To ask how those of us who were smacked

[ButThisIsMyHappyFace]

Feel about it now?

Apologies if this is a stupid or triggering question but I’m re-evaluating a number of things from my childhood, trying to figure out why my relationship with my DM is so difficult. One of those things is smacking. She smacked me repeatedly, in anger. I never understood what I had done that was so wrong. She has never apologised, although I know she thinks it’s wrong to smack children nowadays. I know that very many kids born in the 80s and earlier were smacked - it was normal. I’m not asking if it’s wrong to smack. I know it is wrong and I will never smack my DC. My question is: those of us on here who were smacked as kids - how do you feel about it now? Do you feel it was abusive? Or is that not really a helpful way of looking at it anyway?

I got smacked by my dad a lot, once for screaming in fear of a spider! The scariest was my mum who would hit me over the knuckles with a wooden spoon when I was naughty. Thing is she is distraught now at the memory and now she had grandkids can’t believe she did it, I would never ever use physical punishment for my kids.

The smacking was a non-issue for me. It's the things they said that have stayed with me.

I was born in 1971 and was smacked by both parents. I don’t give it a second thought now. I knew they loved me. My relationship with my late dad was difficult, he favoured my sister She says it’s because I was a mouthy nightmare child and she wasn’t 🤷‍♀️. She’s possibly right. We did get a lot closer after he was diagnosed with cancer. I was the one called on for stupid o’clock A&E trips and to help out when he’d had a diabetic hypo and fallen out of bed. I’m much calmer and more practical than my sister.
My mum and I are really, really close and if I’m ever off work she’s the one I choose to spend the time with.

Pretty much this.
I always knew why and had fair warning - it was the magic count to 3.
I had until 3 to apologise, if not I was smacked (usually with a wooden spoon! Yes it hurt! Funnily enough I was speaking to mum and dad about this recently and apparently the thinking behind it was so that I didn’t associate them with the smack but the spoon 🤯 I have no fear of either parents or wooden spoons!)

I grew up in eighties and my best friends parents never hit her, she could not believe what happened to us.
I know several people my age who were not hit so it doesn’t follow that it was just the norm of its time.

My mom was not hit as a child and it blows my mind that she went on to approve of this sort of punishment.

I was hit, in temper. 'Smack' makes it sound like a tap across the legs, but I was hit and lived in fear.
It shaped my whole personality I think. I learned to lie, hide things, cover things up - innocent things, but anything that might trigger her disappointment, I would do anything to keep it private.
I am a people pleaser. I seethe in silence because even in my sixties, I have an overwhelming fear of not being thought of as perfect (even though I know, intellectually, that this is ridiculous).

Smacking, hitting, abusing, whatever words you have for it, is wrong.

Hugely traumatic. If j feel I've done something wrong now I have the same physical response in my body as if I am about to be smacked.

Done a bit of counselling work on it. I probably need EMDR but not ready.

I think people responses are often build around how unpredictable the rest of the relationship was. If there was smacking was there a "repair" after. See rupture repair cycle.

I find it unthinkable that people think it's ok to hit children when they wouldn't dream of hitting a colleage.

A book I read (from the 80s) arguing against smacking notes that English has developed a remarkable vocabulary to cover hitting children: smacking, slapping, spanking, cuffing, clipping, clouting, walloping, slippering, six of the best, and many more; which speaks volumes about how deeply ingrained smacking children used to be in our culture. This book also notes that even then, many parents regarded it not just as a right, but their duty to hit their children.

I have a great relationship with my parents, but I think they got it very wrong on smacking. They used it to reinforce telling off, as presumably their parents did, and I feel very strongly indeed about a handful of times I was smacked, when it was for something I didn’t yet know was wrong. One example was a man in the street suddenly stopped walking, and I bumped into him. My mum carefully explained that he was blind, then smacked me. To this day I feel seething anger about that, and other such incidents. I was old enough to understand the explanation, and it ruined the day. I felt terrified of getting things wrong, in case I’d be smacked. This fear followed me into adulthood; I didn’t ask for help when I needed it, and I lied and covered things up when I made mistakes. This gave me problems as a young adult.

Another time, I lightly hit my brother when we disagreed about something; and I was interrogated, and very soundly smacked. I felt full of revenge for several days, and I almost wish I had had the teenage audacity to sulk in silence for the whole day to show how upset I really was (I was 9 at the time). But the question is: where did I get the idea of hitting being the result of a disagreement? Who taught me that? Even my dad admitted at the time that he had gone too far.

I don’t have children, but I sometimes imagine telling my parents sternly that they must not even think of smacking my children, or even joking about it, as they might have done.

@ButThisIsMyHappyFace i was smacked occasionally as a child by both parents, although mainly my mother. I don’t remember specific incidents but I know that it made me behave through fear. I don’t think that’s a healthy way for a child to be raised. I remember the last time my mother tried to smack me, I was about 10 years old, she went to and I swerved out the way and said ‘don’t you ever try to do that to me again!’. No idea where I got the confidence to do that but she never did try to again.

I was a well behaved child (a bit precocious) and I can’t think smacking was ever warranted, more just my parents feeling frustrated and not knowing what else to do. I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, we are not close and my siblings and I have all grown up to have varying levels of anxiety. I have a surface level relationship with them and I’ve had enough therapy to know they did the best they could with the tools they had. I can also acknowledge that to be true and know it wasn’t good enough. I know we’ll never be close and I’ve had to accept that.

Edit to add: my DH is the same age as me and his parents never smacked him or his siblings.

It still makes me think worse of my parents. In the case of my mother, I knew very well from a young age that it had little or nothing to do with what I might have done, it was simply her taking her temper out on me: it felt unfair, and it was unfair. At the time I really resented it, I now realise it was basically an admission of weakness by my mother.

My father didn't smack much, mostly because he just wasn't around that much. But he used to get drafted in by my mother if she felt we needed greater punishments. I remember him doing it to me once when I had no idea that there was anything wrong with what I had done - so, so far as I was concerned, he suddenly set on me and attacked me. I despise him more for that, because he didn't apply his own judgment. I also remember him doing it to my brother, which was utterly humiliating for my poor brother and left me feeling really awful for him.

When it came to dealing with my own children, there was the odd occasion when I felt so frustrated that in a way it felt like smacking them might be a relief. However, I'm happy to say that memories of my parents held me back and I do think my relationship with children is better as a result.

I was smacked on the bottom, hands and around the head. My dad kicked me a few times too.

i grew up believing snacking was normal, when I had my dc I never lost my temper with them but I did occasionally give them a tap on the hand or bum when they really pushed boundaries.

I don’t agree with it now though. Or with shouting/ threatening/intimidating children.

I am so sorry that happened to you too.

The shouting with every word or syllable punctuated by a slap is also something I remember.

I remember my grandad smacked me once. I had done something I shouldnt have, and he did it with love. I remember him saying that he didnt want to do it but I needed to be shown how wrong it was. It didnt hurt physically, I dont think he wanted to hurt me, it was more symbolic of a line crossed. It hurt emotionally because I was so upset that I had behaved badly to that point, and to a man I adored and who I know adored me. Never ever felt badly towards him as it was done from a place of love (and he was born in 1920 so totally normal to do that in his world). It was a world away from the beating I would have got at home. And interestingly, he never told my parents what I had done as he knew what would have happened to me if he had.

My mother hit, smacked, whacked me from toddler hood to teenage hood. I never respected her because of it. Sometimes I didn't even know why I was being hit. The most upsetting ones were when she'd do it in front of aunts, uncles or cousins, where i still hold shame. She's always claimed she's loved me so much, a very kind affectionate woman.

That doesn't make a difference though to me. Our relationship is completely ruined from the hitting. I will never do that to my children no matter what they do.

Those that I know who say they've turned out just fine are the ones who need therapy the most e.g anger/ anxiety/ low key addiction issues.

I was smacked - a fair amount by my mother and 4 times by my dad - I remember those because it was so out of character for him and I’d been really naughty (for me - I wasn’t a particularly naughty kid) each time.

I don’t smack my children and don’t agree with it but equally I can’t say it impacted me negatively and I have a very close relationship with my parents. I was very obviously loved as well and it was just the way at the time to discipline - I don’t hold it against them.

I'm reading of terrible abuse on this thread. It's beyond shocking. I'm so sorry for everyone who has suffered like that. And I'm also saddened by those whose parents used verbal abuse. I think verbal abuse leaves unseen scars - definitely IMO worse than a rare small smack on a clothed bottom.

My father smacked me once lightly and not in anger - I think he figured after that it didn’t really feel productive. I was still upset about it but I would never call it abusive - I just think he was confused and he thought that was what he was supposed to do in those circumstances.

I distinctly remember being about 7 and being sent to get my mum's belt so she could hit me with it and saying to myself, "Do not cry. Do not cry". She used to get so pissed off that I wouldn't cry. My siblings would wail and I'd be sat there with a mardy face. She hated it.

I just want to pint out that what many people on here are deacribing as "smacking" was actually a beating and child abuse.
I am sorry you wwnt rhrought this. You weren't smacked. You were beaten.

I was never smacked myself but I heard 2 children friends being smacked by their parents (different households) and I remember to a child’s eyes it seeming absolutely brutal.

The first was a mum I really admired as she was a “cool mum” who let my friend eat junk food and stay up late whereas my parents were very strict (although never violent). I heard her totally lose it with my friend over something silly like her wanting to wear a different outfit. There was screaming, crying and slapping in the next room and I remember being utterly amazed at how this laid-back woman had transformed into a raging monster (to my eyes) over a trivial incident. The mum obviously had no ability to emotionally regulate as I think she was very embarrassed afterwards that I’d been there.

The other incident was worse. I was at the house of a new school friend. She had an annoying little brother who, that day, was repeatingly trying to join in with what we were doing and threatening to “tell” on us if we didn’t let him. My friend started to get nervous that her dad would “batter her” for not letting her brother join in. I didn’t really appreciate the situation as the brother was 5 years younger and I couldn’t understand why the parents weren’t looking after him (they were in the house). Anyway, the brother got frustrated and told on us to the dad who did proceed to batter my friend. It was utterly humiliating for her and I didn’t really ever talk to her again. I guess I felt guilty and I never wanted to be in that house again. I remember really despising her dad as a cowardly bully of a man. And despising her mum too for being with him. He looked so repulsive repeatedly taking out his aggression on a small 8-year old girl.

Both of those incidents made me appreciate my parents. They were strict and consistent (with bed-times, food, homework, pocket money, etc) but I respected them rather than feared them.

I think that the moment you smack a child is the moment as an adult that you lose self control. My parents smacked me regularly as a youngster for really minor misdeeds. I remember being held against a wall and hit. It has had a lasting psychological impact on me and I have vowed never to do the same to my children.

This....Verbal abuse is SO wrong!

@wfhwfh they were not smacked by your describe . They were beaten.
There is about million level difference

I was hit regularly by my mum and it was certainly abuse.

Sometimes it was as punishment for misbehaving but not always. I remember once it was because I had written that I hated her in my diary. I was 14 and she hit me until I couldn't walk.

She was abused by her own mother and after beatings she would tell me that what she had done to me wasn't as bad as what her mother had done to her, as if this was somehow justifying her behaviour.

I am NC with my mother now and don't think there is any reason to hit child ever.

Basically the same answer.
Teachers were also allowed to smack us and it didn’t affect me. At least I had the privilege of learning in a quiet disciplined environment.

I totally agree with you, and used the word "beaten" myself.

The problem most of us who suffered that have is that if you ask our parents if they beat us they would say no, they smacked us.

That they totally lost control and hit us over and over, but crucially with an open hand, to them meant that they smacked us. I know it does to my mother. She once said, when I said that she beat me as a child, that I was a liar. She never punched me, how could I say she beat me......

But it was legal wouldnt not have raised an eyebrow so it was easy for abusers to abuse under the guise of discipline.