Spanking isn't parenting; it's child abuse

Mel Robbins writing for CNN Opinion regarding NFL player Adrian Peterson, and the status of child abuse in America today:

Hit your partner, and you’ll be arrested for domestic violence. Hit another adult, and you’ll be arrested for assault. But hit a 4-year-old, and you can call yourself a “loving father.” That’s completely screwed up.

It should be against the law for a fully grown adult to slap, hit, spank, punch, switch, whoop, whip, paddle, kick or belt a defenseless child in the name of discipline. But it is legal, and new research in the Journal of Family Psychology suggests that the average 4-year-old is hit 936 times a year.

It’s amazing to me that anybody could even begin to argue that spanking is somehow different to any other form of abuse. If you’re inflicting pain on someone (against their will, it goes without saying), that’s abuse. Plain and simple.