For hundreds of years in America, flogging was normal. Parents flogged at home, teachers flogged in school, masters flogged on farms. It was the culture. The Bible verse "spare the rod and spoil the child" was taken very literally.
So what changed?
The first crack happened in 1874. There was a little girl in New York called Mary Ellen Wilson. She was beaten so badly everyday that a neighbor had to report to an animal protection society, because there was no child protection society at that time. Yes, they used the animal protection law to save a child. That case shocked America and made them create the first ever society to protect children.
But parents still continued to flog.
Then in 1962, a doctor did something nobody had done before. He took X-rays of children who were coming to the hospital with broken bones and showed the world that these injuries were not accidents, they were from beating at home. He called it "The Battered Child Syndrome". For the first time Americans saw with scientific proof what flogging was really doing inside the body.
That paper changed everything.
In 1974, the American government passed a law that shook every parent. The law said teachers, doctors and nurses MUST report any child they suspect is being beaten. If you flog your child and leave a mark, bruise or swelling, government workers called CPS can knock on your door, take your child away and take you to court.
Why did America do this? Psychologists started saying beating does not teach a child long term, it only teaches fear. And they started a movement that said children are not the property of parents, they are humans with their own rights.
Today, America is divided. You can still give a light spanking with your hand in all 50 states. But if you use belt, cane, wire or stick and it leaves a mark, that is called child abuse and you can be arrested. In schools, 19 states have banned flogging completely, 31 states still allow it.
And in 1979, Sweden became the first country in the whole world to say no parent should flog their child at all, even at home. Today more than 60 countries have joined them.
So 100 years ago, America and Africa were doing the same thing. What changed was not that Americans loved their children less, they just changed their idea of what love and discipline should look like.