My mum slapped my brother across the face

[hallie29]

When he was 11, for playing a prank.

We both wonder now, momentary loss of control or something more sinister.

My mum slapped me across the face and I think my Dad did too once. When my mum did it I was standing next to the fridge and hit my head on the fridge and got a lump on the side of my head. I was 15 and being cheeky. When my Dad did it I wasn’t doing anything - I think he asked me to lay the table and said ‘why can’t [younger sister] do it’ He slapped me and I ran off to my room, Mum told him off and he came and apologised.
Wasn’t the least bit traumatised by either event - was probably the result of stressed parents who were probably juggling many competeting demands of family life. I’m 53 though and my friends suffered far worse.
I would advise your brother not to dwell on it if it was a one off incident.

It's really bad. It's not acceptable.

How long ago did this happen?

If it was just once and ages ago I'd try to move past it. You can't change anything about it now so it might be best to not let it have so much power over your lives now.

I do wonder if you are keeping yourselves busy with the wrong thing as a distraction.

My mum had ballroom dancing lessons for a while, and I used to spend my time watching myself in the mirrors doing skids on the slippery floor. She was a single mother and I already spent enough time in childcare, and didn't feel neglected because I had to hang around with nothing to do. I'd also spend the weekends wandering the playgrounds of Basildon alone, even at the age of 6. Children were left to their own devices a lot more in those days.

I'm less forgiving about the dreaded wooden spoon and slaps, as it hurt and was usually due to my mother's issues, not my naughtiness. But in those days it was not frowned upon; she would probably have seen it as a normal way to control your child.

The wooden spoon, a smacking with a belt, my own riding crop. But it was neglect that had me temporarily removed from my parents. Physical abuse has to be quite extreme violence in the UK to be acted upon.

It is not ok to hit a child and it has never been acceptable. My best friend and I were born the same year and her parents NEVER hit her.

Just because parents couldn't be prosecuted years ago didn't mean the act was any less vile.

Thinking about this so many years later sounds obsessive. The slap years ago isn't the problem, it's the obsessing and talking about it now, and wondering what was behind it. You know what was behind it, he gave her a fright.

What's next, demanding a family intervention where she's sitting in a chair while the pair of you tell her she destroyed your lives by slapping him?

You both need to get a grip, and distance yourself from this, deal with whatever problems you have in the present.

Like the others have said, being hit once, at a time when it was acceptable to hit your kids, doesn't mean your mum was a terrible mum. As for being scared of her, well, that rather depends on whether you were thinking "I hope she doesn't find out that I've lost my coat or she'll KILL ME" or, conversely, cowering in a cupboard hiding from her when she was in a drunken rage.

The psychotherapist Albert Ellis used to say that if you could pinpoint "what had made you screwed up" it wouldn't necessarily help you. It might just "make you MORE crazy!" because, if you blamed your mother for ruining your life due to her momentary flash of anger, you could end up developing a massive sense of unjustified resentment against her which might destroy an otherwise reasonable relationship.

I don't think he's quite right. Some people do have terrible experiences which shape their view of the world and themselves and which it can be a good thing to understand. But that doesn't mean to say that if you feel terrible it MUST be because something terrible happened to you. "Men are troubled not by things but by their opinions of things."

Mental illness - and I speak from experience - very often has an obsessive element to it. Thoughts run round in circles in your head. You wake in the middle of the night in agonies of guilt because of something mean you did at primary school. You relive, endlessly, the shame of having the piss taken out of you for wearing the wrong shoes.

Now if something really dreadful had happened to your brother you would want to help him put it behind him and move on, wouldn't you? You would want to tell him that he doesn't have to live as a victim for the rest of his life - that he didn't have to feel shamed or sullied for what happened to him, and that he was in no way responsible for it.

But in that hypothetical scenario we'd all appreciate that putting really traumatic events behind us is bloody difficult. Here, though, what happened wasn't, I think, all that awful. Upsetting, perhaps. But isn't it even more important that a minor event shouldn't have to cast a shadow over him?

Sounds like the best thing you can do for your brother would be to say "But, you know, Mum didn't mean it. She was just cross and worried. And everyone used to hit their kids then. Doesn't mean it's right, but it's not that much of a big deal." (I don't know what your relationship with your mum is like now. It'd be good if you were able to say "But she still loved you.")

If he's "very" unwell then he's hopefully getting the help he needs. xx

My MIL did the same to me when I was 5 months pregnant.
Why?
Because we were playing dominoes for matchsticks ( sad women loved it)
She kept winning so I called her a jammy cow, She said I'm going to hit you for that. No one thought she actually would but she walked round the table and slapped me across the face. We were all in shock.
The relationship never recovered.

I still think about my dad hitting us. He would lose his temper and beat us around the head. I can remember him doing it to me once because I'd spilt a few crumbs on the floor.
It was really disturbing as you never knew when he would explode in rage; I had a very anxious childhood and this has carried on into adulthood. I cringe away from arguments/loud voices/angry people. It is very difficult to unlearn behaviour you learned as a child, and which went on over many years.

It is not ok to hit a child and it has never been acceptable.

It was widely accepted many years ago as a disciplinary measure. Smacking was common practice when I was growing up, and there was still corporal punishment in school for part of my education.

thetemptation My mother was the same as your father and I'm almost sixty. She also wonders why three out of four don't speak to her!
op I think your brother needs to talk it through with a professional, particularly if it was a one off. When my mother slapped me round the face it was the last time she did it. I left home the following day. Having said that, she'd been an abusive old bat for years. Probably still is.

Just because parents couldn't be prosecuted years ago didn't mean the act was any less vile.
It wasn't just that they couldn't be prosecuted, though: people would have found the idea of prosecuting them funny; literally a joke, as it was actively considered a good idea by many to smack or cane children, so that (they thought) the children would learn respect and good manners. Corporal punishment in UK schools was banned in 1986; i.e. it was official practice to hit children. Hardly surprising if many parents thought it was a useful, acceptable means of controlling their children: it really was considered acceptable by large swathes of the population.

My mother also used to smack me when in a rage, rather than coolly considering it necessary as a means of discipline. Rather than inspiring respect in me, it meant I lost all respect for her. But in those days the parenting guides said something different.

"My parents used to go ballroom dancing and took my brother and I along, we were supposed to read but my brother wandered off and knocked on a lady’s door and ran off."

He was meant to be in the building (that your mother was in), he wandered off at least as far as a stranger's door. Is it possible that he may have given your mother a hell of a fright? Nothing like finding your child missing (from where you thought he safely was) for turning you into a mummy monster! Not that it would excuse the slap, but it would explain it.

"he is very unwell now and he keeps bringing this up"

I'm sorry your brother is unwell. Is he searching for a cause or catalyst for his illness? Perhaps that's something that he should only do with health/medical guidance. Has he sought help for his illness?