I can’t speak for all parents, but I’m not scared to spank mine. Spanking is not illegal, and there are plenty of parents who still do it. My husband and I choose not to hit our kids in any way because we think there are better ways to discipline.
I know a lot of people with kids. Most of the kids are just normal kids who sometimes screw up or do stupid things. Some of them are spanked, and some are not. The absolutely worst behaved kids I know (relatives of ours) are spanked. They are still terrors. Not because they are spanked, but because their parents are clueless and inconsistent. They might spank a kid for doing something once, but the next twenty times the kid misbehaves, there are no consequences at all. My kids aren’t perfect, but they are manageable and don’t get into trouble at school. I can take them out into public without incident. They are not easy kids—they’re all stubborn, type A, outgoing, intelligent, stubborn, determined, stubborn…and yet, we don’t have to resort to physical punishment to teach them right from wrong. That’s just our choice.
Being spanked didn’t ruin me or my husband, or the vast majority of people I know who were spanked or even slapped. My dad used his belt when we were really in trouble, and all that taught us was to run, hide, or lie like hell when we’d done something wrong. Spanking or not spanking isn’t the determining factor in parenting, and trying to solve all of today’s problems by saying children should be spanked or hit is simplistic.