it was usually when a parent was disrespected or humiliated by their child, or the parent was in a tense situation and angered by the child somehow. This sort of reactive behaviour is not what you’d want even if you did believe corporal punishment was valid

This, so much this- either that, or they'd just be taking out their frustrations from life on their kids. A lot of people do that.

My ideal model of parenting is where the community raises a child and the onus is less on an individual parent but rather the community. This would also mean (possibly) that a child is less of a source of pride and denigration to one parent, reducing a source of that reactive behaviour.

Marx's call for the abolition of the bourgeois family comes to mind. Children all too often are still treated as property, and exploited, abused, and controlled as such, even in the west.