Breaking the Silence on ‘Spanking Culture’: It's Abuse. Period.

I want to talk—really talk—about something that I feel so strongly about, it makes my skin crawl just to see it normalized: physical punishment for children.

I grew up in a home where hitting was the norm. Belts. A massive wooden paddle. Parents who were emotionally unregulated and reacted in anger. I was hit because someone was mad, overwhelmed, or out of control. It was punishment, yes—but more than that, it was power and pain disguised as discipline.

Let me pause to share something I saw online today—because it hit me right in the chest:

“Unpopular opinion: Spanking is not abuse.”

Here’s a response:

So there are two possibilities here: You're hitting a child too young to understand WHY you're hitting them. You're hitting a child old enough to understand why you're hitting them, which means you can reason with them and use another method of discipline. So yeah. Spanking is abuse.

And someone added what I think is the most honest, overlooked truth in the whole debate:

“There’s a third possibility: You yourself have poor emotional regulation and are lashing out the only way you know how to, thus repeating the never-ending cycle. Gentle parenting isn’t about letting your kid do whatever. It’s about teaching them how to regulate their emotions so they can react in ways other than acting out.”

Yes. That. Right there. Gentle parenting doesn’t mean “permissive.” It doesn’t mean your child runs wild and rules the house. It means you lead with emotional maturity instead of pain. It means you teach by example—not through fear.

So no, I don’t want to hear your argument about how “spanking isn’t the same as abuse.”

I don’t want to hear, “It didn’t hurt me,” or “It made me who I am.”

Because here’s the thing: if you’re an adult now and you believe it’s acceptable to hit a small, defenseless child in the name of discipline—then no, you weren’t alright then, and you’re not alright now. You were taught violence. You were taught fear. And now you’re passing it off as “parenting.”

If two adults hit each other, we call it domestic violence or assault.

We press charges. We call the police.

We know it’s wrong.

So why—why—do we justify hitting children, the smallest and most vulnerable among us, and say it’s not abuse?

Please. Someone make that make sense.

I spent over a decade of my life pregnant, breastfeeding, changing diapers, raising kids. I have eight children. They are all close in age—each one born just 18 to 24 months apart. It was chaos at times, beautiful and exhausting and nonstop. And yet, despite being raised in a home where hitting was standard—I did not hit my kids.

I talked to them. I reasoned. I redirected. I set boundaries. I gave them consequences.

I parented—without resorting to violence.

Let’s be clear: choosing not to hit your kids isn’t “gentle parenting.” It’s not permissiveness. It’s not being a pushover. It’s being emotionally aware enough to know that when a child misbehaves, what they need most is guidance, not fear. They need safety, not pain.

Hitting teaches compliance, sure. But not respect. Not emotional regulation. Not trust.

What it teaches is that love is conditional. That power equals pain. That whoever is bigger gets the last word—and the final blow.

And yes, I know this might make people uncomfortable. But sometimes the truth does.

Especially when it threatens the myths we were raised on.

So here it is: Hitting kids is not discipline. It’s violence.

It is not love. It is not guidance. It is not effective.

It is a trauma response, a learned behavior, a cycle that you have the power to break.

Please—for their sake, and yours—wake up.

We can do better. We must do better.

Closing Notes:

I shared the above mentioned conversation on my Threads (gremlinqueenvay).

Go read the comments. It's insane what people excuse in the name of "teaching" children obedience. Disgusting.

Also-

If you hit your kids?

Get the fuck off of my blog.