Surprising as the sunrise

"Study links child abuse to spankings with belts, switches"

People get understandably touchy when talking about child-rearing, but take a look at these paragraphs:

A study released today by doctors at UNC-Chapel Hill finds that parents who spank their children with an object — such as a belt, switch or paddle — are nine times more likely to abuse their child through more severe means.

Also, parents are much more likely to beat, burn or shake their children if they spank frequently, according to the study, which is being published by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine.

I don't think all physical discipline is necessarily abuse, but it shouldn't actually be controversial to say that physical violence is something that, for our retarded simian brains, gets easier with practice.

And because I can't resist an international politics analogy -- lookee here, the interfamiliy arms race!

"Parents get angry when they're spanking, and it's not working," said Adam Zolotor, lead author of the study and a pediatrician at UNC-CH's Department of Family Health. "If a child gets spanked so often, they just don't care anymore and will misbehave anyway."

A child learns to resist physical discipline, so the parent's violence gets harsher, so eventually we get into truly horrific stuff like children being beaten or burned. Sometimes to death.