The Rod Revisited

The writer of a recent article in Canada’s National Post is troubled by a report that about 20% of parents aged 18 through 42 still spank their children. “Is that even legal?” asks Sharon Kirkey. Thankfully, I’m well past the age where I have to wonder if that insistent knocking on my door is Children’s Aid making a friendly visit, but research shows corporal punishment was not just an acceptable option in my generation. It remains acceptable today, especially among those who were themselves spanked as children.

Now, that’s interesting. It strongly suggests those who have actually experienced spanking believe it has its merits.

Still Legal

As it turns out, though there is mounting pressure to change Canadian law, it’s still legal to spank a child aged two through twelve provided you are not motivated by anger, frustration or an abusive personality. That caveat seems both prudent and biblical, if a little difficult for any party not present in the home to assess after the fact.

One way to reduce the temptation to discipline emotionally is to observe and follow the scriptural pattern. I came across a letter from a woman to her pastor this week describing a domestic situation where her husband does not spank the children, but she does.

That got me thinking. Her strategy seems unlikely to end well. You really need both parents on the same page, backing one another’s plays.

Looking Back Not in Anger

My mother never spanked us. I gave that no thought at the time but in hindsight, it was a wise move. It’s certainly the pattern of the Bible. I cannot think of a single scripture reference that might make a woman responsible for the physical discipline of her children. In our English Bibles, every instance of “the rod” in wisdom literature that mentions the person doing the spanking uses the pronoun “he”. That may be more interpretation than translation, but I don’t think so. Those proverbs are all addressed to “my son” and “my sons”, and come at the world consistently from a male perspective. That’s not to say women can’t get good advice from the book of Proverbs, but it’s coming to them second-hand.

This is consistent with everything we find elsewhere in scripture on the subject. Deuteronomy 8:5 is not a command, but it conforms to the pattern: “As a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.” In Israel’s homes, that seems to have been the expectation. Giving orders and enforcing them was primarily Dad’s job.

What Son is There?

The same holds true in the NT: it’s Dad dealing with problem behavior, not Mom. Hebrews asks, “What son is there whom his father does not discipline? We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.”

In scripture, Mom nurtures and Dad disciplines. That’s not to discourage Christian mothers from giving verbal instruction, of course. But the biblical pattern consistently assigns corrective measures to the husband, and biblical discipline is sometimes physical. Efforts by modern interpreters to make “the rod” a mere metaphor fail miserably when they hit Proverbs 23:13-14: “If you strike him with a rod, he will not die.” If there’s a less figurative way to put that, I can’t think what it might be.

A Practical Consideration

Further, when we consider the temptation to spank angrily or out of frustration, I suspect a mother finds herself in that position a great deal more often than any father. In most non-dysfunctional homes, Mom has considerably more direct involvement in raising small children on a daily basis than Dad. I doubt this is the case with secular millennials who spank, but I can’t think of a single family in my church that has an infant in day care. Mom is home with them. She may go back to work when they hit school age, but in more than a few Christian homes, that’s not the case. Who spends more time dealing with the “terrible twos”: Mom or Dad? That puts a mother under more frequent pressure to lose her cool. Ninety percent of the time, proximity means a mother is going to find herself more frequently tempted to irritation with her children than her husband.

There’s also a practical consideration. Once I was six or seven, I very much doubt my mom could have gotten enough mustard on the strap to get my attention even if she had been inclined to spank. Asking a small-ish woman to deal out physical justice to increasingly hulking male offspring just seems like a recipe for trouble. So why start it?

Wait ’til Your Father Gets Home

I can’t recall a single situation in which I was spanked immediately after an offense. Discipline was methodical, never an emotional response to childish provocation. The strap was sort of like the sword of Damocles. It hung there over your head metaphorically when you committed an offense. You knew it loomed in your future and could not be avoided. Most times, you just wanted to get it over with.

There was a procedure: the time out, the call to Dad’s study, the conversation, the open Bible explaining where we went wrong. Finally, the strap, only when it was necessary and never in anger. Dad was a cool customer, and a little distance from the daily chaos of three young boys probably helped. Moreover, I suspect Mom was grateful not to have to deal with all that. There’s good reason “Wait ’til your father gets home” was coined.

That may not work in some households for various reasons. Dad may be a spiritual slouch, a hothead, even unsaved. Mom may have no interest in her partner’s preferences about dealing with misbehavior. But when you’ve got the right dynamic between the parents, I believe leaving discipline to fathers is the way to go. It follows the scriptural pattern, and in my experience it’s very effective.