I was spanked as a child, and I’ve never understood the the view of “hit the child to teach them hitting is wrong.” To me it’s lazy and reactive parenting. I’ve had several conversations with my father-in-law about our not choosing to spank our kids, and he’ll never get it.

I was spanked as a child, and I’ve never understood the the view of “hit the child to teach them hitting is wrong.” To me it’s lazy and reactive parenting. I’ve had several conversations with my father-in-law about his son and I choosing to not spank our kids, and he’ll never get it.

MANY of my relatives and people in my geographic area hounded me endlessly about how spoiled rotten my kids would turn out because I did not spank. Mine are now in college and tremendously successful there. Many of theirs have had some pretty huge problems. (not saying there's cause-effect there).

Interestingly, my mother voices no small amount of guilt over having spanked my brother and I so much, only to see my kids turn out so well without it.

Honestly I don’t even bother trying to converse with people about stuff like this.
What gets me though is that people always compliment me on how well my toddler acts and I don’t pop or spank them.
People like that expect kids to be well behaved 100% of the time.

Yes. It's so,so difficult to talk people out of this bias! My parents spanked me and that's why I'm not a jerk,is a really common argument I hear. It's always folks who stay with abusers,are abusers, are in and out of jail or have major drug problems too. I have given up trying to talk to them and just don't discuss my kids/have my kids around them.

This is a scientific fact and the APA strongly advises against all spanking. I've never found it necessary to hit things that don't do what I want. I'm not a caveman.

Depends on the spanking, how hard, how frequent, etc.