To ask were you smacked by your parents as a child, and do you forgive them now?

[blubberball]

I was smacked by my parents as a child. Sometimes they would completely lose their shit and smack me over and over, whilst shouting at me. Each syllable would be a smack. I remember wanting my dm to stop talking, so that she would stop hitting me. I remember being in the street and my dm taking a swing at my arse, and I managed to move to dodge it.

I guess it stopped at the "appropriate" age. 10 or something.

I have never smacked my dc, and would use time outs to discipline them. My parents moved with the times and followed my lead. I forgive them, and they are very loving and supportive now. It's strange to think that happened now.

I'm sure both my mum and my dad lost their rag at one point and smacked me, I can remember - I don't feel anything about it particularly, I assume they were just at the end of their rope and I have a lovely relationship with both.

My DS is 4 and I've never smacked him but I have certainly felt like it sometimes. And I have really shouted at him on occasion too which I feel terrible about - almost worst than smacking I feel.

Sad reading.

I think Molly2017 has it where she describes how certain incidents where you were hit, make overriding childhood memories (in my case, certainly frightening ones, where any nicer connotations have been blanked out).

• Being terrified of having got a small amount of food colouring on a new school skirt that, for some reason, I had to wear to Guides - and being punished severely for it on my return.
• Being terrified of losing anything at school (a recorder, a music tape, first one found but not the 2nd)
• Being slapped for a few other things, clearly due to DM being in anger and beyond control.

Certainly had a good line in deep fear from an early age and the slapping was always associated with that.

...Oh yes, and also the overriding drive out of that remains that I should not, ever, get caught. So that is a pretty hard one. Most of the time it results in me going overboard to stick to the straight and narrow, but with some notable exceptions.

Very well expressed @PatriciaBateman

Smacking teaches them to stop what they’re doing in fear, why would you want your child to fear you?
They should fear the consequences of their bad actions, but they shouldn’t fear YOU.
I was smacked by my hot headed, bad tempered parents, and no I won’t forgive them.
Its sad that some people are conditioned enough to feel that as they turned out ok, their parents did a good job. That’s not true at all.

You can’t keep your cool with a child and not cause them physical harm? Don’t fucking have them.

I was smacked, mostly by my dad. It was never explained to what I'd done wrong. I just had the hell bashed out of me. I hated my dad, I still hate him and I'll never forgive him

Yes
No

It's never occurred to me that forgiveness was needed but in recent years it's just occurred to me that my dad used to really enjoy it . He used to threaten us with and use his slipper on us regularly.

I'm determined not to smack my children and follow in his footsteps.

I was smacked occasionally when my parents failed to explain to me why what I had done was wrong and so wouldn't say sorry for it. It made me think they didn't love me (though they did and were otherwise fairly good parents).

I can count on one hand the amount of times I have been slapped as a child - it was rare. I do remember feeling an overwhelming hatred for my parents whenever they did it though. I remember once getting a slap on the arse for something - and I knew that if my mum has told me what I did was wrong, then I would have changed my behaviour - there was no need to hit me.

I have forgiven them - it’s never been something which ha lingered. I don’t hit my own children and I would never.

My parents, especially my mother smacked me. On occasion she lost her temper and beat me, hit me with things and terrified me.

I will never forgive her. I will never trust her. I will always be afraid of her temper and feel sad that she lost control and hurt me deliberately. We can never be close because I have an invisible shield that I used as a child to protect myself and it stays up when I'm with her.

I've never smacked DC. I've never even come close. I have disciplined them when needed but this would never involve being physical.

I never knew I needed to, but then again my parents didn't beat me. Yours did. Different thing entirely.

Nah. My mum’s in her 70s now and denies that she used to chase me round the house hitting me with a hoover pipe or slapping my face until I wet myself with fear.

Last time she smacked me round the head I was about 13 I think. My younger brother used to intervene sometimes.

All 4 of her children are dysfunctional in their own way. Two of us ended up with violent partners, one of them became a violent partner, and the other one is a grudge bearing vindictive silent treatment-er.

Hopefully the cycle has ended with her grandchildren.

Yeah the jails are full of people who smacked strangers on the bums

The jails are full of people who did to adult strangers what people on this thread report their parents did to them.

You don't hit your own children so I wonder why you are so anxious to say smacking is just fine! Nothing to see here! Plenty of misery to see if you read this thread.

Fine if you forgive your own parents and understand them. Parents make mistakes (you clearly think it was a mistake as you don't do it yourself). I would forgive the odd smack on the bum too. But I wouldn't think it was right and needed to be defended.

From your description, your parents did far more than average snacking, OP!
I was smacked as a child, though nothing like the OP's ordeals. It taught me to behave; it was only ever when I was doing something wrong or unsafe. There is nothing to forgive my parents for.

Yes I was smacked.

No I never forgave them.

I've never smacked my children, or anyone else for that matter.

Yes and yes.

Yes and nothing to forgive. Open palm smacks, occasionally, in heat of the moment not planned.

As a child I found being smacked and then it all being over with, far preferable to being sent to my room or sent to sit on the step - even though these are viewed as acceptable and smacking isn’t.

Although I have a great relationship with my parents now, I do feel strongly about being smacked, and that even though they meant well, in some ways it has messed me up and made me into a less capable adult. I haven't forgiven them for these, and I still feel angry about them. Examples of when I think they did it "wrongly" were:

When I tried to stand my ground about something, such as my brother deliberately winding me up. Result? I became afraid to stand my ground about anything, and was a total pushover as a young adult.

When I once bumped into a blind man; he stopped walking when I didn't expect it. My mum carefully explained why I shouldn't have bumped into him, then she smacked me. I would have understood the explanation, without the smacking! It made me afraid of being out and about, in case accidents like that happened.

I once (very lightly) hit my brother when we disagreed about something small, and I received one of the most severe childhood smackings ever. Was the irony totally lost on my parents? Did they not see where I might have got the idea of hitting someone if I disagreed with them?

If I lost or broke something, I was sometimes smacked. Result? I never owned up, and got into big spirals of lying and covering things up as a teenager and young adult, which sometimes got me into much bigger trouble.

Basically, I grew up afraid of accidentally doing something wrong, became very risk-averse, over compliant, which I think really held me back as an adult, and I might have achieved more by now if the fear of being smacked was not present. I remember that when I made a small mistake, I'd sometimes plead in a small voice "don't smack me".

I don't have children, but I've sometimes imagined telling my parents (MN style) that if they ever smacked any children of mine, it might be the last time they'd see them.

I think what this thread shows us is that any parents who do choose smacking as a form of discipline risk damaging their relationships with their kids. Lots of people carrying long held resentment and sadness about it. And I agree with pps who say it can affect the kind of adult you become - in a negative way!

My dad never hit me, he's an intelligent man who would explain what I'd done wrong and why I shouldn't do it again. I was full of respect for him, although as I've got older I've realised that he played a part in it all too. For instance, I can remember being about 9 or 10 and crying that my mum had hit me on top of a bruise that I already had, so it had hurt more than normal, and they both laughed at me and were doing impressions of me crying.

My mum is a bit hard of thinking, with no sense of logic, she would hit me for being cheeky. Being cheeky seemed to involve questioning her, and when I say questioning her, I mean things like asking her why I needed to do X or why are we going to Y. I have no respect for my mum and once I had my own children, my respect for her went down even further.

I would still forgive her now though if she showed remorse, but she doesn't.

She used to hit me with a wooden spoon or her slipper, whilst telling me that she wouldn't waste her hand on me. She'd chase me around the dining room table, with me desperately pulling out the chairs to try and slow her down, with the aim of getting up the stairs to the bathroom, the only room with a lock on it.

I look back now and I honestly can't remember doing anything all that wrong. I was a very shy, quiet bookworm, who, as a pp said, just wanted to be left alone to read.

Yes I was smacked. Absolutely no forgiveness needed.

Actually scary how many of you are happy that you were smacked and “brought up properly”.
I hope you don’t pass your views on to your children / grandchildren

I was very rarely smacked as a child, but my mother did hit me hard across the face once, for losing the £5 I had been sent to the shop with to buy the tatties and cold meat she wanted.

My face bruised and she kept me off school so no-one could see. I was also punished for the same thing by being sent to my room and being denied food.

My mother much preferred to use emotional abuse, something I've never recovered from, I'm almost NC with her now, as she still does it.

I can forgive the actual smacking. But it was the demeaning way they did it - especially my mother.
She would smack me around the head and call me a ‘stupid sod’ with such venom - and it was usually after doing something I wouldn’t consider particularly naughty - just being a silly kid... singing a stupid song or whatever.