AIBU to think my mum slapping me as a teenager was unacceptable?

I don’t disagree with anything you say.
My point is that a woman needed either to be a doctor, lawyer, of which there were a few, or have private money or support either from family or friends.
There was social disapproval to contend with as well as well as women’s much lower wages. These meant that a woman’s wage was just not enough to support a family.
Okay, no doubt there were individual exceptions, but I believe that was the general situation.

You don’t actually know what her behaviour was. And I think the OP does have empathy. She’s acknowledged what her mother was dealing with but struggled with her mother’s lack of acknowledgement of the incident over many years. People on this thread are acting like the mother was the only one impacted by the abuse in the home so she gets a pass for slapping her across the face and using aggressive and foul language. Meanwhile, the OP, who was a child in an abusive home, should have been the one to manage her mum’s feelings and take responsibility when she was 13! And god forbid that she should have been making her mum late in the mornings or potentially acting out because of what she was experiencing in the home. We can have compassion for the mum and potentially see why she might have snapped under the circumstances, but surely we can also find compassion for the OP and the dysfunction she grew up in. Being on the receiving end of that slap must have been a horrible and frightening incident in her already chaotic and dysfunctional young life.

I was born early sixties and my parents never needed to much encouragement to give me and my brother a good hiding.
Tbf they were the generation who had likely been whipped for bad behaviour. At least the the DPs didnt use "weapons"
Teachers, even in the infants were not muxh better. Secondary school it would be 3 strikes of the cane on the hand.
That was painful unless you were quick enough to relax your hand before the strike.
Some of these teachers were nasty, sadistic characters who seemed enjoy humiliating and hurting children.
The only real upside was that there pupils were far better behaved in the classroom for fear of the consequences!!

God, I cannot imagine slapping anyone round the face, let alone my own child. My sister drove me so mad once, as a teen, that I hit her - on the arm. There’s something so vicious about slapping someone in the face. You poor thing. Still, what’s done is done. It’s a real pity that she didn’t take ownership of this years ago and make a proper apology to you. I suspect that would have made a big difference to you. Can you go to a few therapy sessions to help you work through your feelings?

I had an abusive father. Some of the things he said and did are simply never going to leave me. I get it.

Yed big difference between smacking and abuse.

Well if you were so annoyed at your partner you wanted to hit them sometimes then, male or female, the advice would be to.leave. Theres no point being in a relationship where you are so infuriated by the other person it's not healthy. Whereas you can't leave a teenager. (And they can't leave either. That's why the stories people are sharing here about being regularly smacked or abused are awful). But a mother and teenagers winding each other up to the point a slap happens once is not good. But not the same situation.

And I am sure that abusive men tell themselves all sorts of crap. However, adult relationships are different or should be different.

Honestly I dont, I just am offering practical advice really

If you feel this is on par with the horror stories in the stately homes thread, i would disagree but respect your opinion

I firmly believe there is a difference between a parent giving the odd smack and 'abuse'.

Agree with this. I’m not condoning smacking, but some posters on MN seem determined to conflate the two, and it’s not helpful to anyone.

My parents gave the very occasional light smack (as in 2 or 3 times maybe) when I was a child… I would certainly not say they were abusive parents.

OP perhaps if you acknowledged your poor behaviour as a teenager it would help you to see both sides of the story and have some empathy. I had 4 teenagers and honestly their behaviour at times was unbelievably awful. I often had to walk away from them or I may have slapped them in sheer frustration. I was lucky enough to have a supportive DH but your DM was dealing with an abusive partner and an obnoxious teenager!

Because it was 20 years ago and I think this culture of encouraging people to be estranged from their parents is really problematic.
My parents did something awful once but as time went by I understood why they made the mistake they did and forgave them and our lives are far richer for it.

OP's mum fucked up one time but denied it and mocked OP when she brough it up for 20 years. I would expect OP's mum to apologise and to stop blaming OP for 'making her do it'.

All the posters berating OP and calling her a brat have just brushed past the fact that OP as well as her mum lived in an unsafe home with an abusive man. She and her mum probably have unresolved trauma and PTSD from living with OP's abusive dad.

Things were different in the past - child rearing wasn’t about being totally child centric.

She may have just had a bad day, or been having a hard time, for whatever reason.

If she’s a good mum now, generally, after 20 years, I’d just forget it, to be honest.

A child can’t “mentally torture you” any more than your pet dog can, because they’re children and you’re the adult.

You’re quite right that the relationship is very different because there’s a huge imbalance of power and so hurting a child is even less defensible for me.

Oh we love some empathy.

It's never ok for a child to hit their parent, and for an adult at one time or another had quite a significant power imbalance.

I never once hit my parents, I was a terrified kid.

The point wasnt to trauma dump, the point was its not acceptable

I have a good relationship with my now elderly parents, but I’m still bearing some small grudges about times they smacked me. They grew up in the 50s when it was much more normal, and indeed considered a parental “duty”. Smacking for disobedience might have been one thing, but the times I’m most angry about are when they did it to make a point: aged seven, I once bumped into a blind man because he stopped walking unexpectedly. My mum explained carefully why I shouldn’t have bumped into him, then smacked me, which I think was totally unnecessary. This and other moments made me terrified of accidentally doing wrong, and I think it seriously held me back as a teenager and young adult: I was afraid to take risks, and I felt I had to have everything I did “validated” by an adult. I had a lot of mixed messages later, as a teenager, because I think my parents realised that I was a bit too compliant, and they tried to encourage me to be a bit more outspoken, leaving me very confused.

It's not okay. However nuance is key. For example, a single instance of lashing out at a partner who has, without relent, mentally tortured you would be regarded as reactionary as opposed to intent. The dynamic of parenting someone is different to that of being in a romantic relationship with someone.

Sorry meant to tag @LVPLVTpost here.

Thank you. As someone who does have facially-related PTSD, I really feel like OP is trying to make a bigger deal out of a simple mum slap, which is not a trauma.

I thoroughly agree with this. While she should not have glazed over it, this may have been a defence mechanism. If she was otherwise good I can imagine she carries great guilt. Remember she was the victim of abuse too and I'm guessing much more than once. If this incident has clouded your life then imagine what her suffering of abuse and guilt has done to her. I think you need to let it go OP. But needless to say, you absolutely did not deserve this and your feelings about it now are understandable. If you become a mother I think you will experience stress like you've never imagined sometimes (like a teen refusing to get ready in the morn and making you panic about being late for work) and you'll empathise more.

I’m genuinely surprised at everyone saying “it was only one slap” “she was finding it really hard” “she had an abusive husband” “if she’s a good mother otherwise then she was finding it hard”

Absolutely no one would excuse a partner for hitting their spouse in a moment of frustration so why is it okay to minimise and reason when a parent smacks a child?

I love this comment @JasmineMac ! So often on here we see posters dwelling on things from the past and it's clear it's the obsessive overthinking rather than the incident which is now the issue.

I am with you OP.

When I was 14 my father once attacked me while I was simply sitting down reading a book and slapped me so hard in the face that I fell down hard from my chair. His reason? He was angry that I was 'looking at him the wrong way and not respecting him because he was unemployed''. I was simply sitting there reading...

My mother saw the whole thing and did and said nothing. Nobody ever apologised. She also slapped me on other occasions.

I consider that both of them were abusive and have little contact with them when I became and adult and I moved to a different country to have much distance as possible. I have had no contact at all with my mother for years.

Slapping someone in the face is disrespectful and abusive. No one should hit a child or a teenager because they have lost their temper. I always think it is cowardly to hit someone who can't hit you back and when there is such an unbalance of power.

I'm sure many men tell themselves that their relationship with their wives are so intense that it's acceptable to hit her in the face when she's being hormonal and he's lost control. Those men are abusers. But a mother doing the same to her daughter is just someone who made a "mistake".

You're the one being hyperbolic. The consensus is not for NC.

Discussing it honestly twenty years ago would obviously have been the right thing to do.

Weird of you to support hitting and lying.