In a 2010 study, “Are Spanking Injunctions Scientifically Supported?” Larzelere and developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind observed that researchers regularly fail to differentiate between abusive and non-abusive corporal punishment, to distinguish whether corporal punishment was used in an appropriate disciplinary situation, and to show that the link between corporal punishment and negative outcomes was causal, not correlational. The pair concluded that “current research indicates that customary spanking is not associated with child outcomes that are any more adverse than the outcomes of any other type of corrective discipline.”

Beguiled once again from her purpose — to apply to Tom Sawyer’s jam-stealing rump the well-deserved business end of her switch — Aunt Polly falls to ruminating: “Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks.”

Mark Twain is careful to end The Adventures of Tom Sawyer while Tom is still a boy — “the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man,” he warns — but with Tom encouraging his pal Huck Finn to quit his ragamuffin ways and return to the care of the Widow Douglas, we might reasonably conclude that Aunt Polly’s mission civilisatrice has succeeded.

In modern-day Missouri, Aunt Polly would likely be in prison for child abuse. That observation is not intended to be a defense of Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings running back facing two years in prison forover zealously disciplining his four-year-old son, also with a switch. But the fact that Peterson’s parenting is a subject of national comment is a thoroughly 21st-century development.

The media has been uniformly delighted to flaunt its righteousness. Rolling Stone’s Kenneth Arthur wrote that, if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would not act, the Vikings franchise would not suspend Peterson, and coach Mike Zimmer would not bench Peterson, then Peterson should “do what’s right” and bench himself (the Vikings have since suspended him). At the Boston Globe’s website, Jordan Lebeau calls the new generation aux armes, writing, apropos the many childhood thrashings of yesteryear, “Maybe enough is enough. Maybe we are smarter than our grandmothers. Maybe we can be.” And at the Daily Beast, Amanda Marcotte contributes a representative piece entitled, “The Adrian Peterson Beating and the Christian Right’s Love of Corporal Punishment.”

The defenses of Peterson by his supporters, many of whom are fellow NFL players, have been similarly unhelpful, consisting mainly of personal testimonies to their own childhood beatings. Arizona Cardinals defensive lineman Darnell Dockett tweeted, “I got a ass whippn at 5 with a switch that’s lasted about 40mins and couldn’t sit for 2days. It’s was all love though. Times have changed!” “When I was a kid I got so many whoopins I can’t even count!” tweeted New Orleans Saints running back Mark Ingram, adding: “I love both my parents, they just wanted me to be the best human possible!”

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