Port Credit, Ont. -- Drat! Just as I was looking forward to a relaxing breakfast with The Globe, on my first full day of retirement after 31 years of teaching, what do I encounter but Lorna Dueck's column, No Place For The State In Families Of The Nation (June 30). With all the research in child development, it's hard to believe she writes "we're born with sin in our genes," as though children are sinful little beings whose wills have to be broken.

Apparently, the legal guidelines "of never spanking with an object or a closed hand" make it okay, even desirable, for parents to whack their kids into submission. It must be the "open-handed" that makes all the difference, I presume.

Countless ways exist to discipline children without hitting them. No one method works all the time; no one method works with every child. Intelligent parents know this.

Spanking is like fast food: It's fast, it works for the moment, it takes zero thought but, in the long run, it's bad for you. Spanking simply teaches children to obey out of fear of being caught and punished. It doesn't teach self-discipline; it teaches children it's okay for big people to hit little people, that it's okay to do something as long as you don't get caught.