While you prepare your rebuttal, let me add: As you must know, I agree wholeheartedly with Syag that this is not about Halacha. Halacha is broad and dynamic and full of contradiction — and you can always find a source to back you up.
This is also not about hitting. Majority of posters have agreed that wonderful parents sometimes hit their children. It’s a case by case analysis.
Please open your heart to hear this: it’s disturbing how you are making this a crusade to find sources to allow you, not to hit children, but to hit HARD, to BEAT, to SMACK — in your own words.
Crusade is not an exaggeration. I appreciate that you are quoting sources, but some are so out of context as to be reckless 🙂 Even if you can quote a source that permits you to beat your child, we can show (and have shown) you a hundred talmidei chachamim that promote gentle, moderate, even lenient parenting — not because they’re sentimental liberals. Because they’re rachmanim bnei rachmanim.
So your motive seems to be something other than truth seeking. It feels very strongly that you have an agenda. I know you think this is a smoke screen, but it’s not. It’s not conjecture either.
In terms of the Jewish ideal, the compulsory vort on teztaveh came to mind over shabbos, about Moshe rabbeinu intervening in HaShem’s “discipline” of klal yisroel after the egel. The absence of Moshe’s name in this parsha is a testament to that fierce, protective compassion. He was chosen as father of the people for this very trait, as remarkably shown by his gentle care of even animals. Champion of the defenseless.
We don’t know if you do or do not hit your children, but like I said, that’s irrelevant. Lots of wonderful, loving parents hit their kids sometimes. I am certain beyond a reasonable doubt, however, that you (like many people) did not have “Moshe rabbeinu” parents in your life, because the ideals that you vehemently espouse, and the manner in which you do so, would simply not occur to someone who did — but in fact would make them shudder. There is almost no exception to this rule, psychologically speaking.
On the contrary, your words echo those of parents who were themselves emotionally distant, far too-easily threatened by child’s lack of compliance, and who at times demanded it harshly, or shamed child into obedience in the name of higher morals. This was not atypical in past generations. That’s not to say they couldn’t also be loving and well-meaning. Unfortunately, there’s a host of psychosocial and spiritual presumptions that flow from being raised this way — one being that you continue to justify and promote them, as you do. Children of gentle, respectful parents simply do not think or speak this way. Let me say that again: Children of gentle, respectful parents simply do not think or speak this way. These attitudes and the invisible wounds they inflict are passed down from generation to generation until someone is willing to call them out as toxic, and change. Hopefully you are that person, that “Moshe Rabbeinu” father to your precious children.