中国有句老话“打是亲骂是爱，不打不骂才是怪”，但仔细想想，打骂和爱真的有什么必然联系吗？对孩子小施所谓“合理惩戒”，真的能让他们感受到爱吗？嗯，还真不能。

打是亲骂是爱，真是这样吗？

作者：Susanna Rusting

译者：邵海灵&王津雨

校对：徐嘉茵

编辑：赵萌萌

The movement to ban corporal punishment is gaining ground all over the world. Is Britain finally ready to give up the right to hit children?

禁止体罚的运动在全球不断发展壮大，英国家长终于愿意放弃他们揍娃的权利了吗？

本文选自The Guardian | 取经号原创翻译

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To say that English parents are uniquely keen on hitting their kids wouldn’t be fair – even on a day when the Welsh government’s announcement that it aims to outlaw corporal punishment leaves England looking isolated. What can be said with confidence is that English parents, and the MPs who represent them, appear unusually determined to hold on to the legal right to “smack” their offspring.

要说英格兰家长对揍娃这事儿有着无以伦比的热情，那是很不公平的——威尔士人打起小孩来，劲头也不差。所以即便威尔士政府宣布他们要致力于在法律层面禁止体罚，让英格兰看上去有点儿“独树一帜”，但这点仍未改变。我们可以很有把握地这样说：英格兰家长和那些代表他们的议员们，似乎都有着异常坚定的决心，要捍卫自己“给孩子吃耳光”的合法权利。

MP: Member of Parliament 议员

I say “smack” because that is the term most often used, though whether these blows or slaps are really distinguishable from others is a moot point. Certainly most smacks aren’t issued as formal penalties, as used to happen in schools or households in which discipline was a matter of “Wait till your dad gets home”. Currently the UK is one of just two countries in the EU (the other is the Czech Republic) neither to have banned corporal punishment, nor to be considering a ban.

说“吃耳光”是因为这是大家最常用的词，尽管这一巴掌打下去或者扇下去，跟其他家暴行为是否真能区分开来，还是一个悬而未决的问题。当然，大部分的这种打都不是正式体罚，只是学校或家里常见的那种“等你爸回来再收拾你”的处罚。目前英国是欧盟中仅有的两个既不禁止体罚、也不打算禁止的国家之一（另一个是捷克）。

moot /mut/ adj. If something is a moot point or question, people cannot agree about it. 悬而未决的、有争议的

One survey by the NSPCC reported almost half of British parents of children aged between 11 and 17 as saying they had smacked them, but the lack of international research makes comparisons difficult. In one of the few surveys of families across Europe, 70% of French parents said they had slapped a child’s face, while just 8% claimed to be raising children without any violence.

全国防止虐待儿童协会（NSPCC）的一项调查称，近半数子女在11到17岁之间的英国家长都说自己打过孩子，但因缺少这方面的国际研究，所以很难将英国和其他国家做比较。在极少数的跨国调查中，有一项针对欧洲各国家庭的研究称，70%的法国家长都说自己打过孩子耳光，而只有8%声称自己在抚养子女的过程中从来没有打过他们。

It is widely agreed that corporal punishment is becoming less common in the UK, as it is in most places. But the idea that British parents should be allowed to change at our own pace, and not be threatened with sanctions, is tenacious.

人们普遍认为，就像其他国家一样，体罚在英国也越来越少见了。但“英国家长应该按着我们自己的节奏做出改变，而不是在国际制裁的威胁下被迫就范”，这种观念仍然是根深蒂固的。

tenacious /təˈneʃəs/ adj. If you describe something such as an idea or belief as tenacious, you mean that it has a strong influence on people and is difficult to change or remove. (观点、信念)根深蒂固的，深入人心的

The problem for politicians, when faced with the prospect of tabloid ire about a ban, is that the law matters. This is partly practical. Changing laws alters behaviour much more dramatically than any amount of nudging or peer pressure, though public education is important. But law is also a matter of principle. Bruce Adamson, the children’s commissioner for Scotland (where the government has thrown its weight behind a ban), is a lawyer who believes the human rights case for “equal protection” from violence can no longer be ignored with regard to children.

禁令可能会激起众怒，小报又是看热闹不嫌事大的，对政府的骂声很快就会满天飞。面对这一危险，政客的问题在于，法律仍然事关重大。修改法律不是都能说到做到的。尽管公共教育很重要，但法律的变更对公民行为的影响力，远远超过任何程度的外界推动或同辈压力。可法律也是一个原则问题。苏格兰政府（推行父母体罚儿童禁令）的儿童专员布鲁斯·亚当森是一名律师，他认为法律应该“平等地保护”儿童免受暴力侵害，涉及儿童的人权问题不能再被忽视了。

tabloid /ˈtæblɔɪd/ n. popular newspaper withpages that are half the size of those of larger newspapers 小型报纸，小报

Just how strange it is that British children don’t currently have the same protection as adults takes a bit of thinking about. Take me, a mother with a fairly quick temper. I would never set out to smack my children because I don’t believe in it, but I’ve more than once grabbed or handled them roughly, and once slapped a leg when furious.

英国儿童目前不享有和成人同等的法律保障，单是这一事实的奇怪程度就值得我们深思了。拿我来说吧，我这个做妈的脾气也算很急了，但我绝不会伸手给孩子一耳光，因为我不相信这样做有什么用。但我也不止一次粗暴地拽住或者拉过他们，还有一次盛怒之下在孩子腿上打了一巴掌。

I’m not proud of this. In fact I’m sorry about it, and own up here only because it feels hypocritical not to. But my point is this: when it’s so obviously more wrong to swear at small children, or scream insults at them, than it is to do the same to your spouse or another adult, how can it not be worse to lash out physically as well? How can it be that a defence exists for an assault on a toddler(as long as it doesn’t leave a mark) that doesn’t exist for an assault on a grownup?

对此我并不引以为傲。事实上，我对这些行为感到很抱歉。而之所以在此坦白，纯粹是因为隐瞒事实会让我觉得自己很伪善。但我想说的是：冲着配偶或另一个成年人尖声嘶叫、咒骂羞辱尚且不能接受，那对小孩这样做难道不更是大错特错？那么肉体处罚、拳脚相加怎么可能不比咒骂更加严重呢？殴打一个成年人是无可辩驳的罪行，可对一个咿呀学语的小孩子施以同样的暴行（只要没留下伤痕），就会有人为此辩护，凡此种种，天理何在？

There are two main answers to this. One of these is that smacks aren’t assaults – they are punishments. The evidence, however, doesn’t support this. Joan Durrant, a professor of community health sciences at the University of Manitoba in Canada, says that decades of research point to the idea of the orderly smack – delivered to teach a child a lesson – being a fallacy.

这个问题的回答主要有两种。一说打耳光不算暴行，只是处罚。不过，证据并不支持这种说法。加拿大马尼托巴大学的社会健康科学教授琼·达兰特说，数十年来的研究指出，为了教训小孩而理性地予以耳光处罚，这种想法实为谬误。

Adults mostly hit their children when enraged and out of control, and language plays a key role in masking this. Just as the term once used to describe victims of domestic violence as “battered wives” had a useful (to abusers) double meaning, suggesting someone worn out rather than beaten up, so child-hitters have their own special word: “smack” is designed to dissociate thumping a child from other forms of violence.

成年人往往在愤怒和失控的状态下打孩子，而语言在掩盖此举的过程中起到了关键作用。正如“垮掉的妻子”曾被用于形容家暴受害者，但该词具备的双重含义（对施暴者来说）非常有用——它暗示了一个人只是疲惫不堪，而非被殴打。所以殴打儿童的人有着自己的特殊用语：“打耳光”一词由此而生，它使殴打儿童的行为与其他形式的暴力撇清关系了。

thump /θʌmp/ v. beat or strike or knock heavily, esp with the fist 狠打，重击，猛捶（尤指用拳）

The other justification often given is that even if hitting children is wrong, it’s even more wrong for police and courts to interfere in family life. The fear of spurious prosecutions, of good and loving parents being criminalised, looms large in arguments against change. Here New Zealand offers a reassuring lesson: in the three years after the banning of physical punishment, the government found that the dreaded “unnecessary state intervention” in private homes did not happen.

另一个常见的理由是，就算打孩子是不对的，警察和法院干涉家庭生活更是错上加错。一片好心的慈爱父母被判有罪，这种对诬告的担忧在反对变革的呼声中显得尤为突出。在此，新西兰交上了一份令人安心的答卷：在体罚被明令禁止之后的三年间，新西兰政府发现，人们唯恐出现的那种国家对私人家庭的“不必要干预”其实并未发生。

Spurious/ˈspjuərɪəs/ adj. not genuine or authentic; false or fake 假的，伪造的

dreaded/ˈdrɛdɪd/ adj. terrible and greatly feared 可怕的，令人畏惧的 

Hardly anyone defends smacking per se any more. A growing body of evidence since the 1980s has shown it to be harmful rather than beneficial – as was once believed by many Christians influenced by such teachings as “spare the rod, spoil the child” – and to have links to violence of other sorts, including spousal abuse.

很少有人还会对“打耳光”本身辩护了。二十世纪八十年代以来，越来越多的证据表明，体罚有百害而无一利（过去许多基督教徒受到“孩子不打不成器”之类的教义影响而相信体罚对孩子有好处），而且体罚与包括虐待配偶在内的其他暴力之间存在联系。

Such evidence is one reason why the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children exists, and also explains why countries including Canada have imposed age restrictions. There, smacking is only legal between the ages of two and 12. In the UK, there is no bar to parents (or any babysitter who has a parent’s permission) hitting babies or older children, while the government’s recently updated definition of domestic violence includes a paragraph on adolescent abusers, and another on male victims, but almost nothing about victims under 16.

上述证据解释了为何存在“全面终止体罚儿童的全球倡议”，同时解释了为何包括加拿大在内的一些国家已发布了对年龄的限制。在那些国家，能进行“打耳光”行为的合法年龄仅为2岁至12岁。然而在英国，对父母（或是得到父母允许的保姆）打婴幼儿或年长儿童没有任何限制，虽然近期政府更新了对家庭暴力的定义，其中一段是关于青少年施虐者，另一段是关于男性受害者，但几乎没有针对16岁以下受害者的内容。

Durrant believes the real reason why hitting children is still allowed is that they lack political representatives. The “reasonable punishment” defence, she points out, dates back to ancient Rome, when it was applied to slaves, along with women and children; and a key development in the common law was the 1860 trial of Thomas Hopley, a London schoolmaster who flogged a 15-year-old boy, Reginald Cancellor, to death, in an effort to “cure” bad behaviour. While Hopley was convicted of manslaughter, the judgment asserted that “reasonable” beating was allowed – an idea subsequently exported to British colonies worldwide.

达兰特认为，体罚儿童仍被允许的真正原因是，儿童缺少自己的政治代表。她指出，对“合理体罚”的辩护可追溯到古罗马时期，当时该理念被用于奴隶、妇女和儿童身上；而1860年对托马斯·霍普利的审判，是推动这一理念在普通法中得以体现的关键。身为伦敦一所学校校长的霍普利，将一位名为雷金纳德·坎塞勒的15岁男孩鞭笞致死，目的却是为了“治疗”其不良行为。虽然霍普利被判过失杀人罪，但法庭声称“合理”殴打是法律允许的——这一观点后来也被传到了英国在全球的殖民地。

flog /flɔg/ v. beat (sb) severely, esp with a rod or whip, as a punishment 重重责打（某人）（尤指用棍棒或鞭子）

manslaughter /ˈmænslɔːtər/ n. law the crime of killing someone illegally but not deliberately 过失杀人

For many children, occasional displays of temper by a parent, sometimes accompanied by a light slap or uncomfortably firm hold, are part of life. What is increasingly clear is that the strenuous efforts to deny any connection between what is sometimes called a “loving smack” (that is, an occasional blow from a good parent) and “abuse”, don’t stand up. Research on the mistreatment of children shows that in many cases the cycle begins with punishment.

对许多儿童来说，父母偶尔发脾气——有时还伴随着一个轻轻的耳光或令人不适的拖拽动作——都是家常便饭。日益明了的一点是，试图否认所谓“爱的耳光”（善良家长的偶尔发作）与“虐待”之间的联系，这种努力是根本站不住脚的。针对虐待儿童行为的研究表明，许多情况下，虐待儿童的恶性循环就是从体罚开始的。

strenuous /strɛnjʊəs/ adj. requiring great effort 必须努力的

There is no guarantee that a smacking ban would lead to a diminution in the kinds of child cruelty cases that make us flinch when we read about them. But it is worth noting that Sweden, the first country in the world to outlaw hitting children, has one of the lowest child abuse and homicide rates in the world.

没人能保证禁止体罚就一定能减少那些令人发指的虐童案。但值得注意的是，瑞典是世界上第一个宣布殴打儿童非法的国家，也是世界上儿童受虐和谋杀率最低的国家之一。

diminution /ˌdɪmɪˈnjuːʃən/ n. reduction in size, importance, or intensity减小，减弱

Change takes time and people are resistant, as the Welsh government has acknowledged, not least because we feel protective of the methods used by our own parents. But with smacking either prohibited or on the way to being so in more than 100 countries worldwide, and the UN convention on the rights of the child clear in its commitment to “end violence” of all kinds, England has some catching up to do. Children’s commissioners in all four nations of the UK, along with the NSPCC and campaigns including End Violence Against Women, are convinced it’s a case of when, and not if. Now would be good.

正如威尔士政府所承认的那样，变革需要时间，而人们对变革总是抗拒的，尤其是因为父母用过的体罚方法让我们感觉是一种保护。但是，世界上已有超过100个国家禁止或即将禁止体罚，联合国儿童权利公约也明确承诺要“终止一切形式的暴力行为”，在此情况下，英国要尽快赶上才行。英伦四岛的儿童权益委员会成员、英国全国防止虐待儿童学会（NSPCC）和“终止对妇女施暴”之类的运动均确信，禁止体罚不是一道是非题，而是时间问题。事不宜迟，现在时机正好。
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