As an Australian parenting expert, I’m often interviewed on national television to discuss child-rearing issues. It’s unusual for me to be surprised in these interviews. I’ve been prepped ahead of time by the producers and I’m well aware of, and prepared for, dissenting opinions.
But one day, I was caught off guard. I was appearing on a nationally televised morning show where we were discussing whether or not there should be a law banning spanking.
That’s been a recurring topic in Australia at least since 2013, when a doctors’ group, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, proposed an amendment to make it a criminal offense for parents to hit their children. Yes, even a “tap on the bottom.” The topic has since been debated as part of an effort to curb the country’s domestic violence problem.
And with evidence from over five decades of studies involving over 160,000 children, highlighting the ineffectiveness of spanking — and the dangers physical discipline poses — I questioned why we were even having the debate.
On the TV show, we discussed the issue (where I was firmly in the “yes” camp, meaning no spanking) and the host announced that they had taken a poll. I sat relaxed in my seat — of course it should be banned!
But the polling results took my breath away. The vast majority of respondents answered “No” to the question.
It wasn’t a scientific poll. But that didn’t diminish the seriousness of the conversation. Thousands of votes had been counted via telephone, text, social media and the show’s website. Now the hosts had me on the defensive.
Most of the messages centered on one single, repeated theme: “I was smacked as a child and I turned out just fine.”
It makes sense, doesn’t it? Many of us think, “If I had something happen to me and nothing went wrong, then surely it’s fine for everyone else.”
There are countless ways we hear this sentence.
“I never wore a seatbelt and it never hurt me.”
“I drank as a teenager and my brain wasn’t damaged.”
“My grandma smoked from the time she was 12 and died in her 90s — from old age!”
The “I turned out just fine” argument is popular. It means that based on our personal experience we know what works and what doesn’t.
But the argument has fatal flaws.
It’s what’s known as an anecdotal fallacy. This fallacy, in simple terms, states that “I’m not negatively affected (as far as I can tell), so it must be O.K. for everyone.” As an example: “I wasn’t vaccinated, and I turned out fine. Therefore, vaccination is unnecessary.” We are relying on a sample size of one. Ourselves, or someone we know. And we are applying that result to everyone.
It relies on a decision-making shortcut known as the availability heuristic. Related to the anecdotal fallacy, it’s where we draw on information that is immediately available to us when we make a judgment call. In this case, autobiographical information is easily accessible — it’s already in your head. We were smacked as kids and turned out fine, so smacking doesn’t hurt anyone. But studies show that the availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that can cloud us from making accurate decisions utilizing all the information available. It blinds us to our own prejudices.
It dismisses well-substantiated, scientific evidence. To say “I turned out fine” is an arrogant dismissal of an alternative evidence-based view. It requires no perspective and no engagement with an alternative perspective. The statement closes off discourse and promotes a single perspective that is oblivious to alternatives that may be more enlightened. Anecdotal evidence often undermines scientific results, to our detriment.
It leads to entrenched attitudes. When views inconsistent with our own are shared we make an assumption that whoever holds those views is not fine, refusing to engage, explore or grow. Perhaps an inability to engage with views that run counter to our own suggests that we did not turn out quite so “fine.”
Where is the threshold for what constitutes having turned out fine? If it means we avoided prison, we may be setting the bar too low. Gainfully employed and have a family of our own? Still a pretty basic standard. It is as reasonable to say “I turned out fine because of this” as it is to say “I turned out fine in spite of this.”
Let’s take spanking as an example. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a new statement this month saying that it is harmful, which I see as a step in the right direction.
It’s true that not every child who was spanked will turn out badly. So if you are in this category you could probably say, “I was spanked and I turned out fine.” It’s also true that some children who were never spanked will not turn out fine.
However, scientific research clearly shows the likelihood of negative outcomes increases when you’ve been spanked as a child. We can’t see them, just as we can’t see our children’s daily growth. To claim that on this basis spanking a child is fine means that we fall victim to anecdote, rely on our availability heuristic (thereby dismissing all broader data to the contrary), dismiss alternate views, fail to learn and progress by engaging with a challenging idea.
We expect our children to embrace learning and to progress in their thinking as they grow older. They deserve to expect the same from us.
Justin Coulson is the author of the Australian best seller “10 Things Every Parent Needs to Know.”