Re: Do the Poor Spank More

["Simcha Plisner" <splisner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If the link is
> causal-that is, if being spanked
actually lowers your earnings
potential-and
> if spanking runs in families, then we
have an alternative explanation for
> Weinberg's numbers: Low-income parents
are more likely to spank their children
> because low-income parents are more
likely to have been spanked themselves.
Or
> maybe it's as simple as this: Poverty
breeds frustration, and frustrated
> parents lash out at their kids. Does
any reader have a better story?
>
>

One may not draw casual conclusions from
correlations. That would be pure
speculation. No doubt the above idea is
worth investigation and research to see
if it is valid. I would think that had
one done the same research 30-40 years
ago one would have found that the
spanking gap between poor people and
middle or upper class people would have
been narrower do to the acceptance of
spanking.

There is no mention in Cheryl's
submission about education.  In many
ways the gap could be linked not to race
but to educational level and
socialization. People with higher
educations tend to be socialized today
and educated not to hit their children.
A few decades ago (when I entered
adulthood) this was not necessarily the
case.

For all we know lower income people have
not learned, through modeling,
alternated ways of effectively
disciplining.

One must always remember that no
reliable research has demonstrated the
validity of the cycle of violence. Most
people older than forty has been spanked
at one time or another. Have we all
become dysfunctional? Do they all spank
their children? No doubt in a social
group where spanking is acceptable
behavior you will find more people who
they themselves have been spanked. But,
drawing a correlation that because they
themselves have been spanked they now
spank may be a leap without prospective
rather than retrospective evidence and
statistical measurement.

Simcha Plisner JD MSW