Quit hitting your kid

This will be a very straightforward post, because I don't feel like dancing around the subject.
Quit hitting your kid.
I don't care that he is a maniac.
I don't care that she screams in public.
I don't care that you feel embarrassed.
Get over it.
Get over yourself.
Relax.
Count to ten.
Take the kid out of the situation.
Distract them.
Learn better parenting skills.
Get yourself into anger management.
Quit hitting your kid.

I was at a restaurant tonight with my wonderful wife and our four month old baby. Aside from being the biggest kid on the block, he is an angel. We shower him with love, affection and attention and I think that is 100% the reason he is such a good kid. He fussed a little before the meal arrived, and it wasn't any big deal. We expected it, it was almost his bedtime and I knew that if I just held him close, rocked him a little, he would be easily soothed.
I was right. We pay attention to him, we meet his needs and then some. He went to sleep and there was nary a peep from him the rest of the meal. I brag, I know, but I am a proud father.
Of course our boy is more portable than most -- he is still only four months old, and a nap is almost like party time to him, so getting him to fall asleep was no challenge.
But the fact of the matter is that if he couldn't be soothed, and he screamed his head off, it wouldn't ever cross my mind to smack him the way the lady next to me smacked her son tonight.
Quit hitting your kid.
It seemed to be her birthday dinner. Accompanied by her husband, their three kids and one set of grandparents, our restaurant neighbors were enjoying their dinner. As the evening wore on, the kids were allowed to get up from the table and weave in and out of the chairs, under the table and through the aisles. This was allowed to persist until the mother reached her end. She reached behind her to grab who she obviously thought was the worst offender, jerked the thirty pound kid up by his shirt collar into swatting range and spanked the boy.
I barely noticed that the kids were fooling around at the table next to me. It might have had something to do with the great food, the wonderful company, or the engaging conversation we were having, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I have kids. Since Big Sis showed up on Planet Earth almost two years ago I don't bristle at the sound of whiney, screaming kids. Not anymore. It's like her arrival changed my tolerance towards kids being kids. Lucky for Big Sis.
Since the kids weren't bothering me, (and as far as I could tell weren't doing anything they weren't already allowed to do,) corporal punishment and child abuse just didn't seem to be necessary in this situation. And in this shameless, public way that mother punished her kid, I don't think that she agrees with me. I am sure that she felt it was the right course of action for the situation. The way the kid cried, I can't imagine how it could have been.
Why do you have to hurt your child?
Why do you have to humiliate your child?
How can you be so unfeeling?
How would you like it if someone who weighed six times your own weight smacked you on your ass? Can you imagine a half-ton gorilla chasing you around whenever you did something wrong? You probably won't do anything wrong ever again, right? Maybe so, but I am sure you would think that there is a better way to teach that.
Quit hitting your kid.
Find the better way. Its out there. It may not be the easy way, but it's worth it.