Spanking to Kelly Clarkson

Nothing quite raises the dander of American moms like a parenting issue they can argue as subject matter experts because they’ve raised two kid. Very few women actually raise multiple families of children, save for perhaps undocumented nannies, and even fewer women actually formally study and research parenting. So somewhere around far less than one percent speak from any expertise; all speak regardless.

Spanking is one of those issues that women and occasionally the submissive men they force to love them speak to passionately. Pick a side and defend it like you have more than limited anecdotal experience on the matter. ALL CAPS and exclamation points shall serve in the set of double blind studies.

Kelly Clarkson, the fat country-pop singer who you’re not allowed to call fat, conceded on a radio interview that she occasionally spanks her three-year old on the tush. That’s when the floodgates of self-righteous hell broke loose. On both sides. Being from Texas where people are closer to sane on child rearing issues than the national average, Clarkson herself was whooped occasionally as a child. As were likely almost every single one of her peers. You were probably lucky, and or a girl, if you got away with behind slaps versus more assertive forms of corporal punishment often assigned to mischievous boys.

“So that’s a tricky thing when you’re out in public, ’cause then people are like, you know, they think that’s wrong or something. But I find nothing wrong with a spanking …. I’m from the south, y’all.”

And indeed the Tweets started rolling in from the moms of America with the obligatory claims of abuse, assault, and unnecessary violence of spankings. That and the ladies who feel a need to explain how they raised perfectly great kids without resorting to spanking, but then, they put in the time and effort it took. Hint hint. I’m an amazing mom. Others naturally defended Clarkson by claiming that whacking ass, or the lack thereof, is what determines the very fate of our blessed America. Leaning toward spanking being the essential cure-all for delinquency, crime, and shitty basic cable programming.

As with pretty much every parenting issue such as spanking, there’s absolutely no hard evidence that occasional slaps on ass cheeks either helps or hurts child rearing efforts. Kids always used to be spanked. And while perhaps the generations were more polite, that didn’t stop wars or murder or poverty or AIDS from ruining unprotected sex. Similarly, while the youth seems more entitled and annoying than ever before, that can be attributed to societal changes far more sweeping and essential than whether or not there’s spanking in your home. Shitty public schools, a desire for raise false esteem above accomplishment, and turning everybody into a victim versus teaching them to rise above seem to be far more relevant to the nature of the latest crop of young adults.

What is clear is that spanking remains legal. Maybe not so in California for much longer, but wherever the hell Clarkson is slapping her kid on the buttocks, unlikely it’s criminal. Which means you get to be self-righteous, annoyingly involved, and signal virtue all you want, but you can’t take away her right to spank. Or her pizzas. Live free or die. America.