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Spanking got us where we are today, say US businessmen
Last updated at 00:07am on 10.10.06
One of the few things that America's top business executives have in common is that they were almost all regularly spanked when they misbehaved as children.
And they now agree that it taught them important lessons, essential on the road to success.
"I'm disciplined, detailed and organised," said David Haffner, Chief Executive Officer of Leggett & Platt, one of the largest manufacturing companies in the US.
Mr Haffner, 54, said: "I received the belt when I deserved it, which was about six times a year. The discipline influence remains for a lifetime. It was a major contributor to my success."
A new study published this week by sociologist Eve Tahmincioglu, "Lessons Learned on the Journey to the Top" reports that most company leaders had tough disciplinarians as parents.
Richard Parsons, Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner, said that he was often spanked with a stick or "switch" cut from a tree in the back garden and that it was primarily for misbehaving in school.
Fran Keeth, Executive Vice President of Shell Chemicals, said that she was hit with a stick from the family's peach tree.
All of the bosses asked by Mrs Tahmincioglu said that they were hit by their parents as children and that it did them good.
She said: "It taught them to respect authority. They feared their parents but loved them as well. Their parents would follow through with a spanking when the children misbehaved. Today there is no follow-through."
Women spanked at same rate as men
Women executives said they were spanked at about the same rate as the men.
Nick Turner, 33, the chief financial officer of executive recruiter Kaye-Bassman International, said: "You knew that if you didn't cut the grass right away or chop wood or feed horses, you were going to get a spanking.
"Corporal punishment helped with my success. I needed to learn self-discipline and to focus on a goal. I certainly wouldn't have done that if I had grown up with Mary Poppins.
"I'd say that 90 percent or more executives got spankings and these are people who have turned out to be stable, focused, and competitive guys."
In its own study on business executives and spanking, USA Today newspaper reported yesterday: "The debate over whether Chief Executive Officers are born or made remains unresolved, but there is one thing they overwhelmingly have in common.
"As children, they were paddled, belted, switched or swatted."
The newspaper interviewed 20 CEOs and while none said they were abused, neither were they spared.
University of New Hampshire sociology professor Dr Murray Straus said: "Evidence points to corporal punishment as detrimental. If some spanked children grow up to be successful, even billionaires, it's like saying, go ahead and smoke because two-thirds of smokers don't get lung cancer."
Joseph Moglia, 55, CEO of the giant Internet company Ameritrade said: "Tough love is better than soft love. You need positive reinforcement backed up by consequences. You appreciate good-weather days when you get rain."
Reader views (3)
I got spanked as a child too and I turned out just fine - disciplined, hardworking, honest, educated, productive and with happy relationships and running my own business to boot. However, I also left home as a teenager and deliberately avoid contact with my parents to this day because of their abusive behaviour. My accomplishments are entirely my own, thank you very much and I owe none of them to anyone's violent behaviour. The only thing corporal punishment taught me was to fear, avoid and thoroughly distrust my punisher.
There are far better ways to enforce discipline than through the threat of physical harm - that's the worst kind of logic to teach a kid, and makes a parent no better than a bully in a schoolyard. A parent's true authority is based on their child's respect, not their fear. I'm appalled by parents who let their kids walk all over them, but there's a vast middle ground between being a child abuser and being a complete pushover. "Consequences" don't have to be physical.
I wonder, do these CEOs advocate corporal punishment as a way to keep their employees productive? By this logic, they should. If they don't, perhaps they should explain why not, and then explain why that's different when someone's young, physically smaller, dependent, vulnerable, and with no recourse to a grievance process. There's a fundamental problem with the idea that adults shouldn't be hit but kids should be. Frankly that kind of double standard is disgusting.
- Andrea, Montreal, Canada
I was spanked as a child - only when I deserved it - and turned out just fine. I learned to respect my elders, to honour and obey my parents, to be disciplined, hard-working and honest, and to be a responsible and productive member of society. I agree completely with R. Campbell. Adults today are scared of children because too many children are being coddled and indulged for fear of hurting their feelings or of causing emotional scarring by being punished. I will not hesitate to spank my children if and when they deserve it, and I will not worry about any 'lasting damage' it may cause. Everyone I know who was spanked as a child has gone on to lead a successful and fulfilling life!
- Erin, London
Right On!
Young parents are, today, scared to death of their kids, instead of the other way around. there is absolutlly no discipline in the schools, or so the kids say, and there is precious little learning going on as a result. Good teachers are in short supply; they can't discipline for fear of getting arrested on charges, and being lableled a child abuser for the rest of their lives. So they take other jobs. This all came from bad "science" in the '60's, and needs to be relegated to the trash bin!
I'm a social worker who was almost brainwashed by this "no spanking" business, even though I was spanked as a kid. I did OK, and the whole lot of kids I knew grew up to be proper citizens. Not a single member of my extended family ever went to jail, either! They ALL got spanked as kids.
- R. Campbell, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
