My parents (65F, 67M) are livid because I’m not allowing them to see my daughter after they spanked her. AITAH?

I created this account just to talk about this because it seems all my family except my wife is on their side.

For context, I live abroad and this is only the second time my family has met my daughter. My wife (28F) and I(28M) flew down for the holidays as well as an extended vacation so my daughter (3F) could get to see my home country (Brazil) and have a fun, different experience.

We spent New Years at my parents’ with my extended family. Everything seemed to be going well, until on the 3rd, my wife and I left the house to run some errands, and left my daughter alone with my parents. My daughter is a very smart girl, she loves talking, she’s sweet, but opinionated. And we like to encourage that. We want her to know that her voice and thoughts matter and we are there to listen. My parents however seem to disagree.

While we were out, my mom called me telling me that my daughter was being disrespectful. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that she was arguing about the cartoon they’d picked for her to watch and wanted to watch something else they didn’t know. And I understand we don’t always have to give kids what they want, but I don’t see the harm in that, especially because I don’t exactly trust whatever they chose for her due to certain “ideological” differences we have. So I sent her a link to an YouTube series she likes to watch, and asked her to put that on instead and tell her that dad and mom would be back soon to talk to her. Next, my mom told me she had “already taken care of it”. I was confused as to what that meant, and she followed to say that she had spanked her to teach her to not argue.

Needless to say I was furious, I hang up, told my wife and we immediately dropped everything and drove back. We do not do spanking, we have never and never will, as someone who was spanked a lot for the most unnecessary and stupid reasons, I understand it does not work and only harms the child. And yes, I had mentioned it to my parents. We had a pretty ugly argument when we arrived, but I kept my position clear. They did not have the right to do that, and I wouldn’t be taking it lightly. My parents are very strict in their ways and they refused to apologize or even acknowledge that what they did was wrong (if not for the spanking, for doing it without my permission).

Long story short, we packed the same day and left. I called the hotel for the next city we were visiting and and booked a room earlier (it was about a week before we were planning to leave). I made it very clear to my parents I don’t want to hear anymore excuses. I sent them some articles on parenting and child abuse and told them I wouldn’t be talking to them or allowing them to talk to or see my daughter again until they’ve read those and contacted me to apologize and acknowledge that what they did was horrible and wrong.

Fast forward to now, it’s been over two weeks and all I’ve head from them are enraged complaints about how they know what they were doing (because they did it to me and I turned out okay, so it must work), about how I’m being ridiculous and unfair because they were only trying to help and they don’t get to see my daughter often since I live abroad. I’ve received calls from my sister (who is a lot like them) defending them, from my sister’s husband, from his father, from two of my uncles (my father’s brothers), even from some of my cousins. To put it shortly, what everyone is saying is that I should forgive them and forget about it because they had good intentions and they don’t get to see my daughter often, so I’m being unfair. We had plans to spend a few more days with my parents in early February before our flight home, but I cancelled it.

I still don’t think I’m wrong, but I can partly see their reasoning behind the “they don’t get to see her often” point, though I’m still very much not inclined to yield. AITAH?

Update:

This post got a lot more attention than I was expecting. I showed it to my wife and we decided to block everyone who has been calling/texting us about the situation. We’ll enjoy the rest of our vacation in peace. Once we’re back home, I’m going to call my parents and explain to them one last time why what they did is unacceptable, I will not be allowing them to be alone with my daughter ever again, and unless I can see for sure that they’ve learned and changed, they will not be seeing her again at all. I’ll keep them muted and contact them only if something urgent happens in the family.

I’ve also seen some comments debating spanking kids, and I believe this is a discussion we as humans shouldn’t even be having anymore. Spanking or any kind of physical punishment is abuse and there’s never any excuse to resort to violence. If a child is too young to reason with, they won’t understand why you’re hitting them. If they are old enough to reason with, then reason with them.