It is actually the sad inability of many parents to see this (especially when they are pissed) that gets me angry. And that inability of many parents to see this is one of the reasons that the law had to change.

I’ll give this to the landladies: we were often taken into the landladies’ parlour, to watch tv with a free raspberry fizz. I am indebted to the Weber and Wimbledon Pub landladies in particular, c 1969-72 (Southern Hawkes’ Bay, for the geographically challenged.)

No, it wasn’t child abuse.
Some of the other stuff that happened when all the adults were drunk, on other occasions, at private house parties, though, was.

Once Were Warriors is not just a rural/poor maaori scenario. Working class pakeha behaved that way, too.

“toad Says:

August 27th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Mr Dennis said: It is a matter of personal discretion whether a particular incident is incidental to good care and parenting or not

No, Mr Dennis, it is not, You have misinterpreted the law yet again. If it [a smack] is incidental to good care and parenting (and that is a decision that must be made objectively) there is an absolute defence of justification.

The discretion comes in when the justification defences, including that one, are not available to the parent, as to whether it is in the public interest to prosecute.

And it is not a “personal” discretion – take a look here, but one that must be execised in accordance with accepted legal principles.”

And Xaviorgoldie – Lachore DID NOT ASSAULT other people’s kids (as far as we know). The S59 law at the time allowed him to smack chldren. On frogblog, toad and others have acknowledged that, even now with Sue’s law change, a light smack may be allowed for ‘good parenting’ etc.

Oh, and there’s a huge gulf between getting pissed and beating your kids and a light smack to correct a misbehaving child. The sad inability of many Greens to see this is why so many Green supporters get angry (and may vote elsewhere) – its not just the smacking issue – its your pious arrogance in refusing to recognise anyone else’s opinion. Which is why the Green MPs refused to listen to most NZers in the polls, aye?

Undemocratic behaviour angers most people even more than smacking…

Which just goes to show Lochore shouldn’t be generalising from his past personal experience, I suppose. The only thing I wholeheartedly agree with him about in his rant is that we are too averse to risk these days, and kids suffer from not having the range of experiences and physical opportunities they used to.

But I now see it is more than that: – Brian Lohore said:

In the evenings we went to the rugby parties with the kids, who slept in the back of the car.

I have some experience as a child too of that. In the back of the car outside the pub. For ages. Occasionally it got worse – my father would be so pissed he would wind down the window and throw up out it, while still attempting to drive the car.

And the crate of Lyon Rouge would be in the boot on the way home too.

So I would go to bed early, lest I said or did something that I “deserved ” a thrashing for after the crate was partially consumed.