“Smacking laws were never about the real issue of child abuse”
Sue Reid, researcher and writer for Family First NZ
It is a shame that we have a Families Commission that is driven by ideology rather than listening to families. Chief commissioner Jan Pryor espouses her beliefs that “positive parenting should never include a smack” (Herald, April 3). Her so-called justification for the anti-smacking laws are inflammatory and continue to vilify good parents who may use a smack as part of good parental correction.
As a mother of two young children, I resent the constant barrage that fully funded, power-packed organisations such as the Families Commission can constantly deliver from their lofty soap-boxes. One can be left wondering who represents mums like me who are focused on the task of raising good, law-abiding and positive contributors to society. Like many other mums, I know that I wish to parent within a sensible legal framework and we owe it to good parents to get this law right. The new flawed law has tried to link a smack on the bottom with child abuse of the worst kind and has put good parents in the same category as rotten parents who are a danger to their kids and to society.
READ the original Op-Ed from the Families Commission “A positive spin on parenting”
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