I think the issue is that there are too many parents who do NOT discipline or 'parent' their children and the child is running the household. It's everywhere. I've tried to guide a couple of my daycare families on this issue and my middle daughter. My grandson was allowed to make so many decisions and I gently suggested to my daughter that maybe she should take control and make more of the decisions and take charge of the family rather than letting him run the household with his tantrums. He has come a long way and she's learning to choose when he can make a decision and when she has to say, no I'm the Mom and I decide.

My children were not spanked and I was not spanked, but my youngest daughter was prone to tantrums and I used to give her one smack on the upper thigh to make her stop. Then she cried because I had smacked her but she stopped tantruming over whatever nonsense got her going in the first place when I had said 'no'. My own parents were beaten so never hit us except for the occasional one smack thing too when we really did deserve it. I don't see anything wrong with it, but I would be very angry if I saw someone hitting their child repeatedly.

We are not here to judge each other, we are stating our honest opinions as asked by the op.