Spare the quarter-inch plumbing supply line, spoil the child

As for Christian parents who disavow "child training," many ask, in effect, What kid would Jesus hit? As Susan Lawrence, a devout Lutheran home-schooler and founder of StoptheRod.net, told Beliefnet, spanking children is "against the Golden Rule, the number one rule that Jesus gave us for human relationships. You're supposed to treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself." (Lawrence did not respond to an interview request from Salon.)

Some Christian parents have tried to find a middle ground between "punitive" and "attachment" parenting; others distance themselves from physical child-training while stopping short of overtly criticizing their peers. "I believe that Christian parents from both approaches love their children deeply and have a heart's desire to follow God and to raise their children for His glory, and I have no desire to create further division in the Christian parenting community," says Jeri Carr, 35, a home-schooling mother of four in Washington state. Initially, however, Carr had trouble finding a place there for herself. She founded the Web site Gentle Christian Mothers nine years ago after determining that other Christian parenting resources ran counter to her "God-given mothering intuition." There was no Christian support for many of the "gentle parenting choices," such as feeding in response to hunger, as opposed to on a schedule, that she believed in, she says. "I felt very alone. "

Then Carr came across a technique called attachment parenting, a "secular" style promoted by other Christian parenting Web sites such as Arms of Love Family Fellowship. "I began mothering my little one more responsively and from the heart, making more gentle choices," she says. "I had always planned on spanking my children, but I began to realize that I didn't have to spank in order to please God, and God led my husband and me to discipline our children without spanking them."

But what about all those verses in Proverbs? "The 'rod,' or staff, our Shepherd holds is one that He uses to comfort us, guide us, lead us, protect us," Carr says. "As Christian parents we desire to show God to our children through our relationship with them, a God who is loving and gracious, who is always there for us and who answers our cries and treats us with gentleness and kindness."

Gentle Christian Mothers has also become, in part, a support community for mothers like Meggan Judge, who was at first convinced that Noah's recalcitrance was entirely her fault. "They tell us that if parents would only spank 'correctly,' parents will get the results -- the first-time, happy obedience -- that they desire," says Carr. "When it doesn't 'work' parents can end up feeling very guilty and worried that they are doing it wrong and are failing to do it the biblical way. They may worry that they'll wind up with out-of-control children, so they try harder to do it 'right,' and the battle continues. Children may end up bitter and angry, and deeply hurt, with a warped picture in their mind of who our gracious God truly is."

Of course, it's not only certain home-schoolers and Christians who oppose corporal punishment for children (often referred to as "spanking," which is understood as a catch-all term for physical discipline). Though they do not necessarily evaluate the kind of highly routinized "discipline" described by the Pearls, copious studies attest to the short- and long-term damage spanking, in its various forms, can do. "The evidence is that any corporal punishment, on average, is harmful down the road," says leading family violence researcher Murray Straus, professor of sociology and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. Among other problems, it has the potential to threaten the parent-child bond, inhibit the development of conscience, lead to juvenile delinquency, and even partner violence, Straus says. (Some disagree, saying -- for example -- that children who grow up with an understanding or fear of "consequences" are less likely to get into trouble down the road.) "There are now three very good studies showing that the more someone was spanked as a child, the more likely they are to hit their partner as an adult," says Straus. (Some suspect that spanking at home, or paddling at school, may be particularly harmful to girls.)

According to Straus, even the controlled, limited, non-anger-based spanking associated with child-training can be a matter of concern. "It's better in the sense that it has a morally correct purpose," he says. "But it's worse in the sense that it teaches you that it's morally correct to hit."

And what of people who say, "I was spanked and I'm OK! I love my parents, I'm not a delinquent, I never hit my wife"? "They're telling the truth," Straus says. "It's about probability. One-third of heavy smokers will die of lung cancer, say, but two-thirds will not. That doesn't mean smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. The implication to me is that people who were spanked and are OK are, like that other two-thirds, the lucky ones."

Next page: The Pearls warn their devotees not to spank their children in public