The slapping thing is a little bit old school, we don't really do that anymore, but it comes from an old school of thought where punishment creates discipline.
The boys defended her, and I felt even worse. Then at the table with the French family, on our left, the father slapped one of his children for some minor infraction, and the boy began to cry.
They began with the first pandemic, a slap to the face of everyone, as they had to acknowledge that they were a single civilization on a single biosphere, utterly dependent on science to keep them alive.