Woman fights to banish spanking

  • Kristi O’Harran / Herald Columnist
  • Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:00pm
  • Local News

1986: Eli Creekmore, 3, is battered into a coma by his father and his father’s girlfriend.

1998: An Everett baby dies of shaken baby syndrome.

2000: An Arlington boy, 7, is beaten on the head and genitals leaving deep bruises.

Did any of these start as spankings?

With more than 2,000 cases of child abuse reported each year in Snohomish County, we aren’t surprised that children die at the hands of their parents.

Today is SpankOut Day USA. It started in 1998 as an effort to end corporal punishment and promote non-violent ways of teaching children to behave.

The international effort is spearheaded in Everett by Susan Moroso, an interpreter for the deaf with the Everett School District.

She is one voice, hoping to get even one parent to stop spanking children.

Try it for one day, she pleaded. For those who hit their children, Moroso asked one pertinent question: Did it change the behavior?

If it didn’t work, why spank the child over and over again?

An excellent point.

"Spanking is hitting," said Moroso, 49. "It’s wrong."

I expected her to share a sad story about personal abuse, but this sunny Southern belle talked about her mother who made rainy Georgia days fun and her father who built fruit sorting machines. She saw the agony of students who were paddled at school and said she was spanked now and then at home.

"I turned out OK, but that was then and this is now," she said. "You and I are both aware of just how violent our society has become. As responsible adults, I hear people talking about being safe all the time. Part of being safe is not hitting children. And no matter how you coat it, hitting is hitting."

On a recent trip to South Carolina, Moroso, who said she can’t even step on a bug, discovered students were still paddled in the school system.

"That was the catalyst," Moroso said. "I’m not not talking about it."

One of the defining moments of my husband Chuck’s life was getting paddled in front of his California school mates when he was in the first grade.

Chuck bumped into a buddy’s lunch tray and it fell. My husband was taken to the front of the crowded lunchroom and paddled by the principal. He can’t even talk about it without getting sad and angry. Chuck said to this day it remains one of the worst moments of his life.

Moroso understood his pain.

"Do they not see that we tell children not to hit, then we turn right around and hit them?" Moroso said. "When big people solve their problems by hitting little people, do they not see that the lesson they really wanted to teach is not the one learned?"

After I talked to Moroso at Madison Elementary School, a place she said was the coolest school, I stopped at a department store.

A little boy, about 5, was zipping in and out of the clothes racks. His mother told him he was going to get his behind blistered when they got home. The little boy kept zipping in and out of the clothes racks.

He was probably used to getting hit. According to the Center for Effective Discipline at www.stophitting.org/, hitting destroys self-esteem and trust. Fear is not an appropriate way to teach good behavior. Check out that Web site for guidelines to raising a well-behaved child without raising a hand.

When tots are being nice in the store, stop and give them a hug. Model good behavior. Someone who loves you shouldn’t hurt you. We can start by not letting school staff hit children. Almost half of our states allow spanking on campus.

Moroso wrote to Gov. Gary Locke about corporal punishment in Washington schools. Someone replied that very limited corporal punishment is allowed under RCW 9A.16.100.

"I want to eradicate corporal punishment from all of our schools," Moroso said. "I have seen the color of concord grapes on a child’s bottom who was so severely spanked she could not sit at circle time. And for that one child there are countless others."

She said she doesn’t want to be a judge and jury, but she will speak for those who cannot.

"For just one day, do not hit your loved one," she said. "And if you can do it for one day, perhaps you can do it for two."

I add my voice to her message. May others follow suit to end child abuse.

Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com

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