To smack or not to smack?

David Lammy MP has sparked a furious debate about a parent’s right to smack their children. He himself admitted to ‘occasionally smacking’ his own young children. London Mayor Boris Johnson waded into the debate arguing that it is up to the discretion of the parent and the ‘State should not interfere’.

Into this potential explosive debate comes race and class with the assertion that, ‘working class children and in particular, Black working class children somehow cannot be reasoned with and need corporal discipline’.

The subject is difficult and complex but with basic analysis involving race and class we are in danger of making policies based upon crude stereotypes.

Being brought up on a council estate in Leicester, my parents never needed to raise a finger to enforce discipline. Now as a father of a young boy, I would feel that as a parent I would have failed if I couldn’t demand discipline from my child without corporal punishment.

But this shocking YouTube video in which a teenager is almost completely out of control does demand us to debate and perhaps offer support to families that are having difficultly with parenting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypz8uE9uo-g

What do you think?

Simon Woolley