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?

It's a little concerning you feel you need to ask if it's normal.
No. It was abuse. The fact that they lied about it means they know they were wrong too.

I was an 80s child, a slap across the legs was an occasional discipline technique in our house. I wouldn't say I learnt anything from it, I can't remember now what it was that any of us had done to deserve them on any occasion. I would never do it to dd. Violence is never acceptable (well unless you're being attacked then fighting back is).

I was born in 1990 and my mum hit me. She had an explosive temper and lashed out in the heat of the moment. I remember her hitting me with a hairbrush because I complained as she detangled my hair. When she saw that I'd doodled on my homework diary she slapped the top of my arm really hard. When I was 12, I came home late one evening as I'd been away with a friend and her mum, and the mum refused to drive me home for dinner time. I literally couldn't get back from where we were, I'd explained that to my mum ahead of time but when I got home she absolutely lost it, smacked me with the TV remote and broke my finger. My dad had to take me for x-rays and my mum forced me to tell the hospital that I fell.

Now that I'm an adult I've realised that she has every textbook marker of a narcissist so even though she hasn't raised her hand to me in many years, her personality is enough to limit my contact with her. As far as the childhood trauma she left me with goes, her hitting me is low on the list.

Of course if I spoke to her in the same way I was being horrible. In a similar vein I do remember her pinching me as a joke, so I punched her back, but gentler than she had been. I was expected to take it (even though it had been sore), she cried. Sauce for the gosling is apparently not sauce for the mother goose.

@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 was born in the early 90's and went through the same thing but worse, I was the oldest and then my brother born 5 years later, we got the worst of it for years. It affects me now still, it isn't normal. I attempted to speak about it to my mum as she was the offender, never my step dad but she said she'd moved past it and so should I. I should clarify that I only stopped being battered because I got epilepsy in my early teens.

I suppose it depends what you mean by normal, do you mean that it was commonplace
Or do you mean that it was benign and acceptable?
What you are describing was domestic violence, domestic violence may be somewhat commonplace but it's certainly not benign or acceptable

When I was at school, queueing up to have a vaccination, I got worked up and scared and crying (needle-phobic). The deputy head teacher pulled me out of the queue, dragged me outside the building by my arm, shoved me against the wall and hit me across the face, very hard. She made damn sure we were alone too before she did it. Then dragged me back in, marched me to the front of the queue and held me down while I struggled and the nurse injected me. I never dared to tell my mum what happened. This was 1978. It has upset me to think of it ever since.

That's not normal. Not even for the 80's, by the time you were born smacking was a no-no. We were smacked in the 80's but on the back of the legs, bum or hand, and only for doing something naughty or dangerous i.e hand smacked if going to touch the fire or hob ring, legs smacked if run off towards a road or something. And no, it didn't do any of us any harm.

@Yohoheaveho

I suppose it depends what you mean by normal, do you mean that it was commonplace Or do you mean that it was benign and acceptable? What you are describing was domestic violence, domestic violence may be somewhat commonplace but it's certainly not benign or acceptable

I am similarly conflicted in this. Normal can mean common, regardless of right or wrong. Similar to drink driving....once was common too.

No it's child abuse in my opinion. Not normal at all

Gosh mrshonda that was wrong evennthen. Have you ever talked about it? It certainly wasn't your fault or soemthing shameful.

Not normal at all OP - I have some similar experiences from my own childhood but 20 years before you - I have a couple of friends who had similar experiences and others who are truly shocked by it. I don’t think it’s uncommon - but that’s not the same as normal .

Did any of you fight back and be like 'don't you dare hit me'?
I was born in 71. Lots of smacking and hitting on the head and body. By early teens she was laying into me. As in raining blows on me, like someone starting a fight. What worked for me was starting to hit back at 14. It stopped it. My mum is thick as pig shit so reasoning with her wouldn't have worked. I've never hit my kids even once and have a good relationship with them. See as little of my parents as possible

I also started to fight back when I was about 15 ....Christ I wish I could have a fight with that bitch now😁

So sad there's so many of us.

Om feeling sad today I dont really have parents Im in much contact with. I'd love to have parents I could go over to for dinner. Or to ring and chat about the kids.

I tried to pretend for so long they were okay and try and ring them and now I don't pretend it feels like a huge loss. Esepcially now. Surragate mum/gran wanted!

I'm sorry you went through that op, no it's not normal

Did any of you fight back and be like 'don't you dare hit me'?

No because she frequently threatened to put me in care (eg if I broke a mug by accident and tried to apologise and say it was an accident rather than just accepting that I needed to be punished by being hit and sent in isolation) and I didn’t want to be put into care. I was also scared she’d be more violent or the punishment would be worse and she might permanently scar me or something.

She announced when I was 12 that she’d no longer be hitting me as I was too big and she was scared that I’d hurt her if I ever did retaliate. She then just became much crueler with her words and emotional abuse. And she’d occasionally yank me by the arm and throw dirty dishwater in my face or something.

No never tried to fight back too terrified of the consequences. We were just so frightened.
I remember having big black bruises all up the back of my legs and bum so they couldn't send me to school incase I had PE and somone saw, I must have been about 7? Being punched, slapped and kicked from an early age we were just too scared. The violence did patter out as we got older I think they both knew we might retaliate. I left home very young as I was so unhappy there.
I think what is worse they do not acknowledge it at all. They make out it didn't happen which is more crushing really. Its definitely affected me as a person growing up. Iv had to detangle alot of my past to understand my issues as an adult.
Hitting children is not ok not even a smack in my opinion.

I was a child in the 70’s, the eldest of two daughters, we were hit by our father. Our parents were in their 30’s when we were born, so couldn’t even put it down to being very young themselves. Dad was a very quiet introverted man but would random explosive rages about very minor things. He would then hit us, pull us along by our hair, throw us and swear at us. It mainly happened to me as I was the eldest and he preferred my sister to me. He even did this a couple of times in front of our friends who had come round to play, and they ran home and told their parents.

Another time mum got hold of us and we all three baracaded ourselves in the bathroom while he tried to bash the door down.

After an “incident”, dad would then behave as if nothing had happened and mum would make us apologise to him for having upset him.

It stopped when I started to fight back at the age of 15 or 16. I found a plastic baseball bat and slept with it under my bed. The last time he lost his temper with me I fought back hard and swore at him. He didn’t do it ever again.

Although we had some happy times in our childhood, they rarely involved him. When I got to the age of 35 I had flashbacks and I asked mum about the incidents and why she didn’t do anything about it. She denied they ever happened, but my sister and childhood friends remember. I also recall mum saying when we were children “well if he ever touches me I will leave”. But it was Ok for him to hurt his children....

As a result I have quite severe anxiety, low self esteem and I went into a relationship with domestic violence, which I subsequently left. Funnily enough, my parents helped me to leave and once in their 50’s and 60’s we had a good relationship.

I have never laid a finger own children and we have a good relationship and they understand why we left their father, so I hope I have broken the cycle.

Now the parents are in their 80’s and are quite vulnerable. I do help them with shopping etc. but I don’t massively go out of my way to, and I will never forgive them.

Not normal at all. I was born early sixties and it was abuse then.
So ‘it was norm in those days’type of excuses are bullshit.

It is not nor has it ever been 'the norm' to beat your children and slap them around the face. It happened; it happens still. It may have been less commented on and reacted to a long time ago, but it was never usual.
My children were all 90's children and may have had a teasing, tapped hand if they were stealing biscuits fresh out of the oven or a frog march to their bedroom if they didn't go when told to, they were never hit.
I was a child of the 60s and we weren't hit very often either. I was slapped in school once on the back of the legs because a parent had said we'd been unkind to her child (we hadn't and the sack was for not telling the truth, although we were). Our parents didn't hit us, far from it. I rather suspect my mother was a bit lax with us. There wasn't huge need to hit because parents rarely intervened in their child's comings and goings. Less control, less angst, less need to gain compliance - we went out for the whole day to the beach from about aged four, we took ourselves on the bus to school and home again after the first day, we occupied ourselves so weren't around our parents much.

I was an 80’s baby. Hit regularly with wooden spoon, chair spindle, wooden clog, hand...... I raised my hand, reflexively, back, when I was about 14/15 and it didn’t happen again after that. I remember running up the stairs ahead of my parents and locking myself in the bathroom before they could catch me.

Also hit at boarding school with ruler over knuckles, board rubbers, books over the back of the head.......

Half Nelson as well, now I remember.....,.

This is clearly abuse I'm afraid, please get help from a specialist counsellor.

I was an 80s/90s child and was smacked possibly twice on my bottom as a young child, not very hard. I knew one friend who confided her mum's punishment was to hit her hand with a wooden spoon, and all the kids she told were horrified, and this was late 1980s. Emotional abuse was more common, but hitting, beating, slapping etc a child with hands or tools was already considered abuse.

I think the lying about it and the hiding of it at the time is the clearest indication that it was not normal for the times.

If it is normal you talk about it and discuss it. I clearly remember a group playground discussion where a friend at primary school, about age 10, was dramatically rubbing his bum complaining about his dad having belted him. e
A group was gathered round him talking with him about what had happened and it being agreed by the gaggle of children it was on the edges of acceptable: the boy had been very very naughty by his own admission, a belt to the bum was normal at that place and time but his dad had been more severe than other parents would have been.

One girl never joined in such discussions. Turns out her dad was abusing her. He died in prison in the end.

I hid the awful things my mother would say to me. She and I rarely speak now

The hiding is the clue. For any abuse. Whether self-inflicted or done to you, I think. Hiding your drinking or eating, sign you have a problem. Hiding your partner's behaviour, sign you have a problem. Lies about where that bruise came from or that money went to avoid uncomfortable questioning, big red flag.

I was in 89 and for the most part not smacked and my mother would have touted anti smacking all the way.

However I do remember one day in my pram I think I'd picked up some penny sweets in the queue to the till in the newsagents and Mum hadn't realised or I'd hidden them I'm not sure. She smacked me across the thighs when we got home and then left me on the stairs.

She never mentioned it again but I did get the occasional clip round the head as a teen when not doing what she wanted.

I dont think either one was a good option to be honest, I was really too young to understand for the first one what I was being punished for and as a teen it just made me hate her more.

She was a single parent and it tended to correlate with stress i think or not knowing what else to do. But tbh i still don't consider the behaviour acceptable at all. Especially given her anti smacking views.