My kids were born in 1989 and 1992 and I learned from a lot of experienced mentoring moms. I grew up in a household that spanked, and I knew I did not want to do that. So I watched and learned from other moms whose kids were very different from other kids I knew. They were peaceful and well-behaved but not in an I-don't-dare-speak-up-because-I'll-be-beaten kind of way. I read a lot of books. Two I remember are The Continuum Concept and How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. (There were many more but it's been three decades.) I routinely had strangers comment at how well-behaved my kids were; my neighbor told me my kids were the best she'd ever seen. You can ignore this as anecdotal, but I have a feeling you are mixing up people who don't do any parenting at all with people who believe in peaceful parenting. I met a mom with a bunch of kids who were very well mannered and someone asked her what her secret was -- she said, "I expect it of them." I did very little punishment but my kids knew what was expected of them. Discipline and punishment are not the same thing, which people tend not to understand. There is NO EXCUSE for hitting/spanking a child, and there is also no excuse for letting a child throw food in a restaurant.

Kids aren't born bad. If you love them, treat them kindly and maintain appropriate rules, they're probably going to turn out very well. I met so, so many good moms at the parenting group I attended back in the '90s. I watched a lot of these kids grow up over the last 30 or so years. They were good kids and they are good adults. Call it attachment parenting, call it peaceful parenting or call it whatever you want, but it's way better than the beating and ignoring a lot of people do. I wrote about this ages ago: https://medium.com/the-narrative-arc/how-to-raise-a-citizen-who-shares-the-chocolate-35173837d0ac