The long term effects of spanking children.

I remember the day I realized that spanking was not ordained by god (I still believed in him then). I had just spanked one of my kids, and my hand hurt, apparently more than the kid's bottom. I stopped and looked at my hand, really looked at it. Thought about the delicacy and intricacy of the engineering marvel that a hand is. About the fine and detailed work that hands are capable of. And I realized that hands were not designed (by god or evolution) to be used as instruments of blunt force or to hit things with. As obvious as this may sound now, it was a breakthrough moment for me.