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 at junior school in the 70's and it was commonplace for our teacher to take a run and smack kids hard for misbehaving. It's shocking really that this was ever allowed to happen. I can remember one lad being hit so hard he went flying across the room.

I smacked my Ds once across the back of the legs ( he was born in 89). It was a reaction on my part to him running into the road. I think smacking was starting to be seen as unacceptable by the 90's. I did have a brilliant book called 'Toddler taming' forgotten who the author was. It helped me no end with ds.

I was smacked in the 80s routinely. I raised my children in the 2000s. I have tried not to use smacking as a form of discipline, I have not always succeeded.

I suspect class has a lot to do with how early it became seen as unacceptable, with university educated types being the first to drop the practice. My folks were aspirational but very much working class.

My siblings and I were all born in the 1970s and jone of us were ever smacked. I remember being horrified when a friend told me about her mum chasing her up the stairs with a slipper.

My dad was regularly beaten with a belt as a child (born in the 1940s) and swore he would never lay a hand on his own kids and he never did

One of the early editions of Toddler Taming explained when the author thought a smack was acceptable (!) it was worded in such a way that it was very clear there were two camps and most people were firmly in one or the other.

I was born in '84 so I was a 90's kid. I was smacked regularly by my Mum (I was a very naughty kid), sometimes with a slipper or hairbrush but I only remember my Dad smacking me a couple of times

I have a great relationship with my Mum and genuinely don't believe it harmed me in any way, it was a different time and I was a little shit who deserved 95% of smacked bums I got

I don't hit my son though, it's just not the done thing nowadays and tbh, he's a really easy and well behaved kid (so far!)

I was born in '84 and my mum smacked me way too much. She really went overboard - slipper, horsewhip etc. I wasn't a bad kid and she took out her bad moods on me. I also got a beating if my brother had done something bad .
My dad never smacked any of us as he was traumatised by the one and only smack he received from his own dad in the 1950s that he didn't deserve.
I think it was pretty common in the 80s but my close friends were never smacked but my ex partners all were (80s children too). I do remember a girl I went to school with who told me her dad used to hit her with the buckle end of his belt.

I was smacked in the 90's. Wouldn't smack my child though.

Yep was smacked as a kid in the 80's!

It's shocking how "normal" it was considered in the 1980s. I remember finding a book on my parents' shelves arguing against smacking, which I studied carefully. It said "many parents see it not just as a right, but as their duty to hit their children". It also said "Our language has developed a remarkable vocabulary to cover the hitting of children:" and it went on to list about twenty synonyms.

When I was in year 3 in 1987, our teacher asked us in turn what punishments we had at home. Lots of smacking, and many of the children answered cheerfully, without batting an eyelid. One boy reported once being tied up, sounding almost delighted. (Of course, it's possible he was exaggerating or making it up; we will never know.) I can't imagine such a discussion taking place now.

I was a little shit who deserved 95% of smacked bums I got

You were not and did not and it is very distressing how many children who get hit grow up believing that they deserved it.

My DC were born in the late 90s and I didn't smack them. It was unacceptable.

I was born in the late 60s and my mother would smack us if we were naughty. I also remember being at school in what would now be called Y3 and a classmate misbehaving. The teacher put him across her lap and smacked his bottom. I was very shocked so it presumably wasnt a regular occurrence but it was allowed. that woul have been around 1973 or 4.

I'm 46 and was smacked a lot as a child 😞

My sister and I were born in the 1980s and were regularly smacked. It’s unfortunately what I remember most about our dad growing up. Awful. I think it was quite common but that doesn’t make it okay. Thankfully it’s not common today and it’s totally unnecessary. It’s a loss of control.

I have never and will never smack my children.