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 was smacked as a child. Not loads, I don't think, but I can remember it happening so it obviously made an impact on me.
My mum used to work in education and I remember her being part of an anti-smacking campaign when I was in my 20s and that made me angry. When I spoke to her about it she said my childhood was "a different time" and that's what the discipline advice was back then. But no apology or an admission of being wrong.
I know it wasn't always a measured response and it happened out of frustration or anger.

I don't know how much it has affected me. I have horribly low self esteem but I was also bullied relentlessly by my sister growing up so that might be part of it too.

My main take away is I cannot imagine wanting to smack my own children. I cannot imagine deciding that is a good way to discipline. And that makes me think my parents didn't have enough love for me to stop them doing it. I just cannot get into the head space of someone who thinks, my child has done something I didn't want them to do, now I have to hit them. I have never, ever wanted to hurt my children. And I guess I'm kinda sad that my parents didn't have those same strong feelings of love and protection for me.

My mum was a smacker. I was never smacked as I behaved, due to not wanting a smack. I'd never speak to my mum out of turn, answer back or even lay my hands on her. My daughter on the other hand, has physically assaulted me, occasionally speaks to me like shit and doesn't do anything I ask. She has consequences that never seem to bother her, (sent to room, phone taken away etc) thats probably because she's not in fear of ever having a smack I suppose.

I was smacked too (early 40s). I also used to get smacked on the hand with a ruler by a teacher (primary school aged) if I/or any student wanted to use the toilet.
as you said it’s wrong. I don’t smack my kids. I also have a difficult relationship with my DM and it’s not because of the smacking as there are other issues but it certainly didn’t help.

I suspect some of this boils down to how much violence , and how fair or otherwise it seemed at the time. There seems to be a world of difference between the occasional smack and being repeated and regularly hit in anger and with string firce in how it affects people in later life

however even without smacking it’s quite possible you would have had a bad upbringing and relationship - that may have been a symptom not the cause

Same here in all honesty. There were lots of things my parents did or didn’t do that wouldn’t happen now. No seatbelts in cars, smoking around children, open coal fires, No parties at the latest soft play, no holidays abroad, we even had no indoor bathroom until I was 7!
But I knew my parents loved me, until the day they died.

If it didn’t harm you, why do you say you wouldn’t/didn’t smack your DC? Not singling you out, but several posters say “didn’t harm me but I’d never do it”, which seems a bit inconsistent.

I was smacked as a child. I can't say for sure, but I think it stopped when I was about 7/8 when a neighbour found me as I was marching off to the police station to show them the handprint on my leg.

I asked my mother, who was a health visitor in the 80s onwards, if she thought smacking children was wrong. She thought about it and said that mostly smacking was about the adults losing control, not about what a child needed.

@sherbertyellowteddy is it possible you, like me, became an expert people pleaser, learnt how to read situations well and therefore developed a more empathetic nature.

Then, when you parent, your own child can take advantage of that nature without you even realising how it happened. ( Dependant on child's temperament also).

I wasn't 'smacked' as a child and a teenager, I was hit including in the face and for no reason other than the adult that was supposed to care for me could not manage their emotions/anger.

A big part of why I had very little contact with them as an adult.

I'm in my 60s so I think most children were smacked then. My mum would slap my bottom if I was naughty but it didn't happen very often. A look and the threat of a telling off was enough. Dad never ever smacked us, he was very laid back and tended to joke about things. Grandparents didn't smack us either.
So I can say it didn't do me harm.
However, nearby there was a family with 3 children, 2 girls and 1 boy and the boy was actually beaten with a strap, slipper, etc, by his dad and grandad. When he grew up he went off the rails and ended up in prison. The family were farmers and they treated their animals better than their son. Hitting certainly did him some harm.

I have never thought of it as abuse, for me.

I always knew what I'd done wrong. We would be warned and told what to do instead. If we carried on, we got a smack. It taught us to listen and stop pushing boundaries.

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It does not bother me though I understand other's experiences will differ greatly.

It was abuse then, it's abuse now. I was smacked in the 00s.

I will never, ever do it. I can't teach my daughter that her body is her own and to speak up if anyone does anything without her consent to her body, and then tell her that if she does something I'm unhappy with I can hurt her body and she can't do anything about it.

This.

Born in 1974 and I was smacked by both of my parents just with the palm of their hands. Hard enough to leave a hand mark so must have hurt them too. I knew they loved me and I was materially well cared for but they didn’t show much patience or sympathy over anything. They both had strict upbringings and didn’t know any other way.

When they smacked me I felt furious and it always felt unfair. If it was so effective ad a punishment they wouldn’t have had to do it so often. It didn’t do me much harm but it certainly didn’t do me any good. I learnt to be a good liar and got up to all sorts as a teenager.

I’ve had a good relationship with them as an adult and they’re brilliant grandparents. No concerns that they would hit my children. I know my mum has regrets and admires how my brother and I are doing things differently with our children.

If I’m being honest, social stigma is one of the biggest reasons I don’t smack my DC. My relationship with it hasn’t been a negative but I believe in striving for ‘better’ and clearly less physical punishment is definitely in a child’s interest. That said, it may just be rose tinted glasses but I do believe there are more disruptive children in my DC’s classes than I can recall.

Agree with this.

My mum used to smack me, bloody hard too I’d have a perfect red handprint on me. I was so afraid of her as a child, more so as a teenager and never went to her when I was in trouble etc as I was just so scared of her reactions. She once cornered me and kicked me, over me not turning the television off.
To ask her about it now it was just ‘normal’ at the time apparently but I vividly remember dialling childline once and then immediately hanging up so I was frightened.

Saying all of this, as adults we’re close. I have kids now and tell her I’d never lay a finger on them and she agrees and is glad ‘things have changed’. I’ll never understand why she was quite as angry and violent towards me as she was, though. It was always over such minor stuff too - cutting my dolls hair, or something.

I think you have deeper issues than some people who were smacked.

i think you reflect a lot on your own childhood when you become a parent and your kids reach the age you had certain experiences. In the 80s my DF used to hit us with his leather belt! I could never dream of hurting my children this way. I never realised until I was older that he only ever did it when my DM wasn’t home and she never knew.

I was occasionally put across the knee and spanked - from what I remember it was for temper tantrums or defiance.

It was a pretty common form of discipline where I grew up in the early 1980s. I don't feel it's had an obviously negative effect on me, but who's to tell? I have a good and warm relationship with my parents, but I've never been particularly open with them emotionally. I'm ND though, so maybe that accounts for the emotional guardedness.

I didn't smack my own children and have put a lot of effort into talking about emotions with them.

I was born in 60s. Smacked as young child. Rarely. Across palm of hand with palm of their hand. Sometimes I was grabbed by hand or arm to stop me doing something which wasn’t gentle. Smacks were Obviously not hard as it would have hurt them too. I don’t think anything of it . Frankly. Nor do my siblings. Nor do friends I still hav3 that grew up same. Smacking stopped once we were old enough to be reasoned with, talked too, and was always because we were doing something potentially dangerous. I never even considered it as an issue until years later in my mid/late twenties when smacking started to get frowned upon.

yep, law is changing and culture has changed. I didn’t smack mine in early 90s. But I don’t hold with it being automatically abusive, which is not something id be prepared to admit in public now fac3 to face.

i was also still of generation when corporal punishment was used at schools. Never got slipper myself . But knew kids that did and were caned. I do remember a liberal use of rulers being whacked on desk just in front of your hands, and board rubbers/chalk being hurled at kids who wouldn’t stop tlaking. Didn’t usually hit . Have to say, whatever damage it did to kids, classrooms were disciplined. People didn’t back chat teachers . Hey ho.

however, I WAS abused by a neighbour giving us lifts to school. He’d slap and grope my bum every time I got in and out the car. In front of my siblings . They thought it was the game and laugh he made it to be. I didn’t know anything other than I hated it, I felt humiliated and embarrassed. And I couldn’t say anything to my parents and my mum was dependant on this guy giving us lifts. Didn’t realise till years later, as an adult, what it was. Took till my late 40s to realise it was abuse.

I think we all know when slaps, hits, smacks etc are wrong when it is being done to us. Mightn’t be able to articulate it as abuse, but we all can know as a child when it feels wrong. The issue is legislating for it. So, yes, it makes way more sense to criminalise it outright to protect those of you who were hit in anger, and kids like me with a jerk getting off on it.

Mine used to smack me in public to humiliate me into behaving- bare bum, always. It had the desired effect- compliance through humiliation. Shit parenting. I hate any physical contact with my mother, have done for as long as I can remember, maybe this is why.

What you experienced was absolutely physical abuse. Smacking with a hand and smacking with an object are two completely different things. I was smacked as a child but only with a hand. And it really doesn't bother me now. If I'd have been through what you did then it definitely would bother me. So sorry you had to deal with that as a child 💐

My Mum used to smack us with her hand, wooden spoon, horse whip and a cane.
I don't really like the woman but I do still have a cordial relationship with her.