MikeB you are incorrect, and before you call into question anything or put words in someone's mouth you should know the facts. Don't say "in his opinion" when this is peer-reviewed and published information. Run down to your local Barnes and Noble and do some reading, I might recommend Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families. You will find that clinical research has shown for decades that lower socioeconomic classes, particularly coinciding with poor Southern families use corporal punishment (switches, paddles, pot spoons) as tools of corrective spanking in exponentially higher percentages. This percentage goes up further with the correlation to Christian families and further still when the parent is in the military. There have been hundreds of great studies in the last 25 years on the links to children's externalizing behaviors due to physical discipline in African-American family structure. Geographic location, race, and other demographic information is paramount to consider when looking at trends in corporal punishment and you should realize that.