MARCH 2 — “I wanna kiss you all the time, but I will test that butt if you cut outta line”—Just The Two Of Us, Will Smith

First, yes, I’m desperately trying to win the Malaysia’s-Most-Beloved-Parent Contest. My popularity index fell lately and I can’t wait to pull it back up. 

Second, no, I don’t always hang my children by meat-hooks and use horse-whips on them each time they fail to bring back a report card dripping with distinctions. Once in a while but not always.  

Third, this is not an article encouraging parents to go Mike Tyson on their kids whenever they feel like it. It’s just that I haven’t read too many articles in favour of using the cane. Either a) every writer is against caning or b) those in favour are scared of saying they are. Knowing us Malaysians, most likely (b). 

Fourth, as I see it, banning corporal punishment to raise better children is like outlawing Dumb & Dumber to produce smarter adults. 

The road from child to teen to young adult is a complex, multi-faceted affair hardly reducible to caning. For the latter to receive so much attention is like blaming the drop in nasi lemak quality solely on the ikan bilis. 

Indeed, judging from the way some writers write it’s almost as if the mere act of eliminating the cane produces a generation of super disciplined and productive youngsters. That’s so messed up even Ridhuan Tee would label it extremist.

So let’s cut straight to the arguments against caning and see if they hold water. Most of those below are taken from articles written by Ko Teik Yen (Principal of Academy of Asian Parenting) but it’s quite representative of the anti-caning school of thought. 

Here we go:

“Caning children is wrong because we do not cane adults if they missed deadlines, so how can it be acceptable to hit children for misconduct?”

This sounds intuitively persuasive, but there is a wrong analogy embedded here. The sheer difference between adults and children is simply, uh, smacked away?

We don’t ask adults to hold hands when they visit the Science Center – does that mean we shouldn’t ask children to do so as well? We seek to control children’s ice-cream intake (e.g. not more than two scoops at any meal), does this mean we should do the same for adults?

This is almost like saying that since we have toilets for males and females, why not have malls exclusively for Chinese, Indian or Malay?

The truth is even adults get punished or disciplined when they go off-track at work. But just as children cannot be “cold-storaged” or fired, adults don’t usually get a ruler tap on their palms. Not quite rocket science, right? The key issue is whether or not caning children helps them with internalising right and wrong. My straight-forward answer is: Sure it does. 

But not all agree, as per below...

“Caning children is not an effective disciplinary tool - if it doesn’t work, why keep doing it?”

This objection is even more bizarre. Are the anti-caners suggesting that if a method doesn’t work the first few times, we should dump it? In that case, why not do away entirely with reading, with forgiveness, with sales calls, with marriage, with cooking, etc.?

Another writer, Elizabeth Goh, asserts that, “Spanking may secure immediate compliance, but it does not convince the child not to repeat his/her misbehaviour.” My instinctive response was, where in the name of rotan can we find a method which produces immediate 110 per cent compliance on the spot for all cases? 

Every parent on earth and out of earth will tell you that speaking gently to a child doesn’t always produce the results hoped for – what then? Stop speaking gently?

There is also the concern that caning makes the child feel like a bad and lousy person. Well, gee, for some children simply being TOLD not to do something or being REFUSED a brand-new toy makes them feel like a “bad and lousy person.” Should we simply give in to what the kids want every time? I mean, since it’s such a tragedy if our kids don’t feel like “great and fabulous” people all the time?

Discipline itself is unpleasant. The problem isn’t the disciplining—it’s the one being disciplined. Duh.

“Caning children is wrong because violence begets violence; children will grow up to become abusive adults”

True but irrelevant, especially if :

a) the caning is “light” (most of the time) 

b) it’s accompanied by firm instruction and explanation of why Daddy is smacking your butt and 

c) if children are likewise reprimanded for using violence on other children, etc.

This kind of agrument effectively ignores how millions of adults who have been caned when they were young do NOT go around thumping their colleagues on the head. I’m reminded of the backlash against “violent” video games i.e. if I spend five hours blowing up virtual buildings with my virtual fire-bombs then, gasp, maybe I’m more prone to become the next Unabomber. C’mon, seriously?

(Okay okay, I confess I sometimes feel like slapping a co-workers’ stupid grin off his equally dumb face but, hey, I insist this is nothing to do with me being caned in the past; it’s more of me over-watching Jackie Chan films. But I disgress…)

A related concern with “light” caning is that it always leads to “heavy” caning. On this perspective, parents should reject even the mild use of punishment because this can easily get out of hand.

Notice a classic slippery-slope fallacy here. By extension we should ban cars since drivers can easily go berserk and speed at 300Km/h in the city. And why not ban sweets since this can lead to diabetes? A similar mistake occurs in the next argument…

“Caning children can scar them emotionally for life”

Sure. And so can school exams, unfaithful boyfriends, watching Tottenham concede last-minute goals, and being laughed at because we forgot to put gel on our hair. Nevertheless, we don’t stop going to school, we don’t refuse to fall in love, we don’t quit enjoying football and we don’t adopt Einstein’s hair-style simply because there is a risk of being very disappointed. Neither do we question the virtue of family and friendships simply because those who love us are also the ones who can hurt us the most.

Indeed, a popular technique of the anti-caning school is to employ rhetoric and worst-case scenarios to paint corporal punishment is the worst possible light. One of Ko’s paragraphs illustrates this best:

“When adults use hitting or violence to teach their children, we see an unsecured oversized child who is frightened of its own shadow, resorting to the most primitive way of dealing with ‘perceived’ threat to their own position and authority rather than helping, guiding and inspiring our future generation to grow up to be who they truly are.”

I don’t know if Ko realises it or not, but he’s talking about abused children, not caned children. Conflating the two only makes his argument sound nonsensical. This is especially so given the manythousands of people whose backsides have been hentam-ed kow-kow by their folks without any long-term scarring.

The fundamental question is: Is there any value in caning? I think an honest tradition-respecting answer will be: Yes, there is. Notwithstanding abuse and cruelty, caning can lead to higher levels of discipline and character formation than not. And this is a practice that has been applied with love and care by millions of families across time and space. Furthermore, at least two world religions sanction it.

Life is not at all about living from one pleasant feeling to another, neither should it be about running away from risky psychological events. I fully understand if parents wish to protect their kids from emotional scars, sure, but over-protection is also a danger. 

Indeed, there is a growing consensus that the occasional stressor is necessary to build character, strength and so on. Light or mild caning can provide this hiatus from the comfy life of nothing but “You’re-so-awesome”, “Atta-Boy!” 24/7 encouragement and painless living. 

Like how fasting can make the body healthier, some psychological/physical discomfort may be worth it. Children can be (gradually, carefully) exposed to the fact that sore discipline is an appropriate consequence of in-discipline.

In general, tradition and experience support the practice of caning children with the intention that they will become better persons. As “simple” as that.

Conclusion: If we wish to outlaw caning, we should have a lot more evidence and much better arguments than presently supplied.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.