SB 124 – Corporal Punishment of Children (Now With Gender Bias!)

In some circles, it seems that folks think kids these days are awful (or gay) because we don’t hit them enough. Never mind that I have never heard of the generation that was of the opinion that kids were growing up harder working, smarter, and more respectful than when they were kids. But, anyway, for corporal punishment aficianados, help is on the way in the form of Senator Randolph’s SB 124.

The bill specifies that a parent or guardian has the legal authority to apply reasonable force or impose reasonable confinement on the child if the parent or guardian believes its necessary to for the proper training, control, or education of the child. The bill provides a handy, but non-exhaustive, list of factors for determining whether the force used is “reasonable.” It includes things like the age and mental condition of the child as well as the proportionality of the force when compared to the transgression. But it also includes the child’s gender in the list of factors.

Which way to go with the gender thing? You can hit boys harder because they are supposed to be tougher. Or maybe you can hit girls sooner because they are supposed to be more obedient? Or is a kick to the groin more likely to be o.k. punishment for a girl but not for a boy. Otherwise, I can’t think why you’d want to bring genitalia into this discussion.

Update Jim cited Willis v. State (Ind. 2008) (pdf) in the comments. The proposed legislation seems to adopt the Supreme Court’s standard which, in turn, was adopting the standard set forth in section 147 of the Restatement of the Law (Second) Torts (1965).