It's a sign of incipient fogeydom when kids' behavior gets really annoying. "Why, in my day..." You know what I mean. Well, maybe I've reached that sad gloaming. And maybe I'm hard on German kids because I happen to live in Germany and see their antics all the time. For the record: A middle school hulks, like an accursed Monkey Island, right across the street.

Sure, I raised a bit of hell in my younger days too. Just normal stuff, nothing criminal or morally reprehensible. Once, for example, a man brandishing a metal pipe and calling me nasty names chased me down the street after I pelted his car with snowballs. I, naturally, ran faster.

I've observed kids elsewhere, mind you, but it seems to me that the German variety can't be beaten when it comes to insolence nowadays. Literally as well as figuratively. Since November 2000, the German Civil Code has explicitly banned corporal punishment by parents. The pertinent passage reads: "Children have a right to a non-violent upbringing. Corporal punishment, psychological injuries and other degrading measures are impermissible." Corporal punishment in West German schools was banned in the 1970s.

Why, in my day, back in the U.S.A., yours truly got whacked aplenty. In school I was paddled at least once, I recall, and at home a leather belt was the usual disciplinary implement. My buddy across the street, by contrast, got his lessons in proper conduct with a wooden spoon wielded by his mom, who was born in Dortmund. This, for me, was the old German method, whereas the belt was in the best Slavic tradition.

I grew up to be, if I may say so myself, an upstanding, if not outstanding, citizen. Nary an armed robbery have I committed. And I bear neither physical nor emotional scars from the periodic floggings that kept me more or less in line.

Every decent person censures physical abuse, of course, which isn't the same thing as reasonable corporal punishment. Opponents argue that smacking an unruly child is not only wrong, but can lead to psychiatric problems as well as violent, anti-social behavior later in life. Many European countries, not just Germany, have banned it. Well-meaning though this is, in practice the prospect of pain -- and not a good talking-to -- is what deters troublemakers. So ist das Leben eben. Leider.

Meanwhile, the monkeys run wild. You can wag a finger at them, but if you grab one you're liable to answer in court.