Were you spanked or hit growing up in the '80s (or earlier)?

[SilverSurfer2020]

I grew up in the 80s and while I was only "spanked" once by a male teacher at primary school and never spanked or hit by my parents (that I can recall) ... I was very aware of the ever present talk of rulers, canes, hitting at the rural primary school I attended, of stories of older children having been hit, and on too of that my older siblings were hit occasionally by my parents.

Was this normal for the time?
I always got the impression it was fairly normal for people a bit older than me, and further back.

I wonder what impact it had on their (and our) perception of physical violence within families, partners etc.

What do you think?

Aibu - no, it was not common.
Aibu - yes, it was common.

(The impact question is not part of this aibu just looking for additional opinions. Maybe I could do a separate aibu for it).

Smacked by parents and threatened with it at school but it never happened, thankfully. Both my parents had scars from being caned.

When I was very little (late 70s/very early 80s) I was regularly slapped by my parents (after fair warning) for relatively minor misbehaving, and occasionally spanked for more serious misbehaving. Then that stopped. Many many years later my mum once told me that she now regretted how she disciplined me and my siblings initially. She said that being a very young mum, living abroad and in a context that explicitly encouraged physical chastisement, it was only after years passed and circumstances changed that she started realising that she actually had a choice about how to parent, there wasn't one right way, and they made a conscious decision to stop with the slapping/spanking.

I do think it was fairly widespread and 'normal', hence in the open. I think there might be still a fair amount of physical disciplining going on today, but it is much more hidden.

I grew up in the 90s and was spanked.

Well I was born in 87 so I suppose I did my growing up in the 90s. My parents said i was smacked a couple of times but it made no difference so they stopped doing it.?

I started school in 1983 and was never subject to physical punishment from teachers. We heard stories about being given the belt or rapped over the knuckles with a ruler, but never saw this actually happen.

Got the occasional smack on the bum at home, but only if I’d done something I knew was naughty but did it anyway. Nothing out of the ordinary. I believe some of my friends got smacked with a slipper or a belt, which I think is a different level.

Born late 70s, remember hearing of the 'belt' at school but never got it or saw it being used. I was smacked by an Aunt as a child but don't remember my parents hitting. DH remembers his mum smacking them also

I was born in the early 90s and my parents would hit as a fairly standard punishment.

Worse were the school kids to be honest. They did this 'rapping' which was smacking on the knuckles with an open pack of cards. You had to not cry even if it bled. That was a common 'game'. at school (early secondary). DH has gangs / knife fights at his school. This would be late 70s / 80s

My parents both smacked me on the bum, after warning me normally. I remember feeling scared and humiliated by it, and wouldn’t do it to DS.

The worst for me was that my Uncle once hit me, hard, around the back of the head- for a very minor ‘misdemeanour’. I never told my parents as I thought they’d be angry with me. I still feel upset when I think about- I would NEVER leave DS alone with him.

Not hit at school, but hit by my parents and yes I do feel it has left damage and worry about passing this down to the next generation.

I was born in 1980. Neither of my parents ever lifted a hand to me or threatened to. I went to a convent primary school where (contrary to stories I've read on the internet) the nuns were lovely kind gentle ladies who would never smack or threaten. Some of the lay teachers were less lovely but still didn't smack.

Smacked by parents in 70s. It was frightening and sometimes I didn’t know what I was meant to have done wrong. Wasn’t hit at school but saw other kids getting the belt many times.

It’s horrible and wrong and I am glad we see it now for the abuse it was. Children should not be hit.

I was still in school in the early 80's and there was still physical punishments about. Around 1983, there was a shift in attitude and Parents were starting to object to children being dragged around, or shoved etc by teachers. But there was as many who thought if it was deserved then it was fine.

I was hit, so were most people I knew. That was the real reason why we were so well behaved and sat nicely at the table/on buses.

I mix with people from cultures that still smack from just under 2.

It was normalised, to the extent that I was only removed from my parents for neglect, not for the beatings with kitchen implements, belts etc . Which is why I won't use anyone of my parents generation for childcare.

My mum smacked my bum and legs sometimes in the '90s? Wasn't very hard but more short sharp shock

At school through the 80's. At secondary rulers on the hand and clouts round the ear were commonplace in the classroom with a few male teachers. One female teacher that had a worryingly weird, humiliating ritual using a slipper for punishment. Caning by headmaster but was infrequent and whispered about in frightened, hushed tones. Maybe once or twice a term in a school of 1000+ and never received it myself.

Frequent slaps and hair pulling from Mum at home, never from Dad. Don't know about how it's effected me really, I don't have anything to compare it with though I do hate my hair being pulled with a passion and it induces instant rage.

I was at primary school 1981 - 1988 and left secondary in 1995. I remember only one occasion where our reception teacher smacked someone. Never ever saw it happen after that and is was certainly banned by the time I was at secondary. Our geography teacher used to joke that he missed the days you could send kids to be caned. My dad was a teacher. He lost out on a job opportunity in the '60s because he wouldn't have his name put down on the rota for caning kids after school!

I was smacked on the legs a couple of times as a toddler that I recall. But otherwise nothing until my mother slapped me hard in the face as a teenager. She always said that she knew right then that she'd lost any credibility with me in that second.

If you only sit still because you would be beaten then you're not well behaved. You are living in fear. Very different

My DH used to be whacked on the hand with a ruler by one teacher. His parents never hit him. He is non-violent and generally very measured in his behaviour.

I think I was smacked at home for misbehaving (I'm pretty sure I stretched my parents to the limits and deserved it). They weren't child beaters though and it wasn't a frequent occurrence. A sharp tap on the back of the legs maybe. I don't think it did me any harm.

I can't say if it has had any impact. It hasn't that I'm aware of. I'm not a violent person (I might very occasionally have thought 'I could smash their face in' about someone who has greatly upset me but I don't mean it and would never do it, it's just a way of expressing my frustration to myself).

I dislike gratuitous violence on TV and in films and can't watch them.

However, a close relative's child used to be very unruly most of the time and not listen to verbal admonishment and I used to feel that I'd give them a sharp tap if they were mine.

60s. Regularly hit by my mother. Getting the cane or the slipper was standard punishment at primary and secondary school. I had neither. Seemed to be mainly the boys who did.

I don't know how it affected relationships. My in laws would never have dreamed of hitting my DH, so his childhood was very different from mine.

No way would I punish my kids the same way. My respect for my mother diminished with every slap.

I was born in 1969. I was never hit at school, but was hit frequently at home by both parents with shoes, slippers, rulers, hangers, garden canes etc. I'm not sure that it did me any harm, but it certainly didn't do any good. It didn't make me behave any better, I thought it was ok to hit my younger sister (which I'm not proud of), and seeing my parents lose control and resort to violence made me lose respect for them.

My Dad stopped hitting me when I was about 13. My mother continued until I was 16. She came raging at me with a hanger one day, so I hit her back with a hard punch in the stomach. It worked - she never hit me again.

"The worst for me was that my Uncle once hit me, hard, around the back of the head-"

I worked with a man who had been left deaf, by a so called harmless clip round the ear, in the 70's. This was done by a teacher.

I remember making a mistake, when I was 7 and being harshly slapped by a Brownie leader, she was also highly connected to the church. My parents backed her up.

Born in 1970. Very occasionally slapped at home, but more a car if my mum losing it when at tbe end of her tether than a calculated punishment. Never at school. Not to me or anyone I knew. Never happened at any school I attended and I'm pretty sure it was banned by the time I started school (ILEA).

It was very normal to be smacked by parents when I was growing up. It made me behave! At school I witnessed a boy being given the cane on the stage in assembly, and in infant school the whole class got rapped with a ruler because having been left for a couple of minutes we decided to paint our nails with the paint we were using, and ended up with painted hands.

Apologies for typos. More a case of.