Of licks and reaction before comprehension

On Friday, Member of Parliament and attorney Sjamira Roseburg posted a very short video with a simple public-service message for the people of St. Maarten: what many of us casually call “getting licks” can, depending on what happens, become a criminal matter. It was not a lecture on parenting. It was not an attack on Caribbean culture. It was not a declaration that every parent who has ever spanked a child is a criminal. It was a warning from an attorney about where physical discipline can lead when it crosses a legal line.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦’𝘴 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘦 considered the message important enough to expand it into an article so that readers could understand the issue in context. Roseburg had recently dealt professionally with a matter in which physical discipline of a child escalated to the point that it ended up before the justice system. She did not disclose the details. Instead, she did what professionals in positions of public responsibility should do: she took something she had encountered through her work and used the experience to warn the wider community.

We knew there would be backlash. In fact, we anticipated it strongly enough that the article specifically urged readers to read the entire section before reacting. St. Maarten is a Caribbean society, and “licks” are so deeply embedded in the experiences of generations of families that many people hardly stop to consider that what happens inside the home might have legal consequences outside of it.

Unfortunately, much of the reaction demonstrated exactly why the message was necessary.

Roseburg was called names. She was cursed. She was ridiculed because she does not have children, as though becoming a parent suddenly confers legal expertise and not being one somehow disqualifies an attorney from explaining criminal law. She was accused of telling people how to raise their children, although at no point did she do any such thing.

Whether someone agrees with spanking is one discussion. Whether certain physical acts against a child can amount to criminal mistreatment under the law is another discussion entirely. Roseburg was speaking primarily about the second. People responded as though she had entered their homes, taken away their belts and slippers and handed them a parenting manual.

You may believe strongly in giving children licks. You may have received licks yourself and believe they helped shape the person you became. You may believe there are children today who would benefit from firmer discipline. Those are opinions people are free to hold and debate. None of them changes what the Criminal Code says. That was the point.

The law does not contain an exemption saying that mistreatment is acceptable when the person administering it calls it discipline. More importantly, the law specifically treats certain mistreatment involving one’s own child, a child under one’s parental authority or a child being cared for or raised in the household as an aggravating circumstance for sentencing purposes.

Roseburg also did not say that one slap automatically produces a conviction. The word that some people apparently skipped over was 𝘤𝘢𝘯 (and it is in the headline). Physical punishment can become a criminal matter. Ultimately, where a complaint leads to prosecution, the facts and applicable law are matters for the justice system. That nuance is present in the original article. It was impossible to miss for anyone who read it carefully.

The problem is that social media increasingly rewards reaction before comprehension. People read a headline, hear a few words, decide what someone “must have meant” and then respond to that invented version of the statement. Once emotion takes over, the actual message becomes secondary. In this case, some people became angry at Roseburg for saying something she simply did not say.

Perhaps the most peculiar criticism was that she has no children. Roseburg was speaking in her capacity as an attorney who has dealt with these matters. Her qualification to explain a provision of criminal law does not come from motherhood. It comes from her legal training and professional experience. We do not require prosecutors to have personally experienced every crime they prosecute, judges to have lived through every dispute they adjudicate, or attorneys to share every life circumstance of their clients before they are permitted to understand the law.

The criticism also misses something else important. Roseburg was not only speaking about the child. Her warning could potentially protect parents themselves. Consider what can happen when discipline gets out of control. A parent becomes angry. A child talks back. A belt, slipper, hand or another object is used. What the parent considers punishment leaves injuries. Someone sees those injuries. A teacher asks questions. A relative becomes concerned. A report is made. Police become involved. An investigation begins. At that point, saying “that is how we raise children in the Caribbean” is not a legal defence by itself.

What began inside the family can become a police matter, then a criminal case, and potentially a conviction. A criminal record can affect employment opportunities, immigration matters, travel, professional licensing and other areas of a person’s life. The consequences can become considerably larger than whatever incident started the entire situation. Why would we not want parents to know that?

Roseburg went even further and suggested communication, boundaries, appropriate consequences and professional guidance when parents find themselves struggling with a difficult child. Somehow, even that became controversial. Suggesting alternatives is not an insult to parents. Seeking help does not mean someone has failed as a mother or father.

Our culture should be strong enough to examine itself without treating every question as an attack. People often say, “I got licks and I turned out fine.” Perhaps they did. Others received the same treatment and remember fear, humiliation or violence rather than discipline. Both experiences can exist. A mature community should be capable of hearing both without immediately becoming defensive.

If you believe in giving licks, then understand the potential legal boundary around what you are doing. Understand that what you consider discipline could, depending on the circumstances, be viewed very differently by police, prosecutors and ultimately a court. Understand that being the child’s parent does not place the conduct beyond the reach of criminal law.

That knowledge may one day protect a child. It may also protect a parent from making a decision in anger that follows them for years. And if a short warning from an attorney about something so serious produces outrage simply because it challenges something we have always considered normal, perhaps the outrage itself tells us that the conversation was overdue.

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