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AIBU?

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Original poster

To say that making your child eat cigarettes as punishment is abuse?

194 replies

Roostersmum2 · 03/05/2020 21:50

DH has just told me that his brother, about 14 at the time, was forced to eat cigarettes after being caught stealing them from their mums packet. He then added that his gran chimed in and said that she should have made him smoke the whole packet.

DH is virtually no contact with his mum for reasons that are nothing to do with this, but that is abuse isn't it?

OP posts:
timeforteea · 03/05/2020 22:10

Surely everyone was threatened to have their mouths washed out with soap??? It was the norm growing up. Never happened to me though because I was a good girl 😊

BrooHaHa · 03/05/2020 22:11

Yeah, my gran used to threaten this. No one ever stole her cigarettes though, so I don't know if she'd have followed through.

SpillTheTeaa · 03/05/2020 22:12

Omg yes that is abuse!

Original poster
Roostersmum2 · 03/05/2020 22:13

His brother is almost 40

Sadly it's not an isolated incident I've heard many things about her choice of punishments and lack of self control. She is a dreadful person.

I say that as somebody who gets on well with the rest of the family, it's not a typical "hating the mother in law" for no good reason thing.

OP posts:
EmeraldShamrock · 03/05/2020 22:15

It is awful. Unfortunately MIL most likely learnt this from her DM. After my DM soaped my older brother on instruction from her DM she swore she’d never hurt her DC again. He was really sick as she was from her DM. Her DM was apparently a lovely DM yet she hit my aunt with a hot poker. It is normal for DM to be beaten at home and school in the 50’s, when she started mothering in the 70’s there was lots of learnt behaviour to be untangled.
Not excusing your MIL at all.

PlanDeRaccordement · 03/05/2020 22:17

When I was 4. To stop my thumb sucking as a child, my mother put hot chili oil on my hands before bed. I sucked my thumb because I couldn’t help it and it burned my mouth, which made me cry and then by wiping my eyes with those same hands put the oil in my eyes and burned them too. It even got up my nose because by crying, there be snot everywhere and that just spread the oil all over. I was in constant agony.

She did it every night for ten days before I could stop sucking my thumb. Even today, I can’t sleep with my hands anywhere near my face. I curl them up in my lap as I sleep on my side.

(Before that she had tried taping mittens to my hands at night, but I’d chew through the tape with my teeth to get to my thumb.)

She then used to brag about her great method and that I should thank her because no man would marry a girl with crooked teeth and that she’d saved me from deforming myself.

EmeraldShamrock · 03/05/2020 22:19

PlanDeRaccordement That is absolutely disturbing. I’m sorry. Flowers

Chilli21 · 03/05/2020 22:20

In the 70s, I remember it was just before Christmas and a friend of mine misbehaved with his brother, not sure what they did. As punishment, their parents didn’t let them have presents in Christmas Day and they were made to wait until Easter. When they were old enough they both left home and never visited.

PlanDeRaccordement · 03/05/2020 22:21

No worries. My mother learned it from her mother. I think our generation is the first to really face head on child abuse and domestic violence too. We have a lot to be proud of in how we raise our children in loving homes.

Original poster
Roostersmum2 · 03/05/2020 22:23

PlanDeRaccordement oh my word, I'm so sorry that happened to you. That makes for very sad reading. I couldn't imagine doing that to my DD Sad

When they were old enough they both left home and never visited I can't say I blame them!

OP posts:
justasking111 · 03/05/2020 22:26

My friend at the local convent school told of how the nuns would wash the girls mouths out with soap as a punishment this was late 60s early 70s. I really could not comprehend this scale of abuse in a professional setting by holy women.

Gemma2019 · 03/05/2020 22:27

When I was growing up there were lots of people who were forced to smoke packets of cigarettes/drink alcohol if they had dared to steal some/eat soap/sit until all their dinner was eaten or otherwise have it again for breakfast etc etc. Teachers were allowed to hit you back then and punishments were much more sadistic. It's totally wrong and shouldn't have happened, but that's how things were at the time.

bd67thSaysReinstateLangCleg · 03/05/2020 22:27

To stop my thumb sucking as a child

Which you'd have outgrown any way. Thumbsucking doesn't harm your teeth until the permanent teeth come in.

What an awful woman. I'm appalled.

ElizaCrouch · 03/05/2020 22:29

It was the norm back in the 70s. Well where I was anyway. I don't know anyone who had to eat the packet but I knew a few who were forced to smoke the whole packet / mouths washed out with soap etc. My older brother did the soap thing to me.

EmeraldShamrock · 03/05/2020 22:31

We have a lot to be proud of in how we raise our children in loving homes That’s true. Smile

Original poster
Roostersmum2 · 03/05/2020 22:32

His mum also failed to spot or investigate ASD in DH so he went without additional support his entire life. She didn't notice because she didn't bother with them and left them to their own devices.

He has high functioning aspergers but has spent his life feeling as though he was just unusual, it only came to light when I broached the possibility after our DS being assessed and me learning about the spectrum. How can a mother not know something is wrong? (I say wrong, he's not wrong he's amazing, but you get my drift)

From the age of 13ish he took on the majority of the childcare for his youngest brother, cooking and cleaning.

It makes me so sad that they grew up with such a parent.

OP posts:
Cheeryandmerry · 03/05/2020 22:32

Very usual back in the day. Growing up in the early 70s I was regularly spanked with a hard soled slipper or a wooden spoon, or made to stand still facing the corner for hours. If I didn’t eat something it was brought back to the next meal. There are things I can’t bear the sight of now because of it.

All of which I find absolutely abhorrent and wouldn’t dream of inflicting on my children or any child.

TitianaTitsling · 03/05/2020 22:32

@Hannah021 and @Abbccc I do not get the point of your posts! It's an anonymous forum of course OP is more likely to come here and ask for support etc! @Roostersmum2 your poor DH and his brother.

MereDintofPandiculation · 03/05/2020 22:33

Things were different back then. Two of my friends were regularly whipped by their fathers, and at primary school the boys (but not the girls) were caned.

HeimdallSaysNo · 03/05/2020 22:34

My husband grew up in a working class family in London from the 70s and he has often told me stories of how he, his siblings and cousins were disciplined back then. Mouths washed out, forced to eat horrible things, whipped with all kinds, yelled at constantly. He has not replicated it with our child, thankfully.

bluemoon77 · 03/05/2020 22:36

That’s disgusting, and why shouldn’t it be discussed. The OP has just found out something shocking about her mil. My dh has told me stuff about his childhood, which angers me to this day. It’s hard to let go of stuff sometimes.

Homestayer · 03/05/2020 22:37

These type of punishments aren't sadistic per se, in that it's very likely the person administering them didn't derive pleasure from them.

The rights or wrongs completely depend on the circumstances of course but raises a relevant point, what punishments are acceptable, given that all punishments cause the person being punished to suffer in some way?

I was smacked as a child, not often and only when I did something off the scale naughty. I know for a fact that my mother and grandfather (who we lived with) didnt enjoy it at all, in fact I found out later that my grandfather cried after he smacked me (he just never let me see)

I dont smack my kids, but I have for example used time outs when they misbehave. A 'time out' is just a euphemism for exclusionary psychological torture. If you isolated prisoners of war for example, until they apologised and admitted they were 'wrong', even if they disagreed, youd be tried at the Hague.

Why is that any better than a smacked arse that stops hurting after 5-10 minutes, or a mouthful of cigarettes that while disgusting, wont do you any long term harm?

WeirdAndPissedOff · 03/05/2020 22:39

That's awful - there's no question at all it was abuse. And tbh, I dont think it's quite far back enough that "back then" is a reasonable excuse. If he's nearly 40 that means he was born in the 80s, and I'm assuming this was a punishment for smoking, so presumably he was at least almost ten, if not in teens? That means we're talking very late 80s, or more likely 90s.

Abbccc · 03/05/2020 22:40

Of course it can be discussed, but I think that if it's being discussed in public the person being talked about should be asked if they feel that's ok.

ElizaCrouch · 03/05/2020 22:41

They still had the cane when I was at school. It was phased out at some point in secondary. I remember some boys being caned by the head because they'd been caught smoking.