To think smacking was 'acceptable' in the 90s?

[Grapeflavour]

My parents smacked me as a child, usually if I did something they deemed as 'very naughty' or sometimes if I just didn't stop doing something quite trivial, they would threaten me with smacking.

I just assumed this was normal (albeit bad) attitudes back then, but talking to a couple of friends around the same age (30s) recently, it seems like that's not the case? They seemed pretty horrified that my dad used to occasionally hit me well into my teens if I pissed him off. As a teen he would often square up to me and threaten to 'knock me out' if I challenged him or talked back. I was 16 the last time he hit me. (I know this behaviour is totally unacceptable, and bearing in mind he is a huge 6"2 man and I was a 5"5 teenage girl). I think this has had an impact on me and trying to work through it.

Would you say it was fairly typical and normalised for parents to smack kids as punishment in the 90s? Or not at all?

I was regularly threatened with a smack (born late 70s) but they rarely -but definitely did sometimes -follow though with it but I don’t remember it particularly hurting. I can just remember ‘the cane’ and ‘the slipper’ being phased out at school in my early primary years and do remember my older sibling being subjected to the slipper at school in the 80s. By the early 90s I remember smacking being much more unacceptable than it had a few years earlier. Now it would sound very unacceptable even to hear a parent threaten a smack. So weird to think it was normal at one point.

I was smacked in the 70s. Seem to remember it was pretty standard in the 80s too. If anyone is struggling so smack their kids, you can hire me for a small fee. I will beat them for you. Calm down, i jest. I don’t like to see kids being hit. There is a difference between a tap on the backside to actually being squared up to as well.

Born in 82 and remember smacked bottoms, slapped legs etc. Usually the threat was enough and when we were out in public my mum would yank me by the arm and hiss 'wait till you get home ' if we'd been naughty as she never show herself up by hitting us in public. I was a bloody good kid too!

DH is a similar age and was hit with a slipper by the nuns at school and had his mouth washed out with soap etc.

My mum became a childminder in the early 90's and I remember the poster and stickers they sent 'we're backing no smacking' as this must have been an issue before. My mum still had parents saying it was ok to smack their child if they were naughty. She never did and told them it wasn't allowed so the tides were certainly changing by then.

Not normal for any of my friends and I, raised in the 80s/90s.
My dad is also a big strapping 6 footer and a pretty tough rugby player from the valleys at that. He taught my siblings and I that girls and women are to be respected and never hit or roughed around, even in jest.

He wouldn't never in a million years even come close to touching any of us (girls and boys). He doesn't even really swear in front of us except the odd 'bloody' or 'bugger' -and he's definitely no prude bless him.

I was lucky to be brought up to recognise my own worth and have always had happy, loving, respectful relationships - I feel very fortunate reading some of these posts.

I was born in 1990, my cousin in 1991. She lived with her mum (my aunt) and our grandparents.

I remember being on 'holiday' in her house and we had both done something very naughty and dangerous. We were 8 and 9.

I very clearly remember my mum and aunt having a blazing row over whether we should be smacked or not so I think it was probably a lot more of a 50/50 split than it is now.

Fwiw, my cousin was regularly slapped /smaked and I never was. I also happen to have a very close and strong relationship with my mum with a great deal of mutual respect.

My cousin doesn't speak to her mum nor does she allow her access to her two dc.

I personally think that speaks volumes anecdotal though it is.

The 90s was a bit of a wierd transition. I was raised in 70/80s and it was perfectly acceptable but going into the 90s it started to become more frowned upon.

Our father used to wind himself up into a fury, burst into the bedroom and whip us with TV co-ax flex. He would be out of control with fury at something or other we had done. Once I had to pretend to my primary school teacher the scar on my face was caused by "falling into a hedge".
Apart from life-long relationship difficulties and alcoholism it probaby had no lasting effect.

80s child, mum used threat of Dad coming home to smack us if we did something wrong. I would be so scared and it hurt like hell but back then it was deemed okay and I have to say it did stop me doing it again.

However as we got older e.g. teens my dad found out my sister had been to a pub (absolute no go) and went too far smacking her I actually was in tears and went into the room shouting at him to stop. It was too much.

Actually come to think of it once I knew I was going to be smacked and I had enough I threw my clothes in bin bags out the window and tried to run away to my friends house but got lost.

So as I write this all out now I actually think it wasn't a good thing at all.

Yes that was normal in our household.
I am also working through some memories and know it was more than just ‘a smack’, I had split lips, a black eye, pulled hair & many bruises.

The worst was the anxiety of it going to happen. I’m not sure what I think about it tbh.

My dm defo smacked me at least twice in the 90s possibly even early 00s.

I was born in the late 80s and was smacked a couple of times (I can remember) for being a little shit! Absolutely no lasting damage and I'm very close with my parents as an adult. Most of my friends were smacked occasionally too. As many others have said, a smack on the back of the legs as a 7 year old is very different to an adult man squaring up to a teenager girl. Honestly I think there were less mental health problems in primary children with loads of time outside, no social media and the odd whack (not condoning actual abusive behaviour) of my childhood, versus now the poor kids stuck inside on screens with no resilience and not enough exercise.

I was born in the late 80s and was smacked fairly often.

My sister, born 1994, wasn't, and when I talked to my parents about it they mentioned a change in attitudes and realising there were other ways to do things. I know one example isn't proof of anything, but I do thinkbthe 90s were something of a transitional decade.

It was normal amongst my friends at primary school in the 80s to get a smacked bum. In the 90s at secondary school I had one friend who's dad was similar to yours. Threatening her, hitting her for minor infractions. I don't think any of the rest of us were hit in secondary school. Several of us spoke to our parents and she had open offers to stay whenever she needed. It wasn't normal.

My mil hit my husband well into his twenties (he left home at 19). She stopped when I physically stopped her.

As many others have said, a smack on the back of the legs as a 7 year old is very different to an adult man squaring up to a teenager girl.

Yes, and it makes no sense. Bashing a young teenage girl around is shit. Bashing up a small child is...better?

Honestly I think there were less mental health problems in primary children with loads of time outside, no social media and the odd whack (not condoning actual abusive behaviour) of my childhood, versus now the poor kids stuck inside on screens with no resilience and not enough exercise.

Yes, whack kids to improve their mental health! Although perhaps not their ability to reason...

Smacking or hitting anyone is absolutely abhorrent.

It isn’t acceptable on any level or to any human being. It is a form of domestic violence!!

Is it acceptable to hit your partner? NO!! It is NEVER acceptable to hit a child.

This truly breaks my heart 💔

I was born in '87 and certainly do remember being smacked a few times in the early 90s, and also knowing that other kids' parents did this too. I would say it was the 'big guns' and wasn't done frequently at all, but it wouldn't have been unacceptable and I definitely heard parents threatening it in public.

Hitting you into your teens would have been a totally different matter, though.

^ and just to clarify, I don't think it's acceptable. I don't think smacking achieves much good. But it was, in my world, normal.

No, I don't know anyone who smacked their kids, then or now. I've never smacked mine and I was never smacked as a child. It's absolutely horrible to think some people think it's ok.

@luckylavender

Not at all. DS was born in 1996 and it was definitely unacceptable.

I was born in 1995 and got a smacked bum a few times under the age of 10. As did my friends.

It's a spectrum of shite. A smack on the legs isn’t as appalling as a black eye but that's not exactly high praise, is it?

Or that old chestnut about "never did me any harm". First of all, if you're justifying hitting kids then yes it did and secondly...that's your parenting bar? You managed not to actively harm your children?

OP your experience sounds very similar to mine. I think the smacking bit, as a primary aged child, was relatively commonplace but I think the later physical threats and violence was less so. I definitely had hard slaps on the face as a teen and my dad pushed me to the ground a couple of times. Whenever I’ve mentioned this to other people they’ve found it surprising and very wrong.

Ok I’m fed up with this idea that children were battered stupid back in the dim and distant past - this subject comes up regularly on here.

I am a child of the 50s. My parents never laid a hand on either me or my siblings. I had children in the 70s and 80s, and they grew up through the 90s. I never laid a finger on them. They were disciplined with love and guidance.

I think some people just see the past the way they think it was, and not as it really was.

Yeah I was born in 1982, my parents in the 50s and I know mum at least was never hit, and as I said in an earlier post I was slapped once in memory. Not normal and the threatening to 'knock you out' is awful.

Not in the 90s no. I had DC in the 90s and it was definitely not OK. It’s not that long ago!

Brothers and ai chdren in 70s and 80s. Brothers got smacked for setting the shed alight and bedroom carpet alight. Both deserved it and both old enough to know how wrong and dangerous it was. I got smacked for swearing and learned not to swear out loud. We are all level headed adults and not in any way abused.

I don't think it was acceptable but it was fairly commonplace. My house and family sound a lot like your's OP. And the people that I knew well enough to know what was going on in their house, they had similar experiences. I'm not sure if there was a class or regional element to it.