To ask how those of us who were smacked

I'm reading of terrible abuse on this thread. It's beyond shocking. I'm so sorry for everyone who has suffered like that. And I'm also saddened by those whose parents used verbal abuse. I think verbal abuse leaves unseen scars - definitely IMO worse than a rare small smack on a clothed bottom.

I was smacked - a fair amount by my mother and 4 times by my dad - I remember those because it was so out of character for him and I’d been really naughty (for me - I wasn’t a particularly naughty kid) each time.

I don’t smack my children and don’t agree with it but equally I can’t say it impacted me negatively and I have a very close relationship with my parents. I was very obviously loved as well and it was just the way at the time to discipline - I don’t hold it against them.

My mother hit, smacked, whacked me from toddler hood to teenage hood. I never respected her because of it. Sometimes I didn't even know why I was being hit. The most upsetting ones were when she'd do it in front of aunts, uncles or cousins, where i still hold shame. She's always claimed she's loved me so much, a very kind affectionate woman.

That doesn't make a difference though to me. Our relationship is completely ruined from the hitting. I will never do that to my children no matter what they do.

Those that I know who say they've turned out just fine are the ones who need therapy the most e.g anger/ anxiety/ low key addiction issues.

I am so sorry that happened to you too.

The shouting with every word or syllable punctuated by a slap is also something I remember.

I remember my grandad smacked me once. I had done something I shouldnt have, and he did it with love. I remember him saying that he didnt want to do it but I needed to be shown how wrong it was. It didnt hurt physically, I dont think he wanted to hurt me, it was more symbolic of a line crossed. It hurt emotionally because I was so upset that I had behaved badly to that point, and to a man I adored and who I know adored me. Never ever felt badly towards him as it was done from a place of love (and he was born in 1920 so totally normal to do that in his world). It was a world away from the beating I would have got at home. And interestingly, he never told my parents what I had done as he knew what would have happened to me if he had.

I was smacked on the bottom, hands and around the head. My dad kicked me a few times too.

i grew up believing snacking was normal, when I had my dc I never lost my temper with them but I did occasionally give them a tap on the hand or bum when they really pushed boundaries.

I don’t agree with it now though. Or with shouting/ threatening/intimidating children.

It still makes me think worse of my parents. In the case of my mother, I knew very well from a young age that it had little or nothing to do with what I might have done, it was simply her taking her temper out on me: it felt unfair, and it was unfair. At the time I really resented it, I now realise it was basically an admission of weakness by my mother.

My father didn't smack much, mostly because he just wasn't around that much. But he used to get drafted in by my mother if she felt we needed greater punishments. I remember him doing it to me once when I had no idea that there was anything wrong with what I had done - so, so far as I was concerned, he suddenly set on me and attacked me. I despise him more for that, because he didn't apply his own judgment. I also remember him doing it to my brother, which was utterly humiliating for my poor brother and left me feeling really awful for him.

When it came to dealing with my own children, there was the odd occasion when I felt so frustrated that in a way it felt like smacking them might be a relief. However, I'm happy to say that memories of my parents held me back and I do think my relationship with children is better as a result.

@ButThisIsMyHappyFace i was smacked occasionally as a child by both parents, although mainly my mother. I don’t remember specific incidents but I know that it made me behave through fear. I don’t think that’s a healthy way for a child to be raised. I remember the last time my mother tried to smack me, I was about 10 years old, she went to and I swerved out the way and said ‘don’t you ever try to do that to me again!’. No idea where I got the confidence to do that but she never did try to again.

I was a well behaved child (a bit precocious) and I can’t think smacking was ever warranted, more just my parents feeling frustrated and not knowing what else to do. I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, we are not close and my siblings and I have all grown up to have varying levels of anxiety. I have a surface level relationship with them and I’ve had enough therapy to know they did the best they could with the tools they had. I can also acknowledge that to be true and know it wasn’t good enough. I know we’ll never be close and I’ve had to accept that.

Edit to add: my DH is the same age as me and his parents never smacked him or his siblings.

A book I read (from the 80s) arguing against smacking notes that English has developed a remarkable vocabulary to cover hitting children: smacking, slapping, spanking, cuffing, clipping, clouting, walloping, slippering, six of the best, and many more; which speaks volumes about how deeply ingrained smacking children used to be in our culture. This book also notes that even then, many parents regarded it not just as a right, but their duty to hit their children.

I have a great relationship with my parents, but I think they got it very wrong on smacking. They used it to reinforce telling off, as presumably their parents did, and I feel very strongly indeed about a handful of times I was smacked, when it was for something I didn’t yet know was wrong. One example was a man in the street suddenly stopped walking, and I bumped into him. My mum carefully explained that he was blind, then smacked me. To this day I feel seething anger about that, and other such incidents. I was old enough to understand the explanation, and it ruined the day. I felt terrified of getting things wrong, in case I’d be smacked. This fear followed me into adulthood; I didn’t ask for help when I needed it, and I lied and covered things up when I made mistakes. This gave me problems as a young adult.

Another time, I lightly hit my brother when we disagreed about something; and I was interrogated, and very soundly smacked. I felt full of revenge for several days, and I almost wish I had had the teenage audacity to sulk in silence for the whole day to show how upset I really was (I was 9 at the time). But the question is: where did I get the idea of hitting being the result of a disagreement? Who taught me that? Even my dad admitted at the time that he had gone too far.

I don’t have children, but I sometimes imagine telling my parents sternly that they must not even think of smacking my children, or even joking about it, as they might have done.

Hugely traumatic. If j feel I've done something wrong now I have the same physical response in my body as if I am about to be smacked.

Done a bit of counselling work on it. I probably need EMDR but not ready.

I think people responses are often build around how unpredictable the rest of the relationship was. If there was smacking was there a "repair" after. See rupture repair cycle.

I find it unthinkable that people think it's ok to hit children when they wouldn't dream of hitting a colleage.

I was hit, in temper. 'Smack' makes it sound like a tap across the legs, but I was hit and lived in fear.
It shaped my whole personality I think. I learned to lie, hide things, cover things up - innocent things, but anything that might trigger her disappointment, I would do anything to keep it private.
I am a people pleaser. I seethe in silence because even in my sixties, I have an overwhelming fear of not being thought of as perfect (even though I know, intellectually, that this is ridiculous).

Smacking, hitting, abusing, whatever words you have for it, is wrong.

I grew up in eighties and my best friends parents never hit her, she could not believe what happened to us.
I know several people my age who were not hit so it doesn’t follow that it was just the norm of its time.

My mom was not hit as a child and it blows my mind that she went on to approve of this sort of punishment.

Pretty much this.
I always knew why and had fair warning - it was the magic count to 3.
I had until 3 to apologise, if not I was smacked (usually with a wooden spoon! Yes it hurt! Funnily enough I was speaking to mum and dad about this recently and apparently the thinking behind it was so that I didn’t associate them with the smack but the spoon 🤯 I have no fear of either parents or wooden spoons!)

I was born in 1971 and was smacked by both parents. I don’t give it a second thought now. I knew they loved me. My relationship with my late dad was difficult, he favoured my sister She says it’s because I was a mouthy nightmare child and she wasn’t 🤷‍♀️. She’s possibly right. We did get a lot closer after he was diagnosed with cancer. I was the one called on for stupid o’clock A&E trips and to help out when he’d had a diabetic hypo and fallen out of bed. I’m much calmer and more practical than my sister.
My mum and I are really, really close and if I’m ever off work she’s the one I choose to spend the time with.

The smacking was a non-issue for me. It's the things they said that have stayed with me.

I got smacked by my dad a lot, once for screaming in fear of a spider! The scariest was my mum who would hit me over the knuckles with a wooden spoon when I was naughty. Thing is she is distraught now at the memory and now she had grandkids can’t believe she did it, I would never ever use physical punishment for my kids.

My parents never smacked us.. but l got smacked in junior school age 9 for something l didn't do.. with a ruler on back of my thighs leaving red welts.. my Dad went straight up to school to complain.. l still talk about it to my therapist to this day and I'm now 66. I never smacked my daughters.

@PyongyangKipperbang and @Greenshortwonder this is where I was as well. It was never “just a smack”.
I wasn’t a naughty kid - quite the opposite, tried to be little ms perfect because I was terrified of what would happen if I wasn’t.
There was an incident when I must have been about 8 and god knows what triggered it. I heard the shouting and ran and hid in the cupboard under the stairs and parent dragged me out, landing a smack with every syllable. I curled into a foetal position and have no idea how long it went on until it stopped. My sibling watched.

I was smacked. Only by my mum and never when my dad was there. Hard enough to leave handprints.

I ended up a child who wouldn’t try anything if there was a risk of failing or making mistakes. i’m now a hyper anxious perfectionist terrified of doing anything wrong. I dwell on “mistakes”, sometimes for years.

usually when I was smacked it was for something I didn’t know was wrong until I got the smack. I’d then hide in my room going over all my faults and promising myself I’d be “good” and wouldn’t do anything wrong again. Which of course was completely unsustainable, then I’d be even harder on myself the next time.

i don’t think it was effective. For me, pointing out the mistake and helping me fix it would have been a better solution. people fuck up, and I think learning that is a valuable lesson which physical violence doesn’t teach.

I was only smacked once in my childhood (as far as I remember) but I recall it vividly. My mother did it and she would be mortified if she knew I held onto it, I was probably about four having a tantrum and she got in a rage came out of the kitchen and smacked me. I remember lying on the ground shocked. The fact I remember well over 30 years later says it all about the lasting impact.

My father really lost it with my brother once, he was about 9 and hit him and held him against a wall. This was the day my brothers aniexty attacks started. This lasted with him even until now in middle age.

It’s interesting that when my sister was in a bad relationship and her partner raised his voice at their DD, my parents were aghast that this was the worst thing that could ever happen to a child. It just shows how people can rewrite history.

It did affect me a lot. I was smacked, and sometimes hit in other ways. It was my mum, never my dad.
She was unpredictable,and she was the scariest thing in my life. I was desperate for her love, and still am at the grand old age of 47! We have a very uneasy relationship but I love her. I can't stand her either . It's very mixed/messed up. I carry this huge sense of being unworthy of love and deserving to be treated with a lack.of respect. With that comes a lot of anger, and a strong feeling that I've been at the receiving end of huge unfairness. I don't even remember doing anything wrong, and I grew up very resentful of her. The last time she slapped me (at the dinner table, with all my younger siblings and dad around), I was 15 and I felt I was going to hit her back. I stopped myself short. She must have sensed it and stopped after that. I'm now having to work extremely hard on my anger so I don't "lose it" like she did. It's not fair I've been passed on this awful load, which was put o to me as an innocent child. I have compassion for her too ,as she wasn't raised well by her parents (they pretty much abandoned her). I still feel the hot pang of shame, resentment and utter desolation. I felt as a child when I got slapped. It's created a lot of damage unfortunately.

I was smacked frequently from early childhood through my teens for anything and everything; rarely for 'bad' behaviour and frequently as the recipient of my parents anger and frustations. Sometimes with a hand but also with a slipper or hard plastic spoon.
I'm still traumatised by it several decades on and it has marred my relationship with my mum who feels she did nothing wrong and it was what everyone did.

I was at the trampoline park earlier and heard a huuuuge man threaten to smack his very young daughter. It made me feel physically sick. My parents smacked me occasionally and it has taught me to never ever be violent towards my child.

I was smacked occasionally, usually by my Mum, usually on the arm or bum. I have no strong feelings either way about it now - I don't think she was ever out of control.

If this thread proves anything its that there is a world of difference between a smack from a loving parent who genuinely thought that they were doing the right thing(Spare the rod, spoil the child etc) and the ones who just took out their anger, stress, temper or rage on a kid just because they were bigger and stronger so the kid could do nothing about it. One doesnt leave scars, the other does.

And I agree that the ranting and shouting was often worse than the violence.

I was smacked occasionally, there was always a reason and it’s had no impact on me as an adult, my parents were lovely. I smacked my eldest once, for running into the road to get away from me when I was trying to put his coat on, it was pouring with rain. A car had to swerve and it scared me. Other than that I didn’t smack my kids, though I was sorely tempted a few other times. I was never smacked at school, corporal punishment was very rare at my school.