Sure, my folks spanked me now and then. One occasion in particular stands out in the faded sepia of my 1970s childhood. The kids in my neighbourhood had taken to camping in the reserve behind our house. We'd set up tents and sit around a fire drinking cordial, smoking ciggies made from rolled strips of The Manly Daily and telling ghost stories.
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My parents were pretty cool to allow it; not the inhalation of toxic gas from smouldering newspapers - that was done on the low-down - but letting us camp out with small fire, set inside rocks, well away from the tents. Although the other kids were in their tweens or early teens I was nine or 10, which showed Mum and Dad trusted me to some extent. More fool them.
I awoke early after one such night under the stars to find the fire had all but fizzled. Thinking I'd be a legend if I got a fire going for the other kids I unzipped the tent, scurried through our back gate, burrowed under the house and emerged with some loose bits of timber, matches and a metal can containing about 4 litres of lawn mower petrol. Ka-boom!
Fortunately, as I was about to head back out the gate and busy myself with incinerating the neighbourhood's children, I heard a furious tapping on the window of our kitchen. I looked up to see my dad waving at me. I had to put the wood and petrol down in order to wave back. That's when I noticed he wasn't really waving - he was actually losing his shit and frantically motioning for me to go inside.
Next thing I knew he'd pulled me into the house. The poor guy was in a mad panic; yelling all sorts of stuff like "skin graft", "third degree" and "full-thickness". He gave me five or six solid slaps across the arse to underscore the importance of each syllable. "DON'T. PLAY. WITH. FIRE. AND. PETROL!"
OK, my arse hurt for a minute or so but I certainly got the message: tipping a can of petrol on a fire will likely result in a fireball that will lead to children being burnt alive in their tents.
Later on I discovered that my dad - a press photographer - had recently spent time taking pictures of children in the burns unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. No wonder I'd spooked him.
I could count on one hand or maybe two the number of times my parents spanked me. And whenever smacking comes up for public discussion my mind inevitably wanders back to the great petrol-driven spanking of 1979. Not for the benign slaps on my butt, but more for the suburban tragedy that could well have followed had I not been sprung.
My view on spanking has always been that if parents feel the need to do it then it's up to them because parents generally know what's best. Plus, the number of kids I know - including myself - whose lives were adversely affected by spanking is precisely zero.
Yet last week we were told spanking will spoil a person's life. After a new meta-analysis of 50 years of research on spanking involving 160,000 kids, boffins at the University of Texas and the University of Michigan now reckon people who are spanked are more likely be anti-social, defy their parents and experience increased mental health and cognitive problems, and higher rates of aggression.
In other words, “spanking does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do”, explained Andrew Grogan-Kaylor from the University of Michigan.
Predictably this latest parent-shaming document triggered the usual round of tut-tutting from various interest groups. "Children should have the same legal protection from assault as adults do," thundered the UK's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Oh come on! Cruelty? Assault? No one's saying we should coward punch our kids! We're talking about spanking - the "reasonable chastisement'' of a child using a open hand on the bum or limb. It's what UNICEF estimates 80 per cent of parents around the world do.
Including me. Mind you, I didn't always smack my kids. In fact I used to be a strict non-smacker.
My eldest, Susie, is about to turn 18 and doesn't know what a smack is; mostly because she was a dream to raise and could always be pulled into line with words and reason.
Daughter No.2 Katie is five and is delightfully highly strung, intensely emotional and deeply empathetic. While I swore for 15 years that I'd never smack our children, Katie put me to the test one day after a swimming lesson.
Because the "pool fun" had ended, she attacked me and shrieked, bawled, hissed and spat all the way from the poolside to the car. She thrashed to the point I almost dropped her. In the car I was no hope of getting her into her safety seat while she kicked and flailed at me.
So ... smack! On her forearm.
Big mistake. I have never felt so sorry as the instant that Katie gaped at me in shock and disbelief that I'd slapped her wrist.
The flailing continued and the screaming increased, followed by sorrowful sobs that lasted the whole drive home and then some.
It was immediately evident that a smack was never going to work on her. It was the first and last time I spanked Katie.
Which brings us to daughter No. 3. I have smacked Abigail on the butt maybe 8-10 times already this year and she's only three!
It's not that I'm gradually becoming slap-happy, nor have I taken against my gorgeous little baby. The fact is Abby is a roustabout; an adventurous, slightly devious child who wilfully ignores her parents. Much like I did.
Whenever she's clipped across the bum, Abigail stops whatever egregious or risk-taking behaviour she's engaged in and throws me a look that says, "OK, yeah. Fair enough Dad. I'll knock it off."
The point being that across 18 years and three children I've learned that smacking has its place. Some kids need the odd tap on the rear to keep them from running out of control; for others it's a waste of time.
The age old question 'To spank or not to spank?' is a judgment call best made by parents and no-one else.