a Cuba prison that is rented out to the USA for $4000.00 a month , that makes our Unions complicit in any alleged Torture at GITMO and also the Amnesty International Canada that has been mute on Cuba Communist thugs that keept the people poor for the cheap labour.
Isn’t it so odd that even the Postal Union workers vacation in Cuba and take picture of Che Guavera Icons to bring back while not having a clue that he was a murderous thug that beat-up females befor he’d rape them and then he’d kill the odd one to sht the up.
Now that the Media is finally telling the truth about the Montreal massacre being a Jihad by Gamil Gharabi that followed his father Shariah law teachings about females, I wonder if the femists will now wear the Che/Gamil T-Shirts and buttons on Campus to denouse capitalism and Islamophobia at the same time. No doubt Gamil will be a 21 century Icon for Liberals because he’s a victim of Islamophobia in Canada and was driven to kill the 14 female students.
Gary,
You sound like another Pope loving anti-free choice, homophobic crusader. Coren will love you.
Steven, you sound like another baby-killing, anti- free speech jihadi.
Osama and Dr Death Morgentaler would love you.
Byron,
Baby-killing? You anti free-choice people are so dramatic.
Reynold,
Those who wish to impose their will on others are no better than the nazis or communists.
abe:
here’s a audio for you by NDP’s MPP Cheri Dinovo where she support me that naked men exposing themselves to children are arrested because it is a Crime and Chidl-abuse.
http://www.640toronto.com/HostsandShows/JohnOakley/Audio.aspx
Scroll down to the February 11 2011 file and listen for the MPP declare that the PRIDE TNT men are breaking the Law and child-abusers. It’s her words not mine, listen at the 10:50 and on mark as she states that it is currently a crime for men/Adults to expose themselves to children.
You can still be pro Child-abuse, but you are on the wrong side of History and so is Barbara Hall when she was Mayor and allowed the Abuse.
Homphobia of Lowere Expectations is at work here because Ms.hall and Miller seem to have lowered the bar for Child-abuse when the abusers profess to be gay and are on Yonge Street right in front of the Police-Pride Officers that also do squat as if to think this child-abuse is normal.
Maybe in the gay village it may be, but the Law and the UNICEF convention for Children’s rights says it is child-abuse. Now if only Barbara Hall and Ms.Dinovo from the United Church would put down the negative bias towards children and
start protecting them from perv’s everywhere.
There is no evidence that the TNT men are all STR8 males,there may be a NAMBLA member among them and the Police fear an arrest becaue Ms.Hall will defend the Abuser and not the child being abused .