If your child doesn't understand why they're getting spanked how do you expect to instill discipline in them?
At that age a child isn't going to recognize the line between attempts at discipline through using corporal punishment as a deterrant and abuse. Looking back on it as adults they might be able to. I, as an adult, can recognize the difference between when my dad spanked me calmly over his knee after I was mean to my sister and when my dad pulled the car over on the side of the road, went into the backseat, ripped my pants down to my knees and started angrily spanking me. One was corporal punishment, the other clearly abuse. The problem is that a child can't tell the difference. Because of that using physical violence is just generally a bad, ineffective idea and runs a good chance of making your child hate you for life.
Your problem isn't your upbringing, its your worldview. You deem yourself worthless and instead of doing something about that you decide that it can only be due to one's raising. How about teaching yourself how to make something worthwhile first and then worry about how you'll teach your kids to do that? [small]Psssy, by the way, you don't accomplish that by beating them. You accomplish that by encouraging them.[/small]
