The soundest spanking I ever got was in 1977 at 11-years-old, for lying to a neighbour. It wasn't any ordinary lie, either, but a desperate two-hour defence of a doomed position: No, I had not been smoking the pack of cigarettes found in my possession, nor had I stolen them from the house guest who, coincidentally, also smoked Belvedere Lights, and was missing his only pack.

As good as I got whupped, though, I can remember feeling a kind of relief. Relief that I could at last abandon my absurd story line; relief that the inquisition was over, and that I could finally leave the awful Teutonic presence of my neighbour; relief too, I suppose, that the rules on lying were the same in my family as they had been the last time I'd checked.

If I were 11 today, and in a similar bind, I might be able to avoid the sole of my father's dreaded slipper. In between squeals for mercy I might remind him that the UN has recently told Canada to ban corporal punishment for children. So stay, cruel despot, and lemme outta the woodshed.

In hindsight, however, I wouldn't excuse myself that spanking, even though it was my quivering nates that took the blows. I was the type of boy that, as Lewis Carroll wrote, would even sneeze because I knew it teased, and invited rough words and beatings because I needed something to push against in growing up.

[. . . .]

But spankings were also, and continue to be, used by parents who love their kids. As a measure of last resort, they are the ceiling on the hierarchy of punishments, and loom large in the order of the child's world. When administered after a cooling-off period, they help defuse an overwrought situation by triggering a cloudburst of tears, explanations and reconciliation between parent and child. They may not be appropriate for all children, but for boys who were as naughty as I, they were often the only thing holding me back from filching another pack of Belvederes.