In episode 1696 of his show (25 November 2026), Matt Walsh speaks about a mother who had lost control as she beat her son, picking him up by the hair and screaming. At about the 42 minute mark he says:
When you see a child being physically abused, you should be horrified and outraged … (43) I’m not against corporal punishment in principle. But here is the point: … whatever discipline you impose on a child, it should be done in a calm and measured way. Everybody yells sometimes. No parent is perfect. I’ve definitely been guilty of yelling. … But if you are taking your anger out on a child, physically, that’s abuse.
If you are “disciplining your child” by being wildly undisciplined yourself, and venting your anger as you physically strike them, that is abuse. Period. … (45) We would never accept our children hitting other children out of anger. … Yet, if an adult hits a child out of anger, then it’s okay? So that the only context where venting your anger by physically hurting somebody is okay is where a parent does it to a kid? Wouldn’t that be actually the worst form of it?
(46) The principle is this: that you cannot expect your child to exhibit any trait that you have not demonstrated for them. And you can’t be angry at them for exhibiting any trait that you have demonstrated for them. …
(49) It is absurd to be angry at your child for doing things that you do. … (50) If I can take a step back … I realise that it’s not that I should let them get away with it … but for me to get actively angry doesn’t really make any sense, because my kids have never done anything that I didn’t do as a kid, and in some cases I don’t do now. …
Matt Walsh is quite brilliant. He is controversial, and he is (I might modestly suggest), sometimes on the wrong side of the controversies. He is sometimes imprudent in his choice of words, even if his basic idea is correct. But he is worth listening to, and in this, he is absolutely and profoundly correct.
I would add that psychological abuse is even worse than physical. An abusing parent is a hypocrite: she or he has one low standard for themselves, and another, higher standard for the child. If you have had such a parent, it is only possible to come to terms with it for the sake of the love of God, and by realising that we do cannot understand all the pressures and conditioning our parents endured. We do not know what formed and warped them, should they prove to be abusive. And when we remember the bad, we cannot remember the good.
The legality of corporal punishment shows a “culture of violence” says Austrian peace researcher Franz Jedlicka (Culture of Violence Scale). Almost every country of the European Union (a peaceful place) has outlawed it ..
Daniel
I think it depends on what you mean by “corporal punishment.” Some of it is allowable under Church teaching, but it must be temperate, correspond to the wrong done, and not administered in a harsh or vindictive spirit. And besides, not all cruelty is physical: in fact, the spirit in which it is administered may be worse than moderate and condign corporal punishment.