Unusual Parenting 1960s and 1970s . Can you help?

[2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney]

I have MH problems at the moment, triggered by recent events and possibly deep seated trauma. It got me thinking about my childhood and two things stick out and I wonder if they were normal at the time?
We were an affluent family living in an affluent area. We had good toys , good food , holidays abroad , lacking in little

My parents went out regularly, having put us to bed with no babysitter. Probably from when I was about 3 , certainly remember it when I was about 5 or 6; my 8 year old brother being in charge. They came back occasionally to check we were ok. Probably asleep.

My mum kept a stick in the kitchen and used it to hit me and my brothers if we misbehaved. It might have been a dog play thing too. Not sure . I remember where it was kept, in full sight and being scared of it.

Once , she banged my brothers heads together . I told my dad that evening , he did tell her never to do that again. But he did use his belt , not on me but once each, on my 2 brothers that I am aware of.

Is this how other children were treated then? I don’t see my brothers a lot , have no contact with one of them , the other brother dismissed another school incident ( of a child being dragged down the corridor by their hair) as “it just being the 70s” . I worry about their MH too.

sadly smacking was normal in the 80's for me :( Also being locked out of the house for periods of time.

I usually had babysitters, but I do recall being left alone on holiday. One time I must have been 7 or 8 I was left alone in a holiday shack/cabin on the beach in Fiji while my parents went to a party at the bar. I recall being terrified (was an only child) and laying awake all night hoping they would come back.

the other brother dismissed another school incident ( of a child being dragged down the corridor by their hair)

A teacher dragged me up to the front of the class by my hair one day in the early sixties, but all my friends were shocked and told my mother who went in and kicked up a stink about it.

I grew up in the 70's. Was hit with a leather slipper if I misbehaved and often made to stay in the car outside a restaurant if I was naughty. Don't remember my parents ever leaving me unattended though!!

I started school in the early 80’s. The punishment from the Headmistress was the slipper. My legs got whacked by the Deputy Head (old boot) because I was sitting with my legs out sideways at the lunch table.
My dp never beat me. But my db wax threatened with the belt from df. My dfs voice was scary enough when he told us off. We were well behaved. I remember being left aged 8 and db was 10 whilst dm and df went out. I’m sure df was drink driving.

We were latchkey kids and I was the older child left to babysit my younger brother, its left me with mental health issues as an adult. I have chronic anxiety, PTSD, and get triggered when people in a position of responsibility don't do their job.

My brother was unmanageable, used to act up constantly and my mother used to beat him with a hairbrush. We were reported to SS several times by concerned neighbours (and once by ambulance staff), but my parents used to put on a good act.

I'm NC with my family. My parents deny anything was wrong. My brother claims he doesn't remember any of it, and he's on his 3rd marriage and has nothing to do with his kids. I can't cope with the drama.

It wasn't normal, but my family have a history of abuse; so my parents considered they were good compared to previous generations. I wonder if that's the case for your parents, 2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney?

Actually @dogmandu I remember my mum being quite critical of Dr Spock and his ways. That figures.

A lot of people were!

I spent a lot of my childhood over the road at my best friends house growing up in the 70s/80s.

All I can tell you if that her parents never dragged me by my hair, banged my head together with a sibling's, left me to babysit two when I was 9 and mocked me for being afraid, and or chased me while pissed around the house trying to belt me.

There are bad parents and good parents. Good parents don't purposefully hurt their children.

I was born in 1961. Heads being banged together, being hit with slippers or shoes was routine. We didn't get left home alone until I turned 11ish because they didn't go out much but were often sent to bed at 6pm just for parents to have peace and quiet.

My mum grew increasingly controlling as we grew up and had ridiculously rigid rules about stupid things. One day she literally picked my 14 year old sister up and threw her across the room because she had drawn the curtains incorrectly. My sisters BF was present at the time and physically fronted up to my mum to stop her doing anything more that time.

It's no surprise that both my brother and sister ran away from home the night they turned 16. I was the conformist eldest child so I stayed until I was 18 and working and then I couldn't leave fast enough.

My mum is old and frail now and I'm her primary carer. Everything I do for her is fuelled by pity for a lonely old woman. There is no love there.

Don’t know a lot about my grandparents. Dads mum was strict old school but he was brought up by grandparents from about 8 onwards seeing mum twice a year. No dad presence after aged 4. Mum had very traditional older parents in rural Eire. Large family.
Not abuse just strict . Abusive nuns though at school.

Sounds similar to my childhood in th 70s. Even back then I thought it was abusive and used to dream of someone nice coming to take me away. I haven't had contact with my parents for years and have no relationship with any of my siblings. We weren't brought up to love and nurture each other so it's hardly surprising.

I would say it happened but it was not the norm in my view (gre up 70's) never left unsupervised and never smacked, slapped or whipped and actually was never aware that others were either - I would say lower middle class/working class but parents owned own home and Mum stayed at home

@MissDollyMix

Not saying it was right but I think it probably was normal. I watched an old video of Butlins - probably from the 60s. They actually advertised that you could leave your children alone in your holiday home and go out and have a good night out without them. Parents were told to leave a ribbon on the door so that other people knew there were children left on their own! The video featured very young children too My FIL apparently used to hit DH and his brother with a stick when they were children - that was in the 80s.

I'm a child of the 60's / 70's and yes, holiday parks did do this. But they also had staff walking around the park all evening, checking for babies crying, and announcements would be made in the entertainment venue: "Baby crying in chalet 123" sort of thing. Parents would also keep nipping out to check on them. Also, there was a fierce security presence at the park gates, so undesirables had no access.

My parents never used any kind of violence against me, but I know that some other parents did. There were kids living next door, and through my bedroom wall I could hear their dad belting them sometimes.

My mother was a Spock parent. Tbh I think she would have been much the same whatever the era as she was just a very very good Mum despite having a very difficult marriage. She was loving and kind and saw our development as important, not in an obsessive helicoptery way but because she was and is fascinated by babies and children. I think once in a very extreme moment she did slap me but she felt terrible about it.

My grandmother was a Truby King parent but tbh I think only to a certain extent. She would never have let a man override her judgement on children

Neither would have left young children alone. Ever. Partly because neither were that interested in going out much but also because both lived lives where there wee other adults around (eg my other grandmother lived with us when we were small) so there was no need. If they had no other adults around they didn't go out.

However they were keen on skills and independence so for example in my family at 8 you are given an axe and shown how to chop wood. But supervised.

Your childhood was not particularly normal - 3 is extremely young for that kind of treatment - and yes, potentially traumatising if you were a sensitive child [most children are].

If you have traumatic childhood memories OP, that's enough - you don't need to justify them against a benchmark of other people's childhoods!

I had a 1980s childhood, occasional smacks, sometimes with slipper, threats to bash our heads together but it never actually happened.

I think physical violence went hand in hand with a more free range childhood - kids used to be trusted to roam a lot more on their own and if they were found to be disobeying the rules, they got hit. Today's kids are under adult supervision the whole time so they have constant minor corrections, whereas kids used to have occasional aggressive corrections. Because if you were letting your kid out on their own, you would want them to be afraid of breaking rules about things like straying onto railway paths, breaking windows etc.

Maybe there was a transition period where kids weren't allowed out as much but were still subjected to violence a lot? I don't know.

70s here. That was very normal.

Got hit with a wooden spoon by my mum and a tea towel was used to flick us too.

Often left alone and sitting outside the pub in the car while they drank was very routine. Every so often we'd get a packet of crisps or a bottle of pop sent out for us.

Got hit with a ruler and a slipper at school too.

Think kids today are a bit better off

70's here
Yes left alone for nights out
Woke up in neighbours house after going to bed at home, banged on the door and they were all out. Another neighbour took me in and I was so upset.

Smacked, sworn at and shouted at frequently.
My mum burnt my hand with an iron to teach me not to play with irons 🤔

She's in a nursing home now and I haven't seen her for years. No one understands why I don't visit her!

I also used to dream that someone would come and rescue me too.

Outside a pub in a car with crisps sounds par for the course in the 70s. Car safety in general with no car seats, no seat belts and too many in the car and boot to illustrate the past is a different country in many ways. Not excusing abuse but some norms differed.

My mother used to slap hard with her hand, usually across your shoulder blade, hard enough that you could not avoid crying. This was in the seventies. The number of times this happened to me when my older brother was being violent and I was calling for help, until in the end I knew not to bother as then I would get hurt twice 'for fighting.'

I remember her telling us how awful her friend was because when she punished her son, our little friend, she used a 'fish slice.' I can remember now how very proud my mother was of being so kind as to only hit us with her own brute strength, and how we all nodded and agreed how very lucky we were.

When mum and dad went out we had a neighbour that would "pop in" during the evening to make sure we were ok, but no babysitter as such. As for being whacked, mum's favourite weapon was the wooden spoon. Even as a middle-aged woman, I still shook every time the drawer containing the spoon was opened.

@dogmandu

That's interesting. I reckon my DM had read Dr Spock.

Agree you shouldn’t be comparing against other childhoods. Although I can appreciate it may help you form a barometer of what was normal. However, not everyone will perceive in the same way as you.

I was smacked relatively regularly. Occasionally with a slipper or hairbrush. My parents didn’t use a belt but would threaten to do so, and i knew many friends that did get the belt. Mine did use a slipper or rolled up magazine but maybe once or twice. Definitely would have banged heads together. My mum used to pinch and pull ears quite a bit too.

I really don’t feel traumatised but this. None of my siblings do either, we’re close and have discussed in the past. I feel I had fantastic, loving parents and wouldn’t have wanted to upset them but certainly never feared them.

A friend of mine from childhood, was never smacked, but her mother was evil. Emotionally abusive and has left a horrible shadow over my friend’s life.

We were often left alone, but as one of eight siblings, with many cousins in and out the house, grandparents, uncles and aunts nearby, it wasn’t something that phased me then or would even worry me now.

@Hen2018

We were never left unsupervised.

We were hit with whatever was to hand - rolled up magazines, spoons and, once, a washing up bowl. We were also smacked in what I can only describe as a “flurry”, so never one snack, but between 10-20 stinging smacks.

We also had our heads smacked together and had to sit on the floor with our hands on our heads for about 20 minutes.

Same here. Mum did all the walloping, never hugged us, dad was very strict no hugs or praise from him either. They had a cane on the table at meal times and woe become you if you did anything to meet their disapproval, I was caned so many times but didn’t know what I had done wrong. The ends split so they pinched and left raised wheals, sometimes I couldn’t sit down afterwards. I got the brunt ‘because you’re the eldest’. I don’t have a single happy memory of my childhood sadly. Being shut in my bedroom, no books etc was commonplace, no wonder I grew into a self-harming, anxious individual. Still am.

I remember being 'tapped' or 'smacked' (depending on viewpoint) on the leg for things like running off / busy road when young in the late 70s. And I remembered being properly smacked on the bottom once. Talked to mum about it years later and she confessed she felt awful about it at the time but was pushed into doing it by her mother who was there at the time of said incident because I had allegedly behaved so badly. Never smacked with an object only hand.

Never left alone but allowed to go roaming fields with friends, playing, from a relatively early age.

I'm a 90s kid and my DMum would smack me when I didn't behave. I had undiagnosed autism so probably had meltdowns quite a bit (to be fair, my DParents certainly wouldn't have known this). To be clear, her physical punishments only stopped when I was a teenager and grew big enough to defend myself.

My DDad never hit me, but I lived in fear of his temper. He would raise his voice, point his fingers, gesture aggressively and once grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me because I had failed to get to the upstairs bathroom in time and wet myself. I was three at the time.

From what I remember speaking to my similar aged friends, smacking certainly wasn't uncommon at that time. Even as late as the 90s and early 00s. My parents weren't alone in their approach. They would never have dreamed of leaving me alone or starving/neglecting me, though. Both of them, especially my DDad were very protective.

Since I'm pretty certain that the grandmother on my mum's side has NPD and my great grandmother lived with my DGrandparents and DDad for many years (she was horribly abusive, even my DGrandparents were scared of her), I have accepted my own parents weren't entirely to blame for the way things turned out. They were victims too. There's a long way for me to go yet, though. I have anxiety and possibly cyclothymia as well as autism.

I was never smacked particularly hard I should say