Childhood trauma - AIBU to think that the past was a dreadful time to be a kid?

[shareacokewithnoone]

I haven't thought this through logically really but from a mishmash of ideas - I was born in the early 1980s and corporal punishment was abolished in schools but gosh, I remember some nasty, sarky teachers. I remember one boy being made to stand in the corner and when he cried being told 'turn around, no one wants to see your ugly face!' (this was in RECEPTION!) That's one example, but there are countless more.

Pre 1960s (?) children were smacked pretty brutally - not just a tap on the bum but pants pulled down and smacked repeatedly? Humiliating as well as very painful, surely?

Children were sent to hospitals alone, and I don't know 'put up and shut up' was the order of the day. We had a teacher who used to touch us inappropriately but none of us girls would have DREAMED of challenging it or telling - you just didn't. And this was early 1990s.

I guess - AIBU to think it's really only the last decade where safeguarding and child protection have emerged? And what brought it on?

[Ragwort]

Agree with BMW6 (we are the same age ) - yes, some teachers were pretty awful but some are now - I don't recall any incidents of corporal punishment at school but I do remember that generally most pupils were far better behaved. We also had huge amounts of freedom and learned to be far more independent than today's children are - no mobile phones or anything - if you got lost you sorted yourself out rather than just phoning mum and dad. Some of my friends have children in their 20s now who still pick up the phone at the slightest problem rather than making their own decision.

We were able to get jobs at 12/13 (cafes/babysitting etc) - I had three jobs at weekends at 13 .

[StackladysMorphicResonator]

I remember my Reception teacher smoking in the Quiet Corner at break times, and 'tapping' pupils rather sharply on the head for misdemeanours, but I also remember in Secondary School pupils throwing chairs, swearing at their teacher and (on occasion) bringing weapons into school, confident that they wouldn't be physically challenged and were therefore invincible.

To be honest, I think would've learned a lot more in school if the misbehaving kids were actually punished in a way they understood.

[Namechangearoonie123]

Bmw6 I wasn't given the belt because I was 'naughty' at 4.

I was given the belt on my bare bottom in front of the class for cleaning the blackboard with water on a cloth instead of a blackboard rubber.

[cailindana]

I think the increased recognition of the needs and rights of children is in large part down to feminism. Children were once seen as a problem for women to deal with away from men - the whole "seen and not heard" thing was all about making sure child rearing didn't get in the way of the important things men had to do. When women gained a voice they lent that voice to children and stood up for them. Since the vast majority of abusers were and are men, it would stand to reason that men would have a vested interest in keeping quiet about abuse. It was only when women started to speak out that some light was thrown on the subject and something was done about it.

(Just to be clear, I am aware that women also abuse and that in particular a lot of abusive teachers were women.)

[BMW6]

Yes, Ragwort - we were far more self-reliant and independent. Bus or walk to/from school on our own (without Mum) from age about 7 (but I had a sister 2 years older so often went with her). Mum taught us what bus to get and where etc then we just got on with it. But then all the kids did that - no-one was taken by a parent (if they had been they would have been regarded as a big Jessie) so no children were "alone".

If I close to walk home I could spend the bus fare on sweets (seemed quite a scarily long walk, but was really only about a mile or so)

[BMW6]

namechange was she a Nun, or just an awful bitch? (have heard a lot of stories of Nuns being really abusive)

[Namechangearoonie123]

Just the headmistress. Insane though

[shareacokewithnoone]

Interesting post cailin.

I think you're right, although I do have a horrible memory of one girl being beaten, really. Her mother put her over her knee at a school fete, in the assembly hall, and just kept smacking her bare bottom. The girl was screaming and screaming and I can still remember how her bum was red as fire but she carried on. It really scared me although I don't know why - my parents wouldn't have EVER done that.

[meltedmonterayjack]

I think (or hope) that there is more awareness and understanding in schools now. I remember a few kids being called 'Mongies' by other pupils and teachers not saying anything. These kids obviously had learning disabilities. They were just left to sink academically and put into 'remedial' classes. There is far more support, statements, recognition of conditions thankfully now.

I had the most ridiculous amount of absence as my Mum was too anxious to let me have my tonsils removed. There was no effort made to help me catch up with what I'd missed, and no comment made to my parents about my absences. Now it would be red-flagged and hopefully my parents told they needed to address my health problems.

I think abuse has always and will always go on but children are seen as 'people' now and systems in place to enable them to speak out if anything is happening. As has been said,horrible things happen now, but I think there was just not the recognition that children needed to be listened to. The adult was always right, seemed to be the thinking when I was young.

[Babyroobs]

I can remember (late 70's) at primary school, kids being smacked on the backside by a brutal teacher who literally ran at them to take a swipe. At age 12 I was called a fat gorilla by a science teacher, not nice. They would never get away with it now.

[shareacokewithnoone]

Yes, I think some people have got it about children being seen as people.

Not everybody will have had these experiences of course but it's down to luck whereas now I think children have rights, and they know they have these rights. I am a teacher and believe me children aren't afraid to speak up about them!

That said some children are still naturally meek, mild, eager to please ... and vulnerable.

[BackforGood]

YABU.
I'm FAR older than you, (indeed, started teaching in the 80s) and don't have the same recollections as you describe at all.
I also think that it's not realistic to compare a different 'age'. I get very cross when they have these campaigns to get a Gvmnt to 'apologise' for something that was done in the past. You can't just compare the way we feel about things now, with the way we felt about things / expectations / knowledge / social thinking etc 30, 50 or even 100 yrs ago. It was a different time.
I've just finished a book looking at adoption from the 50s until the turn of the Century (well, it referred quite a bit to things in the 30s as well). It was really well written as it acknowledged the 'times' the decisions were taken in - unlike the shamelessly tear provoking, all 'happy ending' stories they are re-telling on 'Long Lost families' on the TV at the moment.

The times were what they were. I'm not looking back with rose tinted glasses, but then I'm not taking one or two things out of context with the times and saying everything was awful either - it wasn't. I, along with most everyone I've every talked to about it, had a very happy childhood.

[oldgrandmama]

School in the 1940s! I was about eight years old. We were told to draw and colour in a vegetable. So I did a red cabbage. And got hit across the knuckles with a ruler for 'being cheeky'. In vain did I explain that there WERE red cabbages but the female teacher wasn't having it.

Because my father wasn't English, I'd visited his relatives in a European country where red cabbage was commonly eaten, but obviously wasn't really well known in Britain!

I still feel peeved about it, all those years later

[Flipflops7]

Agree with BMW6 and sillystring. It was fine, it was everyone's childhood at that time, AND we were constantly being reminded of how lucky we were compared to previous generations - plenty of sweets, shoes on our feet and no war (older generations never stopped reminding us!).

I dunno if now is so great - I never see kids on their own, there are always parents around. And they never get to escape each other because of social media.

[shareacokewithnoone]

I think we've got a new set of problems now flip flop. I don't think our times are so great, but I do think we have an awareness of abuse, of how common it is, and the damaging impact it has on children which we perhaps didn't have in previous generations.

My cousin was murdered aged 11 in the year I was born. She was out alone - I shudder inwardly when people talk about "freedom." Freedom for some children meant a terrifying and lonely and painful death for others. Uncommon? Yes, probably - but not THAT uncommon. Enough cases for it to be a very real danger. The man who murdered her was like most men an opportunist: saw a child alone and took his chance.

I make no apologies for seeing a paedophilia around every corner. Because they are around every corner.

I do think most teachers were fine, as most people are fine, but I guess the point is for those who weren't/aren't, they had ample opportunities to bully and intimidate and frighten. Those opportunities aren't non existent now but they aren't anything like as plentiful.

[Flipflops7]

How awful - I'm so sorry about your cousin, shareacokewithnoone.

[AllotmentQueen]

Shareacoke, I'm so very sorry to hear about the tragic loss of your cousin - what an unspeakable trauma for your family, no wonder it has c

[OTheHugeManatee]

All this is true in theory. But what gets me is, if the past was so much worse than the present, why are mental health problems on the rise?

[AllotmentQueen]

Coloured your view of the world.

But murder of children by strangers is incredibly rare and I do think the freedoms we enjoyed in our childhood are a terrible loss for my children - but then I imagine I world feel the way you do had I ever known anyone who was murdered.

[Trollsworth]

Diagnoses of mental health problems has risen, true. But ACTUAL me tal health problems, not so much.

[shareacokewithnoone]

Manatee, I think that was at least partly what I was thinking. I couldn't quite think how to verbalise it, though.

I think sadly if you were to see stats relating to the murder of children in 1982 (the year cousin was taken) and there are enough to be concerned about. Yes, it's still rare - but not as rare as people think. It's just mostly the children are young teens so don't get the same amount of publicity as their bodies and the murderer are found immediately. But that's because young teens were the ones out alone. Younger children are hugely vulnerable, they just are.

[OneCabbageTree]

OTheHugeManatee MH problems aren't really on the rise, they're just being diagnosed now when they weren't before. I have a family member who was diagnosed relatively recently with all sorts of mental health problems while in their late 50s - looking back at there life it's clear that they'd manifested themselves as early as when they were 13 due to some of their actions then, but no-one picked up on it. Their life would probably have been much easier on them if they'd been a teen today with more awareness about these sorts of things.

And, on paper, their diagnosis would look like mental health problems being on the rise, when it's not - it's always been there. Ditto both my mum and MIL who had PND in the early 1980s, and have said they only realise that what happened was PND based on current information about it, so again, 2 more cases of mental health problems being undiagnosed

[thegreylady]

I was born in 1944 and there was no corporal punishment at my schools. I went to all girls schools (just local Boys, Girls, Mixed Infants) and there may have been the cane in the boys' school and I know there was at boys' grammar.
I was never smacked at home either, just told off. Dad was once going to smack me over his knee but I ran upstairs and he said he was sorry!
I was protected and indulged. I had a very working class background but always had everything I wanted/ needed. You knew that the world was yours for the asking. As long as you could get the qualifications you got the job you wanted. University was free, even pocket money was provided. I was 16 in 1960. Those were the days my friends....

[RonaldMcDonald]

Things are massively better in many regards but there is still terrible sexual and physical abuse that goes unspoken about and that remains the secret of those being abused.

Fear of being taken away from your parents and love for them no matter what the circs is still a huge reason to cover up what is going on at home