Quote Originally Posted by 3irty1 View Post
She was punished for being disobedient, not just because he was an angry maniac lashing out blindly. We wouldn't expect him to fly off the handle and smack his kid if the Packers lost for instance. Discipline and losing control are not mutually exclusive although I agree that they definitely should be. I doubt much corporal punishment is administered by cool-headed parents.
An angry maniac thrashing around blindly is not quite what I had in mind. The hypothetical scenario I was envisioning is someone who has been seething quietly for a while and, when the kid finally says something insulting about his wife (I'm assuming they're married; she is not the daughter's biological mother), he gives her a hard backhand, breaking her glasses and bruising the side of her face. That isn't discipline.