Before I go any further, let me make myself clear that I do not believe smacking a child on their bottom, with the hand, goes far enough to be considered abuse. Probably not something I would do, but not something to call cps over either. Today on the bus there was a group of people who looked to be in the baby boomer age group, bragging about how they were beat with shoes, coat hangers, etc and how messed up it is that today you aren't allowed to beat your child.

I wanted so badly to ask them about the millions of children who died because they were beaten. If they thought this was OK? Of course I didn't but it was disturbing to see how the cycle works. People normalize, even glorify, their own abuse and then pass it on to their offspring.