It is not the spanking that has caused the problems, however, it is the history of inadequate or ineffective parenting. Although some people who abuse their partners were themselves abused as children, this does not mean that being spanked, as opposed to abused as a child, will lead to abusive behavior as an adult. He notes that most men from his generation were spanked as children, but the majority did not grow up to be abusive toward their partners. Authoritative parents provide structure, nurturance, and supervision to their children. Their occasional spanking is not harmful.
Permissive parents provide too little structure and discipline overall.
Thus, these last two types of parents, it is not spanking that is the problem, it is the entire parenting style. One Rosemond explains that a child should be spanked only as a way to provide an immediate halt to an unacceptable behavior. He offers the analogy that one, quick, open handed slap to the clothed bottom of a child is to abuse as sending a child to his room is to locking a child in the closet. Of course either extreme is abuse, but at the reasonable end of the continuum, the need to halt the child's behavior is the same. He also notes that spanking is not to humiliate a child.