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?

In fairness I think that the salient words there are 'as a child.'

I imagine most of us born pre 1990 were smacked as a child - but smacking a cheeky seven year old is very different to smacking a fifteen year old.

indantherene, I agree it wasnt exactly 'the norm' in the 80's/90s but it wasnt unusual either. I did once smack DD1 on the thigh . She was about 5. She was wearing a leotard at the time and the marks really showed .It horrified me. And I smacked her on the head, may god forgive me, at a coffee gathering after church when she was about eight . She was really shocked , though it wasn't hard enough to hurt A clip round the ear I suppose. She interrupted me when I was talking to friends. You can imagine the reaction - not quite a collective hiss/silence but close .. I was under huge stress at the time and just 'lost it' .One of the friends I had been chatting to took one look at my face and said 'come on, let's go to mine for coffee on your way home' And gathered us up . I sobbed all over her when we got there, I was so ashamed of myself . She was brilliant. It was 20 years ago and I can still feel the shame. But I do think constant shouting/belittling can be worse . I never did that.
I never smacked her again and I dont recall ever smacking DD2 .

Child of the 80s. I was smacked enough to know that if my mum warned she was going to do it, she would. The warning usually worked so it was seldom needed. I can't remember being smacked after about 7. The ultimate threat was the slipper and that wasn't resorted to.

Smacking should become redundant with age as a child's reasoning improves, and other consequences such as grounding or confiscation become more effective and relevant.

The key thing to me is did I fear my mum? I didn't. We had a healthy relationship, and the discipline was clearly linked to the misbehaviour, not arbitrary. Afterwards, the air was cleared and we moved on.

I don't think it's clear cut where discipline and abuse merge. Different people have a different tolerance. I would have found being ranted at much harder, yet there are occasions where shouting is necessary (e.g. road safety) or an instinct, and occasions when it is inappropriate.

In the fifties, when I grew up ,smacking was much more the norm , though I dont actually remem being being smacked . My Dad take a strap to the back of my legs once . I can't remember what for but it must have been heinious .(It probably upset him more than me) DB though did get spanked quite a lot .And they used to cane boys acrosss the palm of the hand at secondary school . He got that too .

I'm almost 40 and definitely smacked as a child, I can remember lying crying on my bed with my mothers hand imprints on my bare legs used to get battered around the head with a slipper.

I remember my parents friends and family almost bragging about battering their children using feet on them etc

I was born in the early 70s. My parents never smacked me. I find it really confusing in these conversations how people can think it's inappropriate/odd to smack a teenager, but not a small child . It's as weird to me as justifying smacking an elderly relative but not a teenager. It's a completely unnecessary form of discipline, hitting someone considerably smaller and weaker than yourself. So, to answer your question, OP, I would that it was inappropriate and that your father was out of line. What would I do about it now? If I was you I'd probably want to find someone to talk to about it and work through whether I wanted to speak to my father about it. I expect you'll get lots of people telling you that they were smacked as children and it never did any harm. That is rarely the case.

I think it's different in that it wasn't a smack out of a parent losing their temper but premeditated. WHich is a bit sick yes.

Avon - I think it is odd because once smacking was considered an appropriate form of discipline for children and not teenagers.

I wasn't giving my personal view on smacking!

The op wasn't (I don't think) talking about the rights and wrongs of smacking but trying to make sense of her childhood and adolescence.

I'm not pro smacking, but I think that if everyone who was smacked as a child was emotionally damaged by it, you would be looking at probably the vast majority of adults over the age of maybe 30 or 35 being traumatised by their childhood and surely that's not the case? All my friends were smacked as children and none of them have difficult relationships with their parents as adults, or look back with resentment on their childhood, they all talk fondly of their parents and voluntarily spend a lot of time with them. And of course, that's not the case for a sizeable number of people, and there's no doubt that physical abuse was tolerated to a far greater degree in the past. But I can't really get my head round the idea that most of us had childhoods that damaged us in that way.

On the other hand, I think a child growing up now who looks back as an adult and remembers being smacked maybe will feel damaged by it, because they know that it is out of step with what is classed as acceptable behaviour and that it wasn't happening in other families. That is just me musing though, obviously I have no proof of that.

I'm 38 and I was definitely smacked as a child, and it hurt!!! I wouldn't class it as beating though or abuse though. But it still chills me now when I think of it.

My brother also pushed my Dad so far once that he hit him and split his lip. That still to this this day haunts me and interestingly I don't remember anything past that so I think my parents stopped. I remember my Dad being distraught over what he'd done. Never laid a hand on us again. I think he just snapped.

Can I say though I have a wonderful relationship with my parents and I love them dearly. But I will not smack my children because I do not want my child to feel the way I did. If it still chills me now when I think about then I don't want my child to feel like this

And god forbid, anyone lays a hand on my child.

I think you need to remember that if you were smacked as a child, your parents were probably smacked as children too, and they may have considered themselves restrained in their punishment compared to their own childhood punishments.

I was smacked and even spanked with a wooden spoon as a child (mid 1970s). Not something I'd do to my own children but, in my parents defense, it was much less than the beatings they received as children (in the 1930s/40s) which were considered normal at the time.

I was smacked too but not as a teenager.
I remember friends being hit with a belt or slippers and thinking that their parents were harsh and mine very easy going.

The concept of 'other people should not touch you' has never been broach by my parents.

Tbh, if there is some relation with your self esteem then I think it has more to do with what happened around the smacking, what was said at the time and how it was done (eg bending over to receive a smack is different from just receiving one 'standing up') than about the smacking as such.

Funnily enough I've just been looking at a parenting book my mum was given in late 1970 just before I was born. It was first published in 1967 and this edition is 1977. On "spanking" it says:

"Spanking carries a feeling of humiliation that isn't necessary in helping youngsters learn to behave properly. Spanking should be used rarely, only with toddlers too young to understand your words and only when they are in immediate danger reaching up to touch a hot stove, for example, or running into the street."

It also says that spanking is bad as stops kids exploring the world. I don't think this is a million miles from how a lot of people view the question of spanking now. I think I was smacked the odd time as a child (can't really remember) but the usual punishment was sitting in the corner, not too far away from the naughty step.

I think the last time I was smacked was at the age of 14, I still know the reason why. Getting very drunk and taking drugs.

Yes, I agree that the smackers in the Eighties probably thought they were restrained compared to the belters in the Sixties.

I wonder if my children will consider my use of the naughty corner unnecessary when they grow up and have children? I've certainly heard a lot of talk of how it isolates and humiliates the child and doesn't lead to better behaviour but the naughty corner is the best I have as a parent when the shit hits the fan and it beats the hell out of smacking.

In the 80's and 90's me and my sister were regularly hit by our mother. She even banged our head together one - that really hurt. When I look back on how our mother treated us (in many ways, not just the smacking) I really can't believe she got away with it. We'd have been taken off her in these current times.

I'm an 80s child and my mum says she smacked me very occasionally, on the hand or back of (clothed) legs I think. I don't remember this at all, I presume it must have only been when I was a toddler. My dad never smacked me.

I think what you are describing is inappropriate, especially smacking a 15yo on the bum! It reminds me of a story my DH told me, which made me so sad for him. He was shopping with his mum in a dept store and was moaning that he was bored, she pulled down his trousers and pants in the shop, smacked his bum and walked off and left him, he was 8/9 at the time I think. I was/am completely horrified by the thought of it.

I was a child in the 70/80s and my mum, if pushed to the end of her tether would grab us and we would be given a short sharp slap on the back of the thigh. This stopped around age 10/11 and then stopping of pocket money or television replaced it. I would say I was slapped infrequently, probably 2-3 times a year at most. I don't feel damaged by it and have an excellent relationship with my mum now.

I was a child in the 70s and was regularly smacked both at home and at school.

My dh was smacked, my mil had a stick she kept in the cupboard. My mil also had 5 children in 10 years the last at 27... She also very briefly burnt my bils hand with a match because he was obsessed with climbing up into the work surface and playing with them.

She was and remains the best mother I have ever met.

Dh was caned at school as in bend over caning until he left in 1980.

Op I do see your points but it was a different time. You can't really judge them by today's thinking.

I slapped my oldest ds a few times in the late 80s once when he ran in the road and once when he bit his younger ds. He didn't do either again but it did indeed hurt me more and still does.

I hope you can somehow work through your feelings.

To the person who describedmymum as smacking me as 'abuse' I find it in my case laughable.
I wasn't beaten daily with this slipper, if I deserved a whack I got one.
I have never had an argument with my mum, which a lot of people can't say and I am in my 30s now. I believe I was brought up well, not damaged in the slightest. I believe children need discipline. Not necessarily in the particular way but it worked for us. I feel for the people who were actually beaten by their parents but I think sometimes things get labelled to the extreme.

Yep - smacked all the time by both parents. My mum's one concession was to ask my dad not to wallop us round the head.

My daughter went to stay with DD when she was about 6 for a day or two - he had never looked after her before and I decided I had to tell him that it was not OK to hit her. DD looked really hurt and said he would never do that and why would I think he would? Duhh......
That's how the world was back then.

I was smacked in the 90s when I was a kid. Hated it. Did I fear my Dad? Yes. Still do when he gets angry. I will always vividly remember when he lost it and hit my sister a few times round the head while she as lying on her her bed cowering away from him. By my mum very occasionally. I wasn't even a naughty kid. I do think about this now - my parents went absolutely mad when my sister hit me once (recently) and it made me realise how messed up it was. It's something I do think about quite often if I'm honest.