Traumatised by being smacked

[Babyparrotdog]

Sounds dramatic to some maybe but am I the only one who feels they are genuinely traumatised from being ‘smacked’ as a child? I feel so much worse about it since having my own child.

@Naptimenow

I guess it comes down to the definition of smacking and how close that gets to beating! NO! Smacking is abuse it's a spectrum and it is never ok - it is always an failure of the adult's to deal with a situation appropriately. A child who is not behaving in a way you approve of does not deserve to be assaulted.

This exactly.

We have legal system in place that rules it’s unacceptable and a punishable offence to hit others just because you find their behaviour unacceptable or merely because they’ve annoyed you - and that’s to protect adults!

Why should the rules be any different for the striking of children? After all, they’re smaller, more vulnerable and deserve even more protection. Many people that beat children would think twice about doing it to an equally sized adult.

I’m sorry I keep posting on this thread but it’s opened up a huge can of worms from my childhood. My mother had a cupboard full of sayings to justify her punishments, spare the rod, spoil the child, etc etc She loved to tell me when I was a parent, I would feel and do the same. If she saw other parents dealing with tantrums she would offer uninvited advice “that a short hard smack would deal with that”

My kids told me that when they were growing up, my sadness at their behaviour had far more impact on them than if I got cross.

I remember reading a study on the emotional effects of hitting children. The impact was greatest amount cultures where smacking was seen as unacceptable - where children felt the shame of what their parents were doing, knowing that if other people knew the way their parents treated them, their parents would be severely judged. In cultures where smacking was seen as normal the kids who were subjected to it coped better emotionally.

@2389Champ

My mother used to regularly smack me and when I look back as an adult, the ‘crimes’ I had committed to deserve the punishment were pretty standard normal child behaviour. I was supposed to have known what I had done wrong - I genuinely didn’t and if I asked why, I got another smack for answering back or having a bad attitude.

Her particular favourite was shillelagh which was an Irish blackthorn walking stick which was quite knobbly and consequently resulted in some pretty impressive bruising. I’m sure nowadays a school would raise concerns over my injuries but back then, no one even questioned it.

Again, it wasn’t until I grew up that I realised my mother’s form of discipline wasn’t normal and was clearly abuse. She always denied it when I spoke to her woman to woman and said she rarely hit me and I must have imagined all the incidents! Not justifying her in anyway - and I never left my children in her care for this reason - but I think violence was ‘normal’ in her upbringing and most of the times I was hit by her was not because I deserved it but more that SHE had lost control of her own anger.

I was an only child so her focus was entirely on my behaviour. I don’t think she could have coped with more than one child so I rather bore the brunt of her issues. Our adult relationship until her death was bizarre. I never entirely forgave her for my treatment (is that really wicked?) and kept her at arms length although she always told others we had a very strong mother/daughter bond and was believed!

I never grieved over her death last year either. Maybe I’m a heartless bitch, but my childhood memories were always taunted by her cruelty.

I could have written this myself. When you said shillelagh I got a shiver down my spine. Same....16 years on I haven’t grieved properly. My heart goes out to you

Plus, ‘did me no harm’ is such a low bar for parenting. I don’t want my kids to say my parenting didn’t harm them, I want them to say my parenting elevated them, taught them, shaped them. Just the absence of trauma and harm is a low point to aim for.

This.

Perfectly put.

@Naptimenow

I remember reading a study on the emotional effects of hitting children. The impact was greatest amount cultures where smacking was seen as unacceptable - where children felt the shame of what their parents were doing, knowing that if other people knew the way their parents treated them, their parents would be severely judged. In cultures where smacking was seen as normal the kids who were subjected to it coped better emotionally.

Or they felt less comfortable calling it the shit parenting it is when they know everyone around them is going to tell them they're not traumatised and it was normal and fantastic.

@DrSbaitso it's maybe a bit like poverty in the sense that the relative position of your peers matters. A bit like the poster below who seems to bond with her siblings over the beatings they used to get - if only one of them was beaten, there would be nothing to bond over or laugh at - the true horror of a sibling getting beat so hard the spoon broke would have hit home (no pun intended) - just as it did for us the day my younger brother was beat with a belt, makes me want to weep every time I think about it.

I was an only child. So I assume that in some families, some children are / were beaten and others were not?

*I assume from this thread

@Itsnotover

I was an only child. So I assume that in some families, some children are / were beaten and others were not?

Maybe...favouritism was/is often a thing.

From what I’ve seen during my life and from this thread is that those who are traumatised by having been smacked are mostly those who were beaten rather than just having been tapped on the hand or the butt. (I’m not condoning smacking here btw.)

For example, my DH was smacked as a child, but very rarely, as was my BIL. (Unlike my siblings and me, we were smacked often and hard.) He remained very close to his parents as an adult and we see my MIL regularly (my FIL died in a car accident 17 years ago).

@LizzieW1969

From what I’ve seen during my life and from this thread is that those who are traumatised by having been smacked are mostly those who were beaten rather than just having been tapped on the hand or the butt. (I’m not condoning smacking here btw.)

For example, my DH was smacked as a child, but very rarely, as was my BIL. (Unlike my siblings and me, we were smacked often and hard.) He remained very close to his parents as an adult and we see my MIL regularly (my FIL died in a car accident 17 years ago).

For my part, I don't consider that I was beaten - I was slapped with an open palm. But I was slapped continuously, for the most imperceptible of perceived crimes. I was never hit with an object, or punched. It was still traumatic and it has impacted on my adult self in that I became someone who attempted to dodge risk at any cost, and an enormous people pleaser.

My DSis and I were discussing this thread recently (she's not on MN) and she told me she can clearly remember an incident where our DM chased me through the house to slap me. She was traumatised by it all, too.

@LizzieW1969

From what I’ve seen during my life and from this thread is that those who are traumatised by having been smacked are mostly those who were beaten rather than just having been tapped on the hand or the butt. (I’m not condoning smacking here btw.)

For example, my DH was smacked as a child, but very rarely, as was my BIL. (Unlike my siblings and me, we were smacked often and hard.) He remained very close to his parents as an adult and we see my MIL regularly (my FIL died in a car accident 17 years ago).

I think that is common sense - the more abuse a child is subjected the more it affects them - there is no line though on what is and is not acceptable and what will and will not leave a mark on someone for life and anyone that thinks this way is deluded. Abusive behaviour will never result in a positive outcome.

I’m finding this thread quite challenging, actually. I do suffer from cPTSD as a result of what happened to me during my childhood, as do my siblings. But not because of being smacked, though I was smacked a lot and my DM accepts that she got this wrong, as I said earlier.

What I’m wondering now is whether I would have been traumatised by the smacking if the SA hadn’t happened.

I guess I’ll never know. All I do know is that my DM’s role in smacking us made it impossible for me to tell her anything, as I was scared of her. (She thought she was so approachable as well.)

By contrast, my DH wasn’t scared of his parents at all, despite being smacked occasionally. He would object strongly to being told that his parents were abusive because they smacked him, that’s for sure.

I'd object more strongly to being told it's ok to hit your children. As before, it's just a spectrum of shit. Some incidents fall further to one end of the spectrum than others, but it's always shit and failed parenting.

We've had several people on this thread state that they aren't damaged by it (a low bar for parenting indeed, as someone pointed out), but the more they talk, the clearer it is that they are. The person who knew it was just about a parent failing to control herself in anger and frustration and doesn't do it themselves, yet claimed to deserve it and kept weirdly defending it. The person who insisted that she wasn't laughing about it as a defence, but because being hit until the implement breaks really is just inherently hilarious and implied that being assaulted is character building.

Once you know that at least a fair number of people are traumatised by it, why in the fuck would anyone take the risk?

If someone is not damaged by it, that's wonderful. Of course it's always better if shit parenting didn't come to its worst possible outcome. But it's still shit and disgraceful parenting.

I do want to make clear that I’m in no way saying that it’s right to smack children. Not at all. I was questioning whether parents who used to smack their children historically were necessarily abusive, or at least intentionally so. I would say, the answer is no, not necessarily. A lot of them were just bringing up their children in the only way they knew, the way they themselves had been brought up.

Yes, doubtless some people are more damaged than they realise. And it is sad to hear posters saying that they deserved to be smacked. I had this said to me as a child and I know that that wasn’t the case.

The reason people are defending their parents is no doubt because they have a good relationship with them as adults and they’re grandparents to their DC. It’s not easy to hear that their parents’ actions were abusive, is it?

Yep.

I spent most of my childhood either in a state of fear, anger or resentment- the feelings would alternate at different times. I never knew when or what would trigger my mother to lash out. It was usually something pretty minor and I could walk through the front door and receive a hard slap for some misdemeanour.
I’m also very sad that my father, whom I loved dearly, didn’t do more to protect me. He used to beg me not to upset my mother - as if I intentionally brought her violence upon myself! Only once did he stand up to her. I remember it so clearly. He shouted, ‘Will you leave that child alone!” My mother put her arms across her head almost in self defence and screamed, “Don’t hit me!” I was stunned. My father never hit or raised a hand against her and yet, this woman who thought nothing about dealing out slaps and hitting me with the shillelagh was frightened that someone else might commit violence to her.

Like other posters on here, I grew up to be a people pleaser, married first time to the wrong person far too young just to escape her control.
As I matured there was a definite power shift. I realised how pathetic she was and like all bullies couldn’t handle it when I stood up to her. She told me I was very hard, cruel and that clearly I was ashamed of her and that she hoped my daughter would never treat me as badly as I treated her. Meanwhile, she kept up this pretence to outsiders that we were very close and had a wonderful mother/daughter relationship.

Although she died last year, I would still be curious why she was such a screwed up person. My own adult children suspect there was some sort of mental/physical abuse in her own upbringing.

I definitely do feel traumatised by the level of violence in my childhood although my mum would call it a 'slap' it would often be much more than a slap and involve a slipper or hard soled shoe. Also hair pulling, kicking, pushing into walls/furniture and sometimes even biting in a fit of rage.
My dad only ever smacked me once and it was a measured communicated punishment in which he bent me over his lap and smacked my bare bottom. I was about 9 years old when this happened and it wasn't the pain from the smacking which upset me just that I felt completely exposed and humiliated in that position with him seeing my bottom and private parts

Did anyone's parents ever smack other people's children? When I was a toddler my mum used to look after a friends little boy and I remember, clear as day, her smacking him after he poured his squash into his dinner.

I was smacked a few times as a kid - I remember most of them very vividly - a couple at school and others by my mum. I wasn't a bad child, maybe independent/forthright/slightly gobby. The one that sticks in my mind the most was when I was about 5, but not actually smacking. My mum had been cooking lunch for me, my bro and a couple of our friends - I was massively disappointed to be having spaghetti hoops again and I'd found myself disliking the taste of them (either bored of them or they had changed something in the sauce, I don't know). My brother and his pal we're having the Heinz spaghetti Bolognese from a tin - so I told my mum I didn't want spaghetti hoops, I wanted Bolognese - my mum decided to tip the hot bowl of spaghetti hoops on my head (not scalding thankfully) but to top it all, she didn't/wouldn't allow me to clean the hoops & sauce off me. I had to spend the rest of the day with crusty hair, sticky skin and dirty clothes.
If my mum recounts it, she tells it as if it is the most hilarious thing in the world - I hate it and takes me straight back to that day. I think the aftermath was worse being left dirty - I understand she was angry at the time and probably had red mist, but doing that after was a complete power trip and intentional shaming.
I admit I have smacked my daughter once and it came out in anger - Never again. It doesn't teach anything (don't hit, but I'll hit you 🤔🤔). I give up on the "naughty step" with her too as she would tantrum so ferociously, trying to put her back was just going to end up with her hurting herself or getting me to the point of red mist myself. I generally just leave her where she is safe and can calm down - and then we have chat about it after. I'm much happier doing this and so is my child 😃😃

@DrSbaitso

There is a spectrum of shitness for this, and if you push me I'll have to concede that the "tap" everyone insists they give (does it feel that way to someone a third of your size, with the accompanying fear?) isn't as shit as a hard beating. It's still nothing but a spectrum of shit though. And if your benchmark for your shit parenting is how much of a mark you do or don't leave...

I agree. But different actions leave different traumas- Dh was hit with a cane, which was kept above the door, and very rarely, never ‘in anger’. His relationship with his parents definitely suffered as a result, and he would leave dc with pils as babies, but not as toddlers- But, he never has to fight an instinct to smack as a reaction to a parenting frustration. I on the other hand was not hit hard, and was smacked much more in line with acceptable social norms (rarely hard enough to leave a mark, on my thighs, etc). But it was always a loss of temper by my parents, and I find myself fighting that instinct. It is a really unpleasant legacy from either parent tbh.

@inpixiehollow

I definitely do feel traumatised by the level of violence in my childhood although my mum would call it a 'slap' it would often be much more than a slap and involve a slipper or hard soled shoe. Also hair pulling, kicking, pushing into walls/furniture and sometimes even biting in a fit of rage. My dad only ever smacked me once and it was a measured communicated punishment in which he bent me over his lap and smacked my bare bottom. I was about 9 years old when this happened and it wasn't the pain from the smacking which upset me just that I felt completely exposed and humiliated in that position with him seeing my bottom and private parts

Planning your act of inflicting pain and humiliation upon your child isn't measured or communicative, it's just completely sadistic and fucked up. As is any parent who does it, or any of the things your mother subjected you to.

How can anyone not think it's fucked up?

A lot of these posts are really upsetting to read

Yes, I think it affected me. My Dad used to chase me up the stairs to smack me- most of the time he didn't actually smack me, sometimes he did. I mentioned it a while ago to my (kind, caring) Mum who said 'Oh you remember that?'... urm, yes!

@TertiusLydgate

Plus, ‘did me no harm’ is such a low bar for parenting. I don’t want my kids to say my parenting didn’t harm them, I want them to say my parenting elevated them, taught them, shaped them. Just the absence of trauma and harm is a low point to aim for.

This.

Perfectly put.

Good point!

@DrSbaitso

There is a spectrum of shitness for this, and if you push me I'll have to concede that the "tap" everyone insists they give (does it feel that way to someone a third of your size, with the accompanying fear?) isn't as shit as a hard beating. It's still nothing but a spectrum of shit though. And if your benchmark for your shit parenting is how much of a mark you do or don't leave...

Yes, this.

Also when you're little, your parents are your world; the people you look up to and who you think can do anything. One small smack from someone that you love and admire and who is responsible for your sense of self and self-esteem can have a huge impact.

Parents need to teach emotional regulation and smacking is the opposite of that.