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The most active thread yesterday was titled, "my husband's mother hit my kid", and originally posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. This morning I moved the thread to the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster says that while she was getting dressed after getting out of the shower, her mother-in-law was attempting to put sneakers on the original poster's 4 year old son. The boy was resisting because he wanted to wear flip flops and repeatedly pulled his feet away from his grandmother. His grandmother got frustrated and "hit" him on the leg. The original poster says her mother-in-law did not hit the boy very hard, but she was quite angry that her mother-in-law hit the boy at all. The original poster's husband doesn't think this is a big deal, but the original poster doesn't want her mother-in-law to babysit anymore. Corporal punishment is a very controversial topic on DCUM with many posters having strongly held but diametrically opposed views. In this thread, the first responses all came from posters who generally oppose spanking, let alone "hitting" a child. In some cases, posters had zero tolerance positions and would not allow the grandmother to babysit in the future. One poster went so far as to say that the original poster's mother-in-law is "would be lucky if I didn't keep my kid from her forever." Others took a more moderate stance and argued in favor of the accepting the apology that the grandmother had offered and more or less putting her on probation. She would be allowed to babysit, but would be watched carefully for future transgressions. A number of posters viewed what occurred more as a "swat" than a "hit" and, like the original poster's husband, were not that concerned about it. At the far end of the spectrum were the "spare the rod, spoil the child" type posters. Many of these posters were more critical of the original poster than they were of the grandmother. One poster, blaming what she viewed as the original poster's lenient parenting style, wrote, "Your DC is a brat and no one, but you, can deal with him." Similarly, a number of posters pointed out that the original poster had apparently disciplined her mother-in-law, but not her son. They worried that this might send the message that he could disobey his grandmother with impunity. Heated arguments developed between advocates of differing approaches to parenting. Some posters suggested time outs instead of spanking but other posters declared that time outs are also abusive. Some of the posts were so extreme that it was impossible to tell whether they were trolling or serious. A poster who wrote, "Any child who was physically struck cannot ever grow up to be a normal, productive member of society" later declared that the grandmother deserved the death penalty and, as such, was pretty clearly trolling (at least I hope). But what about a poster who expressed hope that those who advocate spanking would be put "on some sort of watch list"? That poster seemed to be serious. Another poster suggested that the result of no longer spanking children is an increase in mental illness. That posters also appeared to be serious.