The Bathroom & Spanking (unrelated)

This post will get me some sideways glances, I can tell already.

1) Why the Bathroom is Great - By Andrew Root

When I buy a house, one of the criteria that it must fulfill is a nice bathroom.

<----This is the one I'm working with currently, and quite frankly it's just not cutting it in the "spaciousness" department. Every square inch of this room is jam-packed with something functional. You have to close the door before you can turn around. But I love the bathroom nonetheless for a few of the following reasons;

1) The bathroom is the one place you can go when you want to be alone, and no one will bother you. In other words; Privacy, privacy, privacy.
2) You always leave the bathroom feeling better than when you went in.
3) You can read. I know there are people who fervently disagree with this idea, but to them I say: "Suck it up, you germophobes."
4) If you've been run off your feet all day and just need a break, you can get in trouble if you just laze about, but you can go to the bathroom to sit down for a minute and not be faulted.

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Thought #2 for this post is spanking. Before you get excited, I'm talking about spanking children. Before you get excited, I'm talking about in certain circumstances. I have never, and will never condone child abuse, or random acts of violence and cruelty towards children. Nevertheless, I'm in firm disagreement to the "never hit your child" initiative that seems to be going around. I'd like to think that you should never have to hit your child, but damn it, some situations just call for it. Not to mention the fact that "not hitting your child" is a reletively new idea, only 40 or 50 years old. Before that anyone could hit a child! They didn't even have to be your parents! My dad got smacked across the knuckles during a typing class for looking at the keys, for cryin' out loud!

Psssst..... guess what! You give up? ok, here it is: He turned out fine. I think some people think that if you hit a child you'll scar them psychologically or something. In fact, why shouldn't we give a child a smack if all other methods of dicipline fail? Seriously, I want to know. Feel free to try to convince me that spanking a kid will mess them up.

I'm not saying that whenever a child gets hard to deal with you should resort to physical dicipline. That's careless and dangerous. But there are some situations when no other method will do the trick. I'm glad there are now laws against other people being allowed to randomly take a ruler or cane or "switch" to a kid, because it's not anyone else's business how somebody else's kid turns out. But when a five-year old can tell his parents that if they touch him or her they'll get sued, oh brother, get out of my way. I will never live in fear of my five-year old child. (if I have one, which I probably won't.)

The bottom line is that spanking is not adamantly wrong. Reckless physical disipline is, but a well-timed swat on the behind can be good for a child. I was spanked as a child. I turned out fine.