Page 9 | To still be upset my dad smacked me as a child

WonderingSally · 2022-04-14T20:42:16+00:00

I've always wondered how normal my childhood was. I was born in 1988, and can remember often being smacked as a child. Thinking about it I was a good kid, I got straight As, never got in trouble, head girl at school etc. But probably at least every 2/3 weeks I ended up with a smack for often stupid reasons - I don't remember most, but one that sticks out was drying my hair for too long, that kind of level of naughtiness. Always for things I'd done wrong around the house. AIBU to think this wasn't normal even in the 90s? Or did smacking just happen in those days? I've always wondered what happened in other households but too scared to ask incase I find out my dad is definitely a dick

IncompleteSenten · 15/04/2022 21:26

I got hit by my mum depending on her mood
Something she'd ignore on Monday, laugh at on Tuesday would get me a slap across the face on Wednesday.
I'd also get hit because I could have done something.

Trinacham · 15/04/2022 21:26

I wouldn't say I got smacked a lot but I do remember my dad smacking me (90s too). I remember not being able to sleep as a toddler and going into my parents' bedroom, then he'd smack me. It breaks my heart that I have that memory, especially as my dad is no longer here.

IncompleteSenten · 15/04/2022 21:30

Pressed post accidentally.
Eg I walked across the room and she hit me because her glasses were on the floor and I could have stepped on them.

I got hit for being shy in public. "Embarrassing her" was a punishable offence. She favoured bare legs or face.

My dad once hit me several times with his belt for lying. Just stupid little kid tall tales about trivia.

He had the actual nerve to complain that I used to flinch every time he made a sudden movement. Well into adulthood. I still flinched as an adult. Nobody can ever make me believe hitting your children causes them no harm.

RainySmarties · 15/04/2022 21:32

Born in 1976 (in Germany) and have never been smacked. I can't know for sure but I don't think any of my friends were either. It was completely frowned about and considered highly abusive.

DragonOverTheMoon · 15/04/2022 21:33

@IncompleteSenten I had the flinch thing too. I had to hold my hands out to be hit with a wooden spoon over them. If I flinched I'd be hit again.

IncompleteSenten · 15/04/2022 21:34

Forgot to say I was born in the early 1970s

DrSbaitso · 15/04/2022 21:35

He had the actual nerve to complain that I used to flinch every time he made a sudden movement. Well into adulthood. I still flinched as an adult.

Yeah. Mine used to come up behind me and do horrible things like blow down my ear or start stroking the back of my neck while making a weird whistling sound. Then he'd throw a tantrum when I jumped and screamed and made it clear I did not consent. I don't think I'd have liked it much better if he hadn't also liked hitting me, but all of it together meant I just always hated him touching me and I used to flinch and stiffen up if forced to hug him.

Unbelievable the things some parents think they have a right to do to their children's bodies without consent.

IncompleteSenten · 15/04/2022 21:36

[quote DragonOverTheMoon]@IncompleteSenten I had the flinch thing too. I had to hold my hands out to be hit with a wooden spoon over them. If I flinched I'd be hit again.[/quote]
It does leave a lasting mark doesn't it?

I knew very early on that I never wanted my children to fear me like that.

IncompleteSenten · 15/04/2022 21:39

@DrSbaitso

He had the actual nerve to complain that I used to flinch every time he made a sudden movement. Well into adulthood. I still flinched as an adult.

Yeah. Mine used to come up behind me and do horrible things like blow down my ear or start stroking the back of my neck while making a weird whistling sound. Then he'd throw a tantrum when I jumped and screamed and made it clear I did not consent. I don't think I'd have liked it much better if he hadn't also liked hitting me, but all of it together meant I just always hated him touching me and I used to flinch and stiffen up if forced to hug him.

Unbelievable the things some parents think they have a right to do to their children's bodies without consent.

Creepy bastard. I understand. I invented a phobia of beards so I didn't have to hug or kiss him because he used to dart his tongue out.

IncompleteSenten · 15/04/2022 21:39

Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. it's completely irrelevant to the thread. I just really related to your post. Sorry

LizzieW1969 · 15/04/2022 21:42

I think that the posters who are defending their parents who smacked them are doing it because they have close relationships with their parents and hence they don’t want to see them as ‘shit parents’. Understandably so. Trying to convince them otherwise won’t work for that reason.

Was my DM a shit parent? Yes, I can see that she and that’s how she sees herself for not protecting us from being abused by my F. She also accepts that she was wrong to smack us.

What matters now is that she’s now a much better DGM than she was a mother.

It isn’t nice being told by other people that your parents are shit, though, even if in your heart of hearts you know it’s true.

DragonOverTheMoon · 15/04/2022 21:43

Tbh I did shout too much at my dc when they were younger, it was learnt behaviour, but I recognised it early and didn't want to be like my parents and read books and changed it. They weren't scared of me like I was scared of my parents but they most likely did feel on eggshells. I hope it hasn't imprinted on them. I do worry about that.

I think that's what I struggle most with my parents. My mum shouted at me on a number of occasions until I feinted. In the wild that's what trapped animals do to avoid death. That was my nervous system at the end of the scale. How could a parent continue to do that. I know they both had their own issues from their own upbringings. Childhood trauma comes out when you're a parent, but why not do something about it. That's what I can't get over.

daffodilandtulip · 15/04/2022 21:45

My parents smacked a lot. But they took it too far - regularly hitting me over the head, dragging me downstairs by my feet, bending my arm behind my back (and making me lie to the hospital), destroying my things.

Smacking was normal then but this wasn't.

DrSbaitso · 15/04/2022 21:49

@IncompleteSenten

Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. it's completely irrelevant to the thread. I just really related to your post. Sorry

Don't apologise at all. It's just a sign of where so many parents are going regarding consent and other things, once they decide they can hit you.

ginghamstarfish · 15/04/2022 22:41

60s/70s childhood, me and my sisters were smacked on occasion. It was our mum who did it, never dad. Think it was fairly common. I've never given it much thought, it was just something that happened in those days. Sorry it is affecting you OP but hope you can get past it.

ginghamstarfish · 15/04/2022 22:44

Also at grammar school there was corporal punishment, boys were hit on the legs and girls on the hand ( or it might have been the other way round). There was very little misbehaviour.

coopsgran · 15/04/2022 23:15

Born in 1970 so I'm a lot older than you op but I was a 'good kid' very bookish and compliant but I was regularly smacked by my mum to the point I was absolutely terrified of her. She'd get into terrible rages and grab my hair and slap me for the least infraction (not eating mushroom soup when she knew I hated mushroom soup) To this day I don't like anyone touching my face just recently I was speaking to my aunt about how I still feel resentful and angry and she admitted that everyone in our family knew that my mum had a really bad temper and she implied that everyone knew I was bearing the brunt of it but no one stepped in to help. I'm sorry that you're going through this OP 🌸

PissedOffNeighbour22 · 15/04/2022 23:27

I'm a few years older than OP. Despite being a well behaved child, I was regularly smacked/beaten by my mum.
She clearly enjoyed inflicting pain on us (I got it worse than my brother but I was better behaved) and was on some sort of power trip.
She frequently used a horse whip and a slipper.
My dad never laid a finger on us and his parents never smacked him as a kid either. He always thought that her anger would subside when they divorced as it was probably due to their marriage breaking down, but it wasn't - it actually got worse after he moved out.

coopsgran · 15/04/2022 23:27

@Katya213

I was born in the late 70s. I was smacked on a daily basis by my mum, I wasn’t naughty she just used to get stressed with whoever her boyfriend was at the time and launch herself at myself and my sisters. We went to school covered in bruises but not a word said or a question asked.

Oh my god are you my sister. Totally same scenario. We lived in a quiet village and my mum had a load of men coming and going which I told my friends were uncles...mum had a seriously bad temper. I got smacked around one night for interrupting her having noisy sex on the couch. I'd come downstairs to help her because I thought she was being attacked x

AutumnFrost22 · 15/04/2022 23:33

I welled up reading some of these comments and I hope those who experienced abuse as children (& young adults) have found peace later - it's an extremely hard thing to forgive (nor should you have to) and, from reading these, it seems an opportunity taken to have power over a vulnerable person in the worst way.

I came from a loving household that didn't smack (1990), I was an unruly young teen but found my way and have a great relationship with my parents. I strongly believe that we don't 'own' our kids, we teach them what we believe to be right and they learn from their own mistakes (& we allow them the space to make them and grow).

XenoBitch · 15/04/2022 23:33

80's kid here... my dad smacked me too. Not a light tap, but full on throw me into a wall type thing. He was/is an alcoholic, so that may have had a huge bearing on it too.
Always confused me as I was never in trouble in school. I was a quiet and scared child. He just seemingly chose to hit me for no reason.

coopsgran · 15/04/2022 23:50

Reading all these horror stories of child abuse makes me so angry. Yes in the 1970/80 'smacking' was the norm for many of us and our parents were just doing what had been done to them blah blah blah But how many of us have gone on to smack our kids about?? Probably none x

coopsgran · 16/04/2022 00:03

@coopsgran

Reading all these horror stories of child abuse makes me so angry. Yes in the 1970/80 'smacking' was the norm for many of us and our parents were just doing what had been done to them blah blah blah But how many of us have gone on to smack our kids about?? Probably none x

How come we all know not to beat the crap out of a vulnerable small child but our parents didn't??

Radziwill · 16/04/2022 01:12

@DivorcedAndDelighted

When I hear that people were smacked as a child, I assume it was regular, as in every few weeks. I was born in the early 70s and that was normal. By the 1990s I was having my own kids and I'd say smacking was still common but it was changing.

Either way, I doubt that it adds much to your life to focus on this now. I think it's misleading to look at the past through today's lens because we are social animals, and social norms have changed so much.
We might also ask the big questions - are teenagers today any happier or more well - balanced than teens 20 or 30 years ago? Because I'm not sure they are. I look at my children and their peers, and see an epidemic of self-harm manifested in various ways. CAMHS overwhelmed. I'm not seeing clear and obvious evidence that things nowadays are so much better than they were in the 1990s, despite how I thought at the time that my parents were dinosaurs who were doing it all wrong.

I'm sure adult women have just as many MH problems as they did in the days when wife-beating was socially acceptable. That doesn't mean it wasn't damaging.

Ticksallboxes · 16/04/2022 01:52

This is a horrible read! I'm so sorry so many of you have experienced this...

For my own experience, I was born way back in 1964. I think my dad smacked me around the face two times around the time I was between 17-19 years old - just for looking insolenty at him. It didn't make me hate him, they are still together and I have a lot of love and respect for them.

But some of these accounts are horrifying...