To still be angry about being smacked as a kid?

[purpledaze24]

I was born in 1985 and like many 80s/90s kids was smacked now and again by my mum. But it's not until becoming a mother myself and my daughter now approaching the age that I was when I remember a particularly traumatic smacking incident that I have become to feel angry and resentful about why my mother did this. Looking at my little girl, even in her "naughtiest" moments I can't ever imagine hitting her and it makes me struggle to get my head round how my mum could (for the most part - although a selfish person, a loving mother) have hit me like she did and for the reasons behind it.

The traumatic incident I feel resentful about (the rest of the time, while I obviously don't agree with smacking full stop, I'm totally over) it's just this one incident that really gets me. I remember it in a weird amount of detail. I was 4, I'd just started reception and looking back I probably had selective mutism. I was fine with other kids but was unable to speak to other adults other than my parents or very close relatives I saw regularly. I wasn't even able to ask my teacher to go to the toilet so I ended up wetting myself a lot (which I was also shouted at or ignored for). I was terrified of school and extremely clingy with my mum and often pretended to have stomach aches so she'd keep me off. So this one particular day I was off school and she had to go to my old nursery for some reason. We drove there and I remember her saying you can either come inside or stay in the car but if you come inside you have to promise to answer your ex-nursery teacher's questions. Being a 4-year-old all I understood was that I'd get to see my little brother and old friends and play in the sandpit so of course I said I promise. As we were leaving I remember my old teacher saying "how's big school going?" and me hiding behind my mum's skirt being unable to make eye-contact with her or answer her question. It's just the way I was, I'm sure she was a very nice woman but I was terrified of all adults. So my mum's response was to put me back in the car and ignore me all the way home. I remember asking over and over on the way home, "are you ignoring me cos I'm ill or you're angry with me?" and she wouldn't speak to me till she got me home and upstairs and pulled my pants down and hit me on the bum extremely hard, over and over and over. It was vicious and violent and I still remember the pain and it seemingly going on forever and how crazed she seemed. It wasn't a spur of the moment loss of control (which I'd understand more) cos she had a 15 min or so drive back where she was calm. So it was calculated. I just don't understand how she could punish me so viciously for being shy (or possibly having a disorder, which she refused to consider and told my teacher to get lost when she suggested I see a child psychologist). I grew out of it eventually but have never let go of that feeling of resentment and as I said it's resurfaced now my DD is nearly 4. Consequently I never expect my DD to talk to anyone if she doesn't feel comfortable, not matter how rude it comes across. I believe it's a skill we learn at our own varying paces.

To give context, my mum was a pretty well-adjusted person, didn't use drugs, didn't use alcohol excessively, she was, at the time married to may dad, middle-class, fairly comfortable life and she herself had a good upbringing (although was also smacked). She was also very loving most if the time. I did casually mention this incident a few years ago and she laughed it off and said "I'd never have done that". So at the time I just left it. Should I try bringing this up with her again? (this is by far not the only example of her bad parenting but the rest happened much later - in my teen years) it may sound ridiculous and I don't have an explanation why, but to this day I still think about it regularly (since triggered by my own DD) and it's affecting our relationship (amongst other things). Should I try talking to her about it again or is it pointless? Or I am making a big deal about it? Was stuff like this fairly standard in the 80s?

I think we have to be careful if language, to me hitting and smacking are very different.

I was a 60's child, so discipline was the norm. Expectations were higher than they are now, for better or worse, and that included being smacked for various misdemeanors. It hasn't affected me at all, because it was normal. You even expected other adults, Mums of your friends, to smack if you were naughty, or bullied others, or put them in danger. It was a tacit agreement with the group, takes a village to raise a child etc.

I do remember some occasions very vividly, but those are the ones which were unfair, or misused.

My DM also used to pinch a lot. On the back of the arms! Don't know why, weird.

Why don't you wait until your mum does something you don't like and give her a smack? Then when she complains, just say you're returning the favour from when you were a kid?

I was smacked as a child. Now I have children I can't imagine smacking them. I extracted an apology from my dad many years later (we were both drunk. I don't think I'd have been able to demand an apology if I hadn't been drunk and I don't think he would have apologised if he wasn't). It was enough for me to move on. His violence - it is violence - followed a loss of temper, it was never calculated. I totally understand why you feel the way you do. Your mother was so wrong to do that to you.

It makes me laugh when I see a kid shouting back at a parent at full volume and the parent looks surprised. If you hit your kid then don't be surprised if a sex foot teenager comes back for revenge

OP I was so similar, also didn’t speak until about 11 and wet myself in school when I was 7 because I didn’t know where the toilet in the cafeteria was.

I had violent parents, not just smacking but hitting. Agree that I would never have put my own kids through that.

Thank you all for so many positive and validating responses- sorry, took me a while to read through them all!

As some posters pointed out (which I should’ve made clearer in the title) it wasn’t so much the smacking that has resurfaced this as a trauma for me (I was smacked on many other occasions as well for things I feel were justified in my child brain, like hitting my brother etc) but those I barely remember and have rarely thought about since. It was the injustice of not being understood as a child who couldn’t speak and not receiving any understanding for that and being punished so harshly and in such a humiliating way for it. It just fills me with rage. I just don’t understand why my mum didn’t ever ask me why I felt unable to speak to adults (I mean, maybe she did but I really only remember punishment around it).

I think it’s a bit lazy when people say 80/90s parents were smacked as kids so they didn’t know any different. They were full grown adults. We, as 80s/90s kids were smacked but we know different now as full grown adults. Fair enough there was no internet & much access to varying points of view back then but attitudes were changing towards the 90s, and not just that but the individual relationship you have with your child without any external influence. I can’t say for sure obvs but I think if I had my DD in the 60s and she was who she is and I am who I am, no matter how many parenting manuals I read that advocated smacking, it just isn’t in me to do it. Don’t get me wrong, she pushes me to points where I have to leave the room and scream into a pillow sometimes cos I’m so angry with her! I’ve even lost my shit and really shouted on occasion (which I know is still not ok) but no matter how angry I am it just never enters my head to hit her (even though she’s hit me on multiple occasions!)

Regarding talking to my mum about it, I think most of you are right - that I wouldn’t gain much and it may make me feel worse but I feel that I still want to do it no matter the outcome. Our relationship is so tense and strained now I almost can’t bear to be around her (I hold lots of other resentment for things she did later on - having an affair with our next door neighbour & having sex with him right where my brother and I used to play - although we never actually caught them I know they did it), compulsively lying to me, abandoning me for a year when I was 12 etc etc) she’s a selfish person and makes everything about her. BUT she has always been very loving and affectionate towards me, never criticised me for anything or my life choices but was also rubbish at setting boundaries. So yeah there’s a lot of other stuff that went on later down the line but she has no idea how I feel about her cos I always put on the good daughter act. She even suggested we go on holiday together. I can barely spend a day with her without my rage almost boiling over. So I either grin and bear it (and keep postponing the holiday!) or have an honest conversation? If she chooses to be defensive (which she will) or I can’t get through to her then I guess that’s that but maybe that’s for the best. I really don’t know

Oh OP, I'm so sorry that this happened to you and that it is upsetting you now.

I read the first few replies and it made me so sad to see people suggesting it's fairly normal to have been smacked. I understand that it wasn't uncommon for parents to do it back then (I'm a few years younger than you and remember getting smacked). However, I think there has to be a distinction drawn between people being smacked for actual naughty behaviour and where the smack was probably intended to ensure you never did it again (e.g. scenarios where you could have hurt yourself and someone else). I can see the logic in using smacking as a discipline method here, although I still wholeheartedly disagree that it is acceptable.

You were smacked for something that wasn't your fault. I am suspecting your mum acted out of frustration or embarrassment. It is not okay to be violent with someone in these scenarios.

I was smacked as a child, the only time I remember it happening was when my mum smacked both my sister and I because we were arguing. I remember a huge sense of injustice because I actually hadn't done anything wrong (my sister 3, I was 5, and I'm fairly certain she had been doing something naughty that I'd told her not to do). It was lazy parenting on my mums part. Although not a smack, I also remember (aged 13 and 11) being told that we "deserved to be shot" because we hadn't offered a lift to a friend who we normally got the bus home with. The friend was absolutely fine getting the bus on her own (regularly did so on her own) after sports practice, and the reason we hadn't offered her a lift is because it wasn't our parents picking us up but a family friend. My mum was an absolute stickler for manners and I had thought it would have been rude to ask someone who was already doing us a favour to add in an extra person. I remember feeling horrified that my mum had said this and crying for hours in bed that night

I wanted to share these with you (and anyone else who feels similar) so that you know it's not just you that feels this way about violent actions and words. Yes it maybe wasn't uncommon, but that doesn't make it okay.

I expect this isn't the only way in which your mum let you down when you were younger. I think perhaps some therapy to help you then hold a proper conversation with her might help (its something I'm trying to work up the courage to do).

I'm sure you are a fantastic mum to your daughter, please be just as kind to your inner child too and get her the help she needs - you shouldn't have to suffer 💗

@SunsetsAndSandwiches thank you for your lovely and affirming message. And I’m so sorry your parents told you that you “deserved to be shot”! Seriously what was wrong with 90s parents?! I know that with every interaction with my DD I try my best to remember what the world felt like at 4 years old and talk/discipline her in a way that doesn’t terrify a child that young. I think too many parents back in the day (maybe some now) try to discipline through their lens of decades of life experience and desensitivity to awful things that have become normalised through years and years of being in the world!

I was smacked. But not repeatedly like that. And not at 4. It does seem excessive. BUT she was probably smacked like that too. If she was generally loving. She may have got angry and stressed and triggered herself. It is not ok. She is unlikely to remember or want to. As it's awful.
I would try to remember the good parts. And never repeat that with your daughter. Forgive your mum. Share it elsewhere. Enjoy your beautiful child.

My sister and I were smacked in the 80s, not often but the punishment was severe with real anger.
On the other hand, DP was attacked, and repeatedly slippered, from being a young boy. Pants pulled down and smacked, made to stand in a corner for long periods, thrown across rooms, berated and screamed at. His mother attacked him with a slipper beating him round the face with it. His dad was very aggressive and at times violent. All under the umbrella of it's for your own good.
Eventually, as a teen, he stood up to both parents physically.

I don't understand any justification for abuse, these are children, discipline is showing them how to be socialised not brutality in their homes it's disgusting.

YAnBU.

I wouldn’t bother bringing it up with your mother though, she sounds incredibly emotionally immature. I would think about getting therapy. These things don’t happen in a vacuum and are usually a symbol of other kinds of awful treatment. Seeing the bigger picture can help.

I have a very similar incident from my own childhood and it has had a huge affect on my life. I understand how an incident, which some people can think of as small, can actually be really damaging.

Sone of my own issues, from my almost identical experience, manifested like this:

Lack of trust in the world - your mother is the first person in the world you trust. By hurting you in such a deliberate, degrading and violent way she has broken that trust. I had huge trust issues.

Self disgust - from being in such a vulnerable and degraded position. I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I had done for someone to express THAT much hatred and violence towards me. I later realised that this pondering was fruitless. It wasn’t me that was the problem. The shame wasn’t mine to own, it was my mother’s shame.

Sexual abuse - this one is going to be controversial. I firmly believe that if you are exposing and hurting a child in a private place, against their will, this is sexual abuse. Smacking a kid on the bum, especially a bare bum is 100 percent sexual abuse. To me, it doesn’t matter if the intention of the abuser was sexual, the effect on the victim is exactly the same! The shame, the lack of trust, the feeling of powerless, the lack of bodily autonomy, the sense of VIOLATION. I know that after what happened to me, I never, ever hugged my mother again - the thought of her touch made my skin crawl and made me nauseous.

Don’t downplay what happened to you. Focus on processing it. Get help.

Gosh, there is a lot of gaslighting, invalidation and minimising in this post 🤯