Being hit as a child

[Pearsapiece]

Im currently working through some things I've come to terms with about my own childhood. I want to get some perspectives about whether some of the things I experienced were 'the norm'.

I was born in 1995 and the youngest of 4. I can remember being hit as a child. Not smacked as a form of discipline (although I remember that as well) but hit a cross the face on a number of occasions.
One that stands out was my mother not liking pictures or posters on the outside of bedroom doors. I drew a picture of my stuffed animals and wrote "my room" at the top. I remember my mother ripping it off as soon as she saw it and slapping me a cross the face with it. I must have been about 8 so circa 2003.
I also remember my sister being hit a cross the face for getting out of bed to get some water when she was unwell. She ended up with a cut and swollen lip which my mum told people was from falling off her bike.
I know this carried on beyond childhood too as I remember seeing my dad hold my brother up against the wall my the collar and shouting in his face. My brother was about 17 so I would have been 7 witnessing it.

Was this type of thing the norm? Am I overreacting to think it was an awful way to treat your children? Or was the generally the way at the time?

I had a child on 2001 and he's not been smacked ever. He's a young adult who was never in trouble at school or with the police.

It was normal for kids to get hit when I was growing up (70s) but the number of parents doing it and the acceptance of it is far less now. If a parent smacked i would have assumed you'd done something pretty serious like taken up smoking or taken money from your mum's purse- not bluetacked a poster on the door.

These posts are so terribly sad. Taking out anger and frustration on defenceless children is so damaging and unforgivable. I think I’d just cut my parents off as soon as I was able to. They’d be bound to go on causing distress in other ways when the child becomes an adult.

I'm really sorry that you went through that. I also experienced violence in my childhood but like you I just kind thought it was "the norm". Two occasions really stick out in my mind. One was when my older sister and I were playing upstairs in our bedroom and my Dad stormed up the stairs and started screaming at us because we were being to loud - all I remember is that we were laughing and that was it. He smashed my bedroom up, then the whole house, slapped my sister across the face and we had to barricade ourselves in the bathroom with him threatening to knock the door down. I must have only been about 7 at the time. After that he made us clean up the mess he made in the house.

Another time was when I was a teenager and we got into an argument because I wanted to go out with my friends, he ended up punching me in the mouth, I had braces at the time and they went through my lip. A few years later I was speaking to my mum about it and she said "he didn't punch you, it was a back hand" - apparently that made it ok

I used to think it was normal for along time. Me and my siblings were constantly hit, legs, head, and face mostly. Me being punched in the face by my mum and her kicking me when I was on the floor. Also my sister was stamped on 😢 was awful and honestly thought everyone went through it.
I have my own kids now and can see how horrendous and violent it actually was.
So no it's not normal. Sorry you went through this x

If an adult hit another adult across the face it would be deemed assault. It was assault on you a child. Not normal and not acceptable.

Your parents were both physically abusive to you and your siblings. Total wrong and not your fault at all. You are not overreacting, it is wrong and should not have happened.

Do any of PP believe that a child who has experienced violence is more likely to end up in a DV relationship? I don't mean that to be offensive so apologies in advance

I had my children, and attended toddler groups, in the 90s and early 2000s. My impression then was that gentle smacking was talked about a lot as a necessary means of disciplining very young children, but that I didn't actually see it that often. My MIL claimed she smacked dh in the 60s but dh says he has no recollection of this, and I'm kind of wondering if she didn't just feel she ought to say that to prove that she didn't spoil him.

In the 90s/2000s, it happened, but not that frequently and I never saw or heard anyone speak approvingly of the degree of violence mentioned on this thread. People knew in the 90s that that was abuse.

It was also considered very inappropriate to use physical force on older children who a) could understand b) would require much more forced=actual injury if you wanted to make an impact.

I didn't approve of the so-called "gentle smacking" either, but I could also see that it was different from hitting an older child hard enough to make an impact.

I'm a 1960s baby and was in secondary school in the early 1980s. We had a smacked bottom as very small children for naughtiness (I only actually remember one occasion when my brother was climbing around inside the car when my mum was driving, he was about 7 so well old enough to know better and she had to wait till we got home. I've actually pulled my DS out of the car when he's done that so I totally sympathise with my mum!)
While I was in secondary school I remember debating smacking and we were all clear what was smacking and what was abuse. Adults were starting to come out against smacking and against corporal punishment in schools as a PP has said, it was a time of change.

I was late 80s and my parents did back of the legs smacks sometimes.

My dad did used to have an awful temper but it was more verbal, and I did start to argue back as I got older and realised when he was being disproportionate and irrational. It would always be when something was broken, like the Sky box having a poor signal etc and he would really take it out on us even though we had nothing to do with it.

No this is/was not at all normal or ok.
I’m an 80s baby so born before you and this certainly didn’t happen in my house.
When I was little smacking a hand etc for discipline was fairly normal but the kind of hitting you speak of wasn’t socially acceptable I don’t think. I was only smacked in the leg once when I was a teenager and arguing with my dad. He cried after, went for a long walk and then came back and apologised to me.

The way you were treated was absolutely not right or ok. You’re not unreasonable to question it now.

I think it's hard to say whether smacking was normal because it depends on your background and area etc. However what you experienced was not smacking it was abuse.

I was born in 1979 and was smacked once , which my dm was absolutely horrified at herself. What I did see is that shaming and extreme criticism was more accepted in my parents and peers. It was not acceptable to use any form of violence but perfectly acceptable to be truly nasty and controlling.

I'm sure other areas or homes did it the other way around.

But slapping across the face is not a tap on the bum as a smack. Its abuse.

Born in early seventies. Corporal punishment as abuse was called then was very common. Our school still used a cane (later replaced with a paddle) and I and other students had been hit by teachers on occasion. You know things like smacked on the head with a book for drawing pictures instead of taking notes. Hit on hands with a ruler for speaking disrespectfully to the teacher. One teacher even threw a chair at me.

It was not unusual to see a parent hitting a tantrum having or whining toddler/ small child in “punishment” in public settings and people would just look the other way or sympathise with the parent (not the child).

But I always felt as a child growing up that even though it was common, and I saw it every day around me, it was wrong. I think many of us in that generation felt the same and because most of us have broken the cycle, and it is now recognised for what it is: Assault and abuse.

I was also born in 1995! My mum gave me a sharp smack across the legs/bum maybe three or four times when I was younger. Usually if I'd been doing something dangerous and she usually apologised after.

She stopped when I was about 7 as I don't think it sat right with her.

Smacking on the face was a massive no, she'd have been horrified at that.

For some families that's normal behaviour and tbh a lot of people hide it.

I agree with this. My parents didn't even routinely smack to discipline us as such but i definitely got some belters over the years, usually for really random things that looking back really weren't a big deal. They were quite angry people with explosive tempers and let that side out in their own home. Its not OK by any means and definitely affects how i relate to them as an adult. They were like it to each other too, not the hitting but huge explosive rows, the kind I'd never dream of having around my kids or indeed at all.

DH and his sister were also hit intermittently but pretty badly. Again MIL just used to lose her temper. I really think that the idea your children aren't your property and you can't just behave however you like to them is a relatively new one.

I actually think it was harder as we never knew when the explosive anger was coming and like i say it was sometimes for really bizarre reasons, so my brother and i are quite anxious people now. And i used to try and avoid confrontation, but have got better at that now.

It doesn't matter what decade it happened in - it's abuse. My DP and two of his sisters were treated appallingly by their parents during the seventies. People were more inclined to raise their hand to a child back then, but it was never, ever right. The thing that pisses me off is that there are two much younger siblings who didn't experience the same violence and they just shrug their shoulders and say that things were different back then, effectively minimising and dismissing DP and his sisters' horrendous treatment at the hands of their parents. Their parents had moved on to emotional abuse by the time the younger DC came along because thumping your child was less socially acceptable.

Not normal.
Born in the early 80s was never hit by my parents.

Definitely not normal OP. I am sorry you had to deal with this. I am an early 80s child and had the same down to the posters. She used to rip them down and beat me. We were instructed from an early age, "what happens in this house stays in this house." So they knew it was wrong. My sibling wasn't hit, just me because even today when I call her out she claims I was uncontrollable. Children need love and safety not fear, criticism and threats. She wasn't afraid to tell me just how embarrassing I was. Still isn't. I am in therapy for the way she treated me and it has destroyed my self esteem.

I did fight back, she hasn't hit me again, but uses me as a verbal punchbag. I know when someone has upset her because she will be especially nasty.

She doesn't need an excuse. The latest ones were, "Don't get upset if the children stare at your face". I was helping on a school trip.
"I should expect you enjoy wearing a mask because it hides your face."
"Just try to be normal and don't go and say anything weird."
I have a cleft lip... she is embarrassed and frustrated even today. I see that her hitting me was out of pure frustration with a very sad and disturbed little girl, but denying therapy and cosmetic help, hitting and making sure I knew how much she seems to think I am a failure isn't how it works.

I call her out on it every time I can. I actually hate her to the point that when she is old and needs care I will never ever help her. Not one bit of shopping, no trying to find her a nice care home, no visiting one. No funeral will I lovingly plan. Probably a good job my sibling will help her, otherwise I'd not even call social services to arrange a carer. I'll just leave her to rot and enjoy it when she suffers.

Absolutely not OK and the fact it is still in your mind shows what an awful impact it has made on u.

I am currently working through some issues I have with my childhood. Yes I was smacked but I don't think that is the main issue with mine but more than I witnessed domestic abuse for such a long time and my dad destroying all of our belongings in his fits of anger. For me it's developed in buying things to make me feel happy or to make up for those things I lost as a child. It's gotten so bad I have racked up serious debt in both my name and my husbands.
I have ignored these feelings my whole adult life and everything has been brushed under the carpet but it still haunts me and I am in a position now where I don't know if I ever want a relationship with my parents. My mum was a victim back then but did nothing to protect my sister and I and still defends my dad to this day.

I hope you are getting some help on how manage what u are feeling about all of this. It has taken me 15 years and only because I have gotten myself into such a horrendous state with finances that I now feel free to actually speak about what has happened.

I was born in 84 and regularly got hit by my mother (although it was referred to as “smacking” when it wasn’t).
Like you it was over trivial things and in all honesty sometimes just because my mum needed to get some anger out. School holidays were awful. I was quiet and well behaved but if I woke up and she “didn’t like how my face looked” at some point I was getting a slap across that face or a few thumps and “kneed” in the back repeatedly.

I read on here all the time that it was already unacceptable to smack your children in the 90s but some of my closest friends were smacked (and for really stupid reasons, eating their weekend sweets on a Saturday instead of half on Saturday and half on Sunday, having her hair cut off against her wishes and crying...so her Dad smacked her for not being grateful for the haircut and not liking her short hair etc).

No two ways about it, it was wrong at any point. Hitting children is never ok. Ever.

I remember seeing a grandmother in a Liverpool shopping centre taking this little 2 year old beautiful child and yanking her out of the shop, pulling her tights down and smacking her bottom hard repeatedly (7 or 8 times) in front of everyone, telling her she was a “very bad girl. Nobody likes a naughty girl. Look at all these people they all think what a bad girl you are” and then the old cliche “Don’t you dare cry!!! This is what happens to naughty girls!!! You gonna be naught? Well then you gonna get a smack aren’t ya? You gonna cry? You cry one more time and I will do it again harder!!!” This would have been 2008ish. It was absolutely horrifying but so, so typical for kids like me growing up. I was literally frozen in terror watching this (and feel awful to this day that I didn’t report her or try to intervene), I just felt sick like I was having a flashback remembering being that age and getting similar for wetting the bed (because I was a toddler ffs). Seeing it as an adult and seeing just how wrong and abusive it was was shocking. As a kid you just think it’s all your fault. This giant obese evil witch of a woman with her loud bawling voice and aggressive hands and words against this tiny tiny little mite, big fat tears rolling down her face, struggling to breathe because she was crying so hard and big shocked wide eyes, screaming “I sorry nanny”...it was horrific. But as I say absolutely normalised in my own childhood and visiting the same shopping centre in 1988 you’d have seen the exact same thing a few times and sadly no one would have batted an eyelid.

It shouldn’t have happened to you. It shouldn’t happen to any child.

@peakygal I am not sure about others but it has clouded my decision making around relationships and forming healthy attachments. From an early age if someone was interested or showed any affection or kindnes I'd smother them and I see now, become quite obsessed which caused them to turn away.
It took me a long time to work out that sex doesn't equal love.

@StormyInTheNorth - those recent comments your mother made are horrendous! If you went totally NC with her nobody would blame you.

I was an 80s child. Think I got smacked once or twice but never hit in the way you describe. But there was humiliation and 'jokes' that I was (abs still am) too sensitive about.

My father died when I was young. I never received counseling and was just expected to get on with it. You'd think anyone would understand I was rather traumatised. Not my mother. I had a really bad nail biting habit (I think I enjoyed the physical pain tbh). I remember my mum shoving my hand into the face of someone at church to show them how bad it was (as if I didn't know!). Think I was a teen at that point. She also spoke to a pharmacist who told her it could be a sign of severe unhappiness but she scoffed when she told me this as what did I have to be miserable about. See my earlier point.

As for her jokes, I remember telling my then ten year old goddaughter about a recent trip to Rome where I'd met up with an Italian friend I'd known online for a few years and had met once previously. I remarked how pleased she was to see me. My mother's reaction was to comment that there must be something wrong with her if that was the case, which left my poor godchild looking most perplexed. Of course it was 'just a joke' but it's comments like that over the years that have thoroughly eroded my self esteem.

I'm sorry OP. This was very much not the norm. I had my three DC early to mid 1990s. This was not happening with anyone I knew certainly and I did not smack or physically punish. That was abuse. Sorry

@TheJourneyWoman

Oddly my younger sister by 10 years was never hit to the same extreme as we were (odd back of legs slap) I think it was by then not as socially acceptable (thankfully)

I also think that perhaps some younger parents have poorer impulse control and are still very influenced by how their own parents parented them and/or are recovering from that themselves so are perhaps still reactive and heightened from abuse in their own lives.

This is very true. My DM is brilliant and would never, ever smack a child now. However when I was younger there were three or four incidents of abuse (pulling me out of a car by my hair, kicking me in the ribs).

But she had me at 17 from a childhood that was abusive and hadn't matured enough to see beyond what was normalised for her.

She's a completely different person now and we talk about things openly.

I also think that perhaps some younger parents have poorer impulse control and are still very influenced by how their own parents parented them and/or are recovering from that themselves so are perhaps still reactive and heightened from abuse in their own lives.

Absolutely agree

I'm a fair bit older than you, but I was hit by both parents as a matter of course, and often across the face and around the head. Although it was less unacceptable to hit children in the 70s and 80s, my experience was definitely different to my friends', who might have got a clip for being cheeky, but were never left with bruises and marks.

I didn't stand up for myself until I was 18, when I told my mum to stop and think about controlling her temper before lashing out. I've tried to speak to her about it in recent years, but there's a lot of denial and unwillingness to acknowledge feelings. My dad has apologised (unbidden) and admits he feels guilt for having hurt us when we were good children and totally blameless.