To ask when/if it's appropriate to smack (historical context)

[HermioneDanger]

I appreciate that viewpoints have changed on this since we were children but I'm trying to process how I was smacked as a child and would appreciate some outside views on it. I don't have children myself so don't know whether I would have smacked them or not (though I hope I'm in the not camp).

My father was quite the disciplinarian when we were young and transgressions of the rules were met with a smacked hand or bum depending on the severity of said transgression. They were harder than taps but weren't beatings, it would be one or two smacks, hard enough to hurt a lot but not bruise, and happened often enough that I can't remember how often, but not so regularly that I would say I was beaten as a child. This continued until my mid teens or so, which is what I struggle with most - making a 15yo hold out their hand or bend over for a smack (hard enough to hurt, so a lot bloody harder than a tap on a toddler) has to be inappropriate at the very least, doesn't it?

So AIBU to ask what you think would have been appropriate and whether you think my father was out of line. And if you do what you'd do about it now?

Always hard to comment if you don't know the time frame for this. In the 50s/60s smacking was much more common. In the 70s less so, and then a decrease to the current day.

You have to look at things with society norms. Whilst we can all look back and say x is wrong and shouldn't happen, it did and a lot of people did it.

If the punishments you received were out of kilter with society and your friends norms then it was probably inappropriate. If it wasn't it was probably still inappropriate but socially acceptable.

I'm mid 30s so this was in the 80s/90s. But you're right, it's hard without context.

I think the reason I have difficulty processing it is because it was out of kilter with society at the time, particularly the going on into my mid teens.

I suppose it's something I'll have to come to terms with somehow.

I am a bit older than you.
My mother was very free with her hands, l can remember her wrestling me on to my bed to smack me around the head (at 17)
This was 1988.
There is no appropriate time to smack or hit, or whatever...
You shouldn't have been abused like that.
I totally see where you are coming from.
I don't know if it is worth it (for you) to talk to someone? :)

I was an 80s child. My mum has a rubber bottomed slipper that we were smacked with. Hard. It left red shoe prints. Never did myself or my sister any harm to have something to be scared of if we didn't follow the rules. We both left home at 16, worked full time.

If we swore we would be chased, pinned down and washing up liquid put in our mouths.

My brother is a 90s child. No smacks, a lot less discipline - he was of the 'of you touch me I will call childline' era. He is 22 now and is a horrible person, speaks to people however he likes, does just what he wants. Still lives at home, refuses to pay rent or help around the house or even get a job. I have always linked this to not being desciplined as a child in the same way we were.

Very hard to say. I was growing up throughout the 70s and 80s. My parents smacked us occasionally, but only for very serious transgressions or repeated attempts to cross the boundaries.

I really hardly remember any of the occasions at all, as they were so rare. The weren't beatings. Just a sharp, stinging slap. Legs or hand. I don't think it happened at all throughout my teenage years.

It didn't harm me or scar me for life, and I don't consider that I was a beaten or abused child. I still have a good relationship with my parents and they are lovely.

I haven't done it with my children. Not really a conscious decision. I just haven't.

I'm a similar age to you. My Mum was pretty violent - whacks round the face that gave us nose bleeds at times... She denies it now. I don't think it was appropriate, even then. I don't do much about it now really. Just make damn sure I don't follow in her footsteps when it comes to raising my own kids..!

It sounds like I am a similar age to you and ALL the children I knew were smacked regularly as children. I think there maybe some regional/ class differences when people say that by the Eighties smacking was less common because it was a rare trip to the shops when you didn't see a child getting smacked for one reason or another.

I'm a similar age to you and I was smacked. It became less regular as I got older and stopped completely when I was about 5 or 6. So I think smacking was still a normal "acceptable" thing in the 80s.

I don't think I knew anyone who was still being smacked as a teen in the 90s as you were

I'm a little bit older than you and was smacked as a child, but I can only actually remember it on one occasion. I know it wouldn't have been the only time, but I'd say it didn't happen often. I definitely was not beaten or abused.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that the one occasion I remember, I was probably about 8 and I remember being shocked and horrified at the time because it was sort of accepted that by that age I was too old for that.

So I would agree with you that even put into the context of the times, getting smacked as a teenager would have been unusual and I would say inappropriate.

I grew up in the 90s and only ever remember being smacked once by my mum on the back of the legs. Once was enough and she only ever had to threaten a smack after that and I'd behave. It didn't do me any harm and I was very close to my mum growing up and I had huge respect for her.

I have smacked ds1, it didn't leave a mark and it scared him more than anything. He was three and a half and ds2 was 3 months old, ds2 was in his bouncy chair and I'd just changed him and gone to put the nappy in the bin, in the 20 seconds I was gone ds1 had leaned all his weight on the back of the bouncy chair and let go which flipped the chair up. Luckily it didn't completely filp and just scared ds2 but I reacted in a knee jerk way and smacked ds1 on the bum. I've never smacked him again and there was a way to handle it without a smack but I reacted in the moment.

It's controversial but I don't believe that smacking is always abuse, just like shouting at a child isn't always verbal abuse, sometimes it's just a telling off. A tap on the hand or bum is completely different to being hit hard, hit with an object or beaten.

I'm a few years older than you, brothers similar age. I was smacked a couple of times when I had really pushed it, and certainly not beyond the age of about 10, absolute max. I don't remember what I'd done, or remember it hurting, but I do remember how upset my dad was afterwards. DH remembers being nearly smacked on a single occasion as a small child who had driven his mother demented :)

There was certainly more acceptability than now around smacking but that's my bar for a 'normal' 80s experience. I am sure there were other kids who were smacked more, but I don't remember having any friends or acquaintances who were regularly smacked in the way you describe.

I'm of a similar age and my parents would never ever have dreamed of laying a hand on us. Even then it was quite clear that smacking was not an appropriate disciplinary method.

Pinkie1982 it is extraordinarily unlikely that the fact that your brother was not abused the way you were - I would class everything you have described as abuse - has anything to do with the way he turned out.

I promise my siblings and I are perfectly functional and nice people and there certainly is no way that holding us down and half-poisoning us, or beating us till we were marked, would have done anything except make us resentful and aggressive.

My mum slapped the backs of my legs and gave me a "clip round the ear" on a fairly regular basis when i was a child, this was in the 80's. It was never any where near enough to mark me and was almost completely pointless as a punishment. My Dad never smacked me.

I will not smack my children. No one would ever say "Do you smack your elderly Grandma often?".

I was smacked a lot as a child - hit with a book in the eye once, thrown by my mother. My dad very occasionally smacked me with his slipper! I can't imagine doing that to my dc or even him doing that now.
My mother would hit me for being 'naughty' or when she was in a rage.
She was very slap happy right up until I was 14 and hit her back. It stopped right then.

Sorry I didn't answer your question. I do think it's out of order but it seems that was what people did in the 80s.
What you can do is not pass that on to your children, I don't think there is much you can do about it now with your dad.

I'm mid-20's and I was smacked throughout the 90's as a child. I struggle with it because all of my training (in childcare) tells me that it's wrong, I do know that it's wrong and I would never use physical discipline. However there is that bit of me in the background saying "Well, you got smacked and it wasn't really abuse."

I also feel that the way my parents treated me as a child was much closer to abuse than the occasions that I was smacked. It was at least worse than the smacking, which is something I've long forgotten but the rest of my childhood is something I am getting help for.

As an aside, I love your username OP, reference to the Dangerverse?

I don't think I was abused but I don't think the behaviour was appropriate. God, I wish I had been brave enough to hit back - maybe it would have helped the old esteem issues.

I think the smacks as children seem normal for the time but the real issue for me is the continuation into adolescence - particularly as its the time we teach our children that people aren't allowed to touch them without permission (and then smacking them, odd). I'm having a bit of a MH crisis at the moment - sorry for the drip feed - and something triggered me thinking about this the other night. I just wanted to know if I was being mad!

Rattie - no, not the dangerverse - it's my young niece's attempt to say Hermione Granger and I think it's cute. Though she is princess Hermione Danger.

danger it is natural for you to question now.
I did, l have forgiveness for my mother... But l haven't forgotten.

Thing is, were you taught at that age that nobody else was allowed to touch you without your permission? Or is that a relatively new concept that we're actively teaching children? I wasn't and I wonder if that factors into the idea of it being 'acceptable' to smack past a certain age? I don't know how long it continued for me, I know I was smacked in high school but not when

You're certainly not being mad, I think that we all dwell on things that our parents said and did when we were younger, especially if said parent refuses to acknowledge it!

& very cute OP :)

My children were born in the 1980s and early 1990s and we smacked. All our friends who had children then smacked them; it certainly wasn't out of kilter with society at the time. (we were all children of the 1960s and all brought up being smacked by our parents). Society changed between the late 1990s and when I had DC5 in 2007.

The only difference was we stopped when the children got older. I can't remember when but certainly by double figures. No way would it be normal to smack a 15 yo; mine were all bigger than me by then and would have walloped me back.

Rattie teaching children that nobody can touch them is a new concept. Wasn't the case when my eldest was born.

I was smacked usually with a wooden spoon but also with a short riding crop and a wooden ruler. Actually I'd say (my mother I am NC with becsuse of the EA would tell you I'm wrong and my physical punishment was needed) I was hit at least once a day (probably physical abuse). For me it was massively ineffective. The pain was no disincentive and meant my parents had completely lost their temper. Which I started to view as a weird victory. Basically a physical smack was the end of punishment and I could go to my room (I was careful not to be smug until I got to my room). The long drawn out freaking out, insults, dressing downs beforehand were worse.
This is difficult for me. I have to pick my words very carefully to discipline DD and use time out/ removing things as much as possible. Every 'not good enough' is still lurking in my memory. Unfortunately my childhood discipline taught me some very hurtful thinking.

I grew up in the 1960s. My parents did not smack.
There were still rules but no physical punishments.

I tend to think you should trust your own instinct about this.

I was not smacked in the 70s/80s because my mum didn't agree with it. She was northern and working class. However this was very, very unusual to the point where I used to find it difficult to discuss with people as they would often get defensive about it. I'm a fully functioning pillar of society btw.

I am now a grandmother and opted to smack my dd, even though my dm never smacked me. I opted for that because my dm used an awful lot of emotional blackmail on me and I always felt I would have preferred a smack, quite frankly, and that it would be less damaging. The reason for smacking on the bum is to avoid any risk of causing physical harm.

I personally stopped smacking my dd when she turned ten but lots of people continued to smack their teenagers.

Hmm - I think what you're describing is infantilisation and its that which is causing humiliation and upset now (understandably) in the same way that bathing a teen or keeping an older child in nappies is inappropriate.

Did this happen a lot in your teens?