One the one hand, back in June, Judge Jose Longoria sentenced a mother to 5 years probation, with a $50 fine, and ordered the mom to attend a parenting class after the mother was arrested for spanking her two-year old on the bottom. The mom did not use an item to spank the child, and the spank did not leave a bruise. The only damning evidence in the case was a red mark left on the girls bottom and noticed by the child's grandmother. Details are lacking on the time elapsed between the spanking and the time when grandma noticed the red marks, as well as how the mom and grandma(mother-in-law issues, maybe) got along before the incident.
Meanwhile, just a few days ago, the Huntington Independent School District had a board meeting where one of the topic's was: 'adding corporal punishment as a more readily available option'.
Wow.
Now, I know that sooner or later, someone like Sabra will be along to let me know that Texas is a BIG, BIG place, with all kinds of different people, but you can understand why a yankee like me might be confused.
Personally, I am A-Okay with some spanking. I have been known to spank my children. Nothing wrong with a hand on the bottom...even bare bottom. It's going to leave a red mark, and while I have never timed it, I know that the red mark will fade, and not leave any bruising if properly done.
I think the judge was totally out to lunch with a blanket statement like:
No...I don't understand.“You don’t spank children today,” said Longoria, “in the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children. You understand?”
I do agree with the judge a bit, in that this is not the old days. If this lady had used some instrument(most commonly a belt, or wooden spoon were used on my butt), then yes, in this day and age it would probably be over the top, and punishment might be justified.
So far, the Texas Attorney General's Office has declined to take a stand on whether spanking your child is now illegal statewide. Their website does have the following statement though:
'Texas law allows the use of force, but not deadly force, against a child by the child's parent, guardian, or other person who is acting in loco parentis. 'I hate seeing the legal system tied up in frivolous stuff, but this is one situation where I wish this lady had some technicality to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court.
'Most parents do, in fact, use corporal punishment at least occasionally, and most do not, in fact, consider it abusive.'
CPS in this state has a habit of a) going after the wrong people and b) overstepping its bounds. I'm gonna go out on a limb & guess this judge makes a habit of rubber-stamping whatever the agency puts in front of him. It's a direct contravention to State law & to the agency's own guidelines, but sadly it doesn't surprise me. I've seen them do this sort of thing more than once--I have a cousin whom the agency forced to put her kids in public school (rather than continuing to home school them), for example, & they routinely interview children at school without prior notification to the parents, which is against state law.
ReplyDeleteI have heard from other people that the situation with CPS or corresponding agencies is about as bad in other states (look at Florida, for instance). But it's dreadfully hard to argue for reform; after all they exist for the good of the children.