Help the Children -- It Won't Cost a Thing

Couldn't we buck that little, loud-mouthed group of religious fear-mongers just once and give children a break?

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) will come up for a vote in 2010 or 2011, and the religious right is already getting the bullhorns out. This treaty has been ratified by every nation except the United States and Somalia. We have the late Jesse Helms and the Bush administration to thank for that little piece of shame.

The CRC is the world's most ratified human rights treaty. Ten years in the making, the treaty could have never been written without the support of the United States. The Ronald Reagan administration contributed important language to it, for Pete's sake.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama say they're embarrassed to be in the company of the lawless and ready to ratify. A no-brainer, right?

Wrong. As Sara Friedman writes in Religion Dispatches, "[O]ne person's no-brainer is another's 'No way.' "

Here's her roundup of the offense our Christian brethren are already mounting, which has threatened Senate ratification of the treaty. They declare with great authority that "the Convention would abrogate the God-given authority of parents. It would forbid all 'normal everyday spanking' (Articles 3, 19, and 37), control curriculum, and prohibit home schooling (Articles 24 and 25). The rights to privacy and freedom of expression encourage children to sue and beat their parents, join gangs (12 and 13), and have abortions. Not to mention Article 31, which would allow children to play all day long and refuse to go to school. This is not something that any good American family would want."

It's the usual nonsense. Most of the treaty's provisions are already covered by law. And enforcement of the others would take new laws.

Rather than respond to such piffle point by point, let's just look at the Holy Grail of fundamentalist child-rearing: "the normal everyday right to spank children."

I'm as weary as any childless person could be of loud, obnoxious, out-of-control children. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to quote from my own childhood by telling some spoiled brat, "Let me give you something to cry about."

I am not against a little spanking. But the research is. What it says breaks my heart and makes me swear off ever giving children anything to cry about.

Here's the latest: two new studies from University of New Hampshire researcher Murray Straus show that children who are spanked have lower IQ scores. The more spanking, the slower the child's mental development, but any spanking at all correlates with a lag.

This sounded like some liberal egghead's dream theory to me. But other studies confirm it. Here's the explanation: "corporal punishment is extremely stressful and can become a chronic stressor for young children, who typically experience corporal punishment three or more times a week. For many it continues for years. The research found that the stress of corporal punishment shows up as an increase in post-traumatic stress symptoms such as being fearful that terrible things are about to happen and being easily startled. These symptoms are associated with lower IQ."

I don't know beans about chronic stress syndrome, but I remember the fear of being spanked. In my childhood, some parents displayed switches and belts prominently just to trigger that fear. Others made their kids go pick their own switches from the trees and bring them in.

If you don't believe that will make you think terrible things are about to happen, find someone who's much bigger than you are, furious with you and eager to hit you until they're convinced you've learned a lesson. Go pick your own switch, knowing that if it isn't wicked enough that big, strong angry person will be even madder and pick his own.

You'll feel some stress. If you live with that big person and he feels fully justified, even righteous about doing that again anytime, believe me, you'll be afraid.

For the United States to go on record giving human rights to children won't hurt anything. And it could help a lot.