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 but tbh it's the last thing that worries me about my childhood!
What's past is past.
I think that my parents did the best they could with the resources available to them- be that emotional, financial, whatever.

I smacked one of my kids when they were little and was absolutely horrified with myself so never did it again.

Having said that, some of the appalling behaviour that is being tolerated by parents now would never have happened in the past when it would have been nipped in the bud with a sma ck on the back of the legs so maybe it wasn't as terrible a thing as we think?

I was "smacked". Although my definition of smacking was beaten repeatedly around the head, arms and legs. My mum would also pin me to a wall and dig her nails into my cheeks and tell me through gritted teeth that she hated me.
This would be due to some very minor infraction such as forgetting to do homework, failing my driving test, being fatter than my good looking cousin etc. It affected me immensely, I'm in my 30s now and I still get tearful when I think about it. I don't know why she didn't love me.

I was hit by my Mother often, all through my childhood, she didn’t love me and I was scared of her.
It has affected me all my life, I have never hit my kids and I always defend anyone/thing weaker than me….but I have anger issues when I feel threatened and completely lose my shit… to a scary degree, the anger I feel is beyond belief.
My adult children have occasionally seen this behaviour towards feeling threatened and say it’s such a shame as it’s just not me.
I’m sure with a different Mother I wouldn’t be like this…

I was smacked (in the 90s). To be honest I don’t really think anything about it, and ultimately I don’t really think it did me any lasting damage (that’s not to say I don’t think it can do lasting damage to other people).
I have never and would never smack my children though, because I think it’s bad parenting.

I was smacked (often very hard) on the bottom by both parents from quite small until around the age of 8 or 9. I guess my parents were hit by their parents so assumed it was normal. I have never smacked or hit my children and have a very much better relationship with them for it. Dreadful to hit little ones, bullying and abusive.

No damage here and I would smack my children if I thought it necessary.

I was smacked occasionally by my mum, never by my dad. It was done in anger but it was never excessively hard to leave marks or anything and I would say it was infrequent. I don't consider it abuse but I also don't think it's a particularly useful or effective method of discipline. I'm glad that things have moved on and most people don't consider smacking acceptable any more. In fact, living in Wales, physical punishment of children is illegal and I think that's right. Children deserve the same protections in law that adults have.

Me too. Older millennial. Barely think about it. I don’t smack my kids. We need to let go of the victim mindset.

I was smacked by both parents for "bad behaviour" ie childhood misdemeanours. This was the 90s. Though it was "normal" for the time, I do consider it abusive. My dad used to leave a hand print that would smart.

Getting children to comply out of fear is a pathetic way to maintain authority to be honest.

I would never do it, I can't imagine seeing the fear or betrayal in my kids' eyes and being OK with that. I also wouldn't want them to grow up thinking that's the way you resolve a problem.

It just doesn't have any bearing on how I look back on my childhood at all. Nor do I think it had any material difference to my life. It was just part and parcel of growing up and wasn't at all unusual for my time and area.

I know you aren't meant to say this but I think I preferred the odd smack here and there when I got caught being naughty than the ever present surveillance and rewards chart that followed on from it. At least it was over and done with in short order.

Saying that, I didn't smack my kids. I just don't personally begrudge it.

I was smacked, but to be honest it was the least of my worries growing up. I do think it’s abusive, but it was considered normal back then so many parents didn’t do it to be abusive (some did).

yes it sounds inconsistent- although o admit that smacking was never ruled out as an option in my head

i think it’s because partly I can see that hitting in anger , excess force, and regular hitting is most definitely harmful for a child so if you can avoid it you avoid any potential problems

life was easier in many ways than my parents so things didn’t ever get to the stage where a smack might have been traditionally / historically used to save time and move on

i didnt have the financial stress but I did have children tv

and there is a lot more information ( cheers MN ) about alternative approaches - taking a child away from a situation , distraction

so lots of things worked together

I was never routinely smacked but my mum did slap me round the head once when I was a teenager. I deserved it!

It all dependes whether you deserved it or not.
I do believe there are exceptional circumstances that warrant a smack.

Similar, though I wasn't in fear of it - I rarely thought about the possibility of getting smacked, just vague awareness that it was a "last resort" option available to them if nothing else worked. And it wasn't a big deal - more embarrassing than painful.

@SwedishEdith By that logic, how does anyone know anything about themselves?
I never think about it, have no residual trauma that I'm in any way aware of, and harbour no negative feelings in any way towards anyone about it - and think my parents weren't unreasonable by the standards of the time.
So in what way do you think it might have harmed me?
I'm perfectly happy to agree that others may have been harmed by being smacked in their particular circumstances, but for me in my life, no, I don't think it did me any harm in any way.

I was smacked occasionally by my mum. Not super hard. I think she had undiagnosed adhd and she struggled with emotional dysregulation. She was always mortified afterwards, though, and she would apologise profusely. I was never in any doubt that it was wrong, and that it was down to her own lack of self control rather than any sense that I had "deserved" it - she made very sure that I knew that. Perhaps because of that, I didn't ever feel particularly damaged by it.

Born in the 70s, was smacked by parents, went to a school you got the cane or whacked with a ruler for minor wrong doing.

I don't feel personally damaged by it but going by how many times I got hit it wasn't a very effective way of controlling my behaviour.

We don't have children and I think that people hitting kids as punishment is wrong.

I have to say it hasn't affected me in any way, but then I wasn't smacked very regularly, DF would usually do the smacking if he was pushed too far, it was never severe and I was never afraid of him, I think most kids were smacked in the 80s

I'm not bothered about it. It happened and I'm OK. I understand that it was a response from being overwhelmed with negative emotion, mostly frustration. I know that my parents didn't set out to hurt me, nor did they get any kind of pleasure from smacking me. They caused no physical damage beyond a red mark that soon faded. They never hit me with anything other than an open hand.

I'm not saying that it was OK to smack.

I did not like it. It brought fear into the loving relationship between my parents and me. Although being smacked was never a surprise. I did not fear a random blow. I did fear an angry parent.

I have chosen not to smack my children, because I see it as my loss of control, an expression of my anger/frustration/fear, rather than something beneficial to my child. But I have often wondered: would one sharp smack and done with it have been better than me screaming at my children? I still lost control and expressed my feelings in a way that was not beneficial to them.

My brother hit me. I don't think my children have ever hit each other.

Dh and I have had many disagreements over this. His father was a big believer in corporal punishment and he was hit a lot (with a slipper, switch and belt). My parents were the opposite. I was repeatedly told how worthless and useless I was. That my imperfections made me unlovable but they never hit me. In fact when my dad's commanding officer smacked me (both my parents were out of the country and he was looking after me), they were both absolutely furious.

In my eyes, dh's parents were obviously damaging and abusive. In his, he was a feral nightmare and that being hit never damaged him emotionally. He is definitely closer to his parents than I am/was to mine. Whereas he thinks my parents obviously did a total number on me and therefore I'd have been better off if they'd hit me instead.

I imagine the circumstances matter a lot. Dh was hit for various "crimes" including trashing a greenhouse, climbing on a roof and generally running wild. He thinks he was never hit in anger and it was always something that deserved punishment.

That isn't a fair conclusion.

It depends very much on multiple factors. Some were raised by smacking parents who would be absolutely terrifying and behave in ways that were also psychologically damaging.

Smacking is in every example I ever saw nothing but lack of control. It's absolutely terrifying that teachers had power to do this.

If I saw a dad say, grab a son who refused to listen and was hurting another. You know, I could think well maybe that was needed. If it was controlled. But it rarely is.

If it had had no adverse effect on you there is no way that you would think a child somehow deserved it.

I was born in the 60s, I suppose I was lucky not to be smacked. However, there was a certain amount of emotional abuse which has permanently affected my relationship with my parents. I suspect it probably fucked me up more than being smacked would've done.

Smacked, hit with a wooden spoon or a metal spoon my mother has anger issues, I can be short of temper but o would never hurt my children as a form of punishment. Yes it affected me. I feared her and my dad but his abuse was something else. I’ve managed to raise 4 boys without smacking them using consistency and boundaries there is never a reason to physically harm your child to teach them they’ve done wrong. I didn’t deserve it, ever no child does.

I was smacked just like OP where the majority of the time I had no idea of the reason behind it other than my mother doing it out of frustration of her crap marriage.
I know all of her siblings also smacked their children and thought it must have been normalised by their parents. But to my shock, as an adult, I found out that my grandparents (mum side) never smacked their children which totally floored me because I could not understand why ALL of their 5 children smacked their own! It must of been an 80s thing to do?? I don’t understand it.