I agree with you, but also respectfully disagree at the same time. I agree because they are perfectly able to choose a path that isn’t cruel, (that’s always an option) but disagree because sometimes they aren’t entirely - whether due to a lack of experience in healthy resolutions, or problems in their own lives, or some combination of those or other factors. It doesn’t excuse the abuse, at all, but they are contributing factors in the patterns of it.

Just as an example: my severely alcoholic grandmother used to beat the snot out of my father, and he never learned any healthy parenting skills from her or my grandfather. He didn’t use coat hangers to beat me like she did to him, because that was barbaric, but belts were acceptable tools in his mind. He quite literally did not have the framework to understand that it was essentially the same thing from other people’s perspectives, or morally unacceptable; he didn’t have the toolkit to manage his stressors and build better behavior patterns for most of my childhood. Having seen his journey (and my own) I find that I’m empathetic for the effort it takes to break this kind of generational cycle of violence even as I find the actions of abusers reprehensible.

I’m saddened that Missouri has chosen to normalize and promulgate more violence against children instead of investing that kind of effort into actually improving the lives of its citizens. I’m editing my parent comment to add something that I hope will show that I understand the agency that these parents, educators, and lawmakers have when making these decisions (because you’re right, they do).