Hope for America!!

[abaris]

Basically this. If someone has to hit their child then they are at best a lazy incompetent parent.

I haven't been hit even once. I simply can't remember, ever having to go through corporeal punishment although my parents were from a generation where beating a child was still acceptable. Both were born in the early 20ies, but when I did something wrong, my father took me aside and told me a story from his childhood. He lived through the times of two civil wars and Hitler and lost his own father at an early age. And based on these experiences he told me why it was important that children sometimes do what their parents want them to do. To be safe, sometimes to survive.

It sticks to this day, as well as his story about how impressed he was by Hitler's entrance to Vienna, although he belonged to a family that really had no reason to celebrate. He always presented this tale as an example why one should never go by appearances.