Smacking - was it ok in the 90s?

[treebird3]

Inspired by the other smacking thread.

My father smacked me a lot in the 90s - on the hand, thighs, bum (sometimes bare).

I've always thought this was normal for the time but I was speaking to a colleague the same age who said she was never smacked.

I was born in 90s, definitely not something I was aware happened. My mum slapped my leg once and she cried more than I did. If I knew a friend was getting hit at home I'd probably have told a teacher!

I think it was an acceptable "parenting strategy" at the time. Punishment for something done wrong, not the parents taking out their frustrations by hurting their child.

I do feel that the line between punishment and acting out of anger was too often crossed. Once you open that door, and start thinking that hurting your child is acceptable, that your helping them to learn then it suddenly seems ok to start acting out of anger.

Parenting has come a long way since then, it's one of the reasons I get a bit cross when MIL dishes out the criticism advice.

I was a child in the 60s and was never smacked
I had my DC in the 90s they were never smacked either

A lot of people on this thread say they don’t think their friends were smacked but I really don’t think you would know.

A school friend in the 90s had her mother wash her mouth out with soap for swearing. (My mother used to threaten it but never did it.) Friend's mother now wonders why her daughter chose to leave the country and never wants to see her.

I'm not sure the 'naughty step' generation is working out too well to be fair!!!

I was smacked, did me no harm, I'm a decent human being who understands right from wrong. Watch lions disciplining their 'kids' .

Plenty of adults about now who would have benefited from a short sharp smack in my opinion! ( Might also add it was very infrequent, when I was young, so learning, and always for a good reason. My parents did not go around beating me up! Very loving childhood and fab parents)

Not in my family, and my mother said not in hers, and she was born in 1953

Late 80's child here and if me or my siblings were naughty my mum would use the belt. Our dad on the other hand never smacked us. A few friends I know have commented that they got a smack when they were younger but most of my friends never.

These threads are always tragic. Smacking is not OK. It is not ok to normalize abuse.

I'm not sure the 'naughty step' generation is working out too well to be fair!!!

Why not?

I think the generations younger than mine are actually amazing. Especially in an economy where the odds are stacked against them having a comfortable life. I'm a millennial technically, if it matters. So from the smacked (only once in my case), nineties generation. The people I know IRL who don't know how to behave grew up in the sixties and seventies. That's not to say that's true if everyone in that age group. Just like it isn't true to say that the naughty step generation isn't turning out too well . Actually a really shitty comment when we who are a bit older have benefitted from a much friendlier economy and fewer pressures in many ways, (unless you are old enough to have been an adult in war time).

*of

I miss the 90s...take me back.

Born in the 70s. My mum said she smacked me once and instantly regretted it.

I'm not sure the 'naughty step' generation is working out too well to be fair!!!

Given the current state of the world and the age of its leaders, I think it's fair to say the generations before the 'naughty step' one haven't worked out very well at all either.

Well, it wasn't okay but it was more common . In the 1950s it was almost universal, both at home and school.

I was smacked by my parents in the 90s (late 80s baby). I found it humiliating.

I was also hit hard across the back of my head by my uncle, with no eating. I was kneeling at the time, and it was so forceful that I fell forwards and only just managed to catch myself from face planting the floor. I’ve thought about it a lot since having DS especially. How flipping dare he. Never told my parents obviously as was so ashamed and scared of getting into trouble. Goodness knows what he did to my cousins!!

^ no warning, not ‘no eating’ 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Iwalkinmyclothing

I'm not sure the 'naughty step' generation is working out too well to be fair!!!

Given the current state of the world and the age of its leaders, I think it's fair to say the generations before the 'naughty step' one haven't worked out very well at all either.

Touche!

I was born in the late 80s, and was very occasionally smacked on the bottom if I was being persistently naughty. It wasn’t particularly violent/hard, but I knew I had crossed the line and needed to behave if it happened. It didn’t do me any harm and I don’t harbour any resentment because of it.

I was born in 91 and regularly smacked (I was a ‘naughty’ child). Always by my mum, and never so hard that I remember it hurting. She says now that I use to get so worked up into a tantrum, a smack was the only thing to shock me out of it...not entirely sure if I agree with that but thinking about it now she probably just couldn’t be bothered to deal with it.

Tbh it turned into a bit of a joke eventually, my brother and I would end up running around the house with books down our pants trying to get my mum to smack us. It never did us any harm and I certainly never felt scared but I wouldn’t smack my own children now.

80s baby, 90s child. We used to get smacked occassionally but threatened with it a lot (as in "do you want me to pull your trousers down on this train carriage and smack you in front of all these people"). Interesting that @newmum332 says it was done to stop her tantrumming, my mum also reckons it was a good way to shock us out of meltdowns. The last time I ever got smacked was when I said something along the lines of "no I bloody wont" to my mum and she ran into the bathroom and smacked me for swearing at her when I was 14 (so early 2000s).That was a shock though becaus it was 5 years or so since the last time.

Incidentally if I threaten to smack my six year old (as a joke) or talk about smacking he finds the concept hilarious because it seems so unlikely to him.

I wasn’t by my Mum, was by my father sometimes. Probably would have been more if my Mum hadn’t been there. My father is now married to an American woman who used to spank her children with wooden spoons or belts in the mid 2000’s and firmly believed this was okay. Mysteriously I don’t keep in touch and my step siblings are limited contact with them now.

I was born in the 90s, i was slapped as a child, like most of my friends, it seemed normal to me! It doesn't bother me in the slightest! I have a child myself now, haven't once layed a finger on her and i dont plan too, my partner has slapped her maybe 2 times and both times it ended in a argument because im against it