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 spanked on the bum by my dad when I was naughty - I always knew the reason I was in trouble even if I didn't agree with it or didn't actually do it (like you drew on the wall when I actually didnt) my mum on the other hand used to grab myself and my sisters by the hair and bang our heads into each other or into a wall if just one of us. Her favourite warning was 'do you want me to knock your heads together' - I don't particularly give much thought to my dad's punishment style or consider it hugely damaging (although I have never laid a hand on any of my children) my mother however I view as incredibly abusive and my relationship with her is almost non-existant.

I was smacked and it doesn't really bother me now.

There were other punishments, like being sent to my room, that upset me more because I hated hearing everyone else having fun downstairs without me.

At least with a smack it was over with quickly and I could move on!

I wasn't a naughty kid, I mostly got into trouble for giddiness and giggling at the dinner table.

I remember when I was on holiday with my parents (probably around 3-5 years). I walked off with a person (to see some cows being milked). When they found me and bought me home, I was hit so hard on my bum/legs that I had to lay on my stomach. I remember crying my heart out and them saying for other people not to comfort me.

I am now a parent and I can’t make sense of it. Both are now dead so can’t ask them.

I do have issues around abandonment, which might have been triggered by it.

My Dad used to hit me with a stick when I was a child. Probably did it 6 times in total. Old school parenting. Spare the rod, spoil the child. I so wish I’d taken that stick and smacked him back while he was sleeping but I never did. As a child I knew it was a wrong, totally pointless and damaging punishment. Each time it happened I stopped speaking to him. It damaged our relationship and I held it against him for years.

He has selective memory, I asked him about it 30 years later and he couldn’t for the life of him remember hitting me with a stick. I suspect he actually does remember but is too embarrassed.

I’ve never smacked my own kids.

Ive forgiven him now, I think he was trying to parent in a way he thought was right but got it totally wrong.

This was my experience too, but I was only ever tapped on the bottom when I really persisted in crossing lines and it didn’t hurt.

My friend was repeatedly walloped, often for the flimsiest of reasons, and it’s done significant psychological damage.

I was smacked anytime my mother was frustrated. I clearly recall being 6 telling her I was hungry and she turned around and smacked me right on the face.

She later found it funny. I've never understood why it was funny to her.

I do not think behaving out of fear is a good way to raise your children. I feel one of my biggest achievements in life is that my children are not fearful of me. They know I will listen. I may not agree but I will listen.

I chose to not smacked edit to "not hit as that's what it is" my children as I knew I would not have a concept of when to stop.

Yes I think it was abusive
Yes I think It did me harm
No I do not agree with it at all

My brother and sister who grew up with our father was not smacked/hit. They both have a close relationship with him now.

Yes the fear of knowing I could get the stick was massive

I was smacked and grew up with the flying slipper. (not UK)
I have no hard feelings about it at all. I always knew what it was for and there is world of difference between smack and beating. Couple of my friends had the latter sadly.
I would most likely feel differently if like pps I had no idea what I got smacked for. I always had plenty of warnings.

I assume they were terrified that they’d lost you and of what could have happened to you walking off with someone you didn’t know?

I agree 💯.

I was smacked and my mum now regrets it as she acknowledges it was done in anger/frustration to make herself feel better, not as a lesson for me.

As a kid I would hit my sister as subconsciously I believed that if someone annoyed you then the answer was to hit them. I was still angry into my teens, it took a while to ‘unlearn’ this.

I do find it interesting that we have a specific word for 'hitting a child' that's used to frame it as a practice. I don't hear 'smacking' used in any other context.

'Disciplinary assault' is a bit of a mouthful, I suppose...

I don't know if I was smacked or not – my mother punched me in the face a few times. Does that count, or is it only with an open hand?

I was a child in the 60’s and this is exactly how I feel. I think I was only actually smacked about twice and then only a tap on the legs.
However the thought of it kept me from being naughty.

❤️❤️

Almost never smacked but often threatened with the belt and it used to frustrate me at the time because I was a very reasonable child you could simply talk to! But my parents were quite stressed a lot of the time. No anger towards them because I appreciated their boundaries. My best friend walked all over her mum and made her cry and that made me feel a LOT worse.

I've never had a need to smack my girls - it would feel weird and counter-productive to hit them.

Born in the 70s...got smacked by both parents. DM would slap the back of my legs, that would really hurt. I remember her doing it to me when I did a ballet dance exam, I was around 8/9 and she was tying up my ballet slippers and she couldn't get it right...time was slipping by and I was going to be late for my exam...she slapped my leg so hard and effectively blamed me cos she couldn't tie up my ballet slippers?!🙄 DF would shout and bawl at us so badly I often wished he'd just slap me instead because the terror I felt at those times would have been far more than a short slap across the head or legs. He took a cricket stump to my DB when DB got caught smashing next doors greenhouse windows 😬 DF was fucking savage.

I would say the smacking from my parents was not necessary 70% of the times they did it. The other 30% was done cos I'd have been dicking around.

I was also smacked but very very rarely. I don't think it's effected me at all if I'm honest - probably because it was so rare, I'm talking maybe 3 or 4 times in my whole childhood

I was smacked on occasion, and hit with a closed fist once, by a frustrated mother. I know now that she’s always been very emotionally immature and couldn’t control her temper.
Did it affect me? Yes, I was afraid of her. Coupled with her emotional immaturity I was kinda fucked up until I learned more about the impact she had on my childhood.

I was smacked, on rare occasions when I'd been very clearly deliberately naughty after being warned, and knew full well I'd been naughty. Eg had been told not to do a specific thing for risk of breaking a special item and had just carried on doing it, resulting in breaking it.

It was the ultimate in shame for very poor behaviour and i knew i deserved it - it worked and left me feeling genuinely remorseful.

It did not damage me at all, I lived in a happy home with supportive parents and knew they loved me and wanted the best for me. I have a great relationship with my parents.

My mother had a temper and was abusive. She'd clout me across my head if she felt I was out-of-order. I was a quiet child who never answered back. She always did it when no-one else was about.

The last time she smacked me about the head it was because I was late for tea. I was 14 and I smacked her back across the face.
She was horrified and was holding her face and saying "You struck me! You struck me!"
I said "Yes and I'll strike you again if you ever hit me again!"

She never did.

I left home as soon as I could and never went back. I never like her, she was just plain nasty. None of my other siblings got smacked. For some reason it seems she just didn't like me.

No that doesn’t count as smacking. Your mother punching you in the face is abuse.

I was only smacked a handful of times so i'd likely feel different if it was a regularly thing. Because it was rare, I guess I feel like it was probably times where my mum was just pushed to her limits and i do empathise with that because I think most parents have felt that way. I don't remember being scared when I was smacked, but I do remember thinking 'oh shit! I've really messed up here!' Because I wasn't used to seeing my mum lose control. I guess I felt like it was my fault more than hers. I don't feel it's done any damage to me, but I feel like it served any purpose either.

It was abuse and made me extremely fearful as a child. I have raised my own children in safety with zero violence and they are the most beautiful, chilled young men I could ask for.

I think there is smacking and smacking.
I always knew why I was being smacked - usually had pushed the boundaries way too far and I knew it.
It was one smack, or two, not ten.
It didn't usually leave a long lasting mark.

Actually I think one of my siblings probably would have benefitted from being smacked a bit more (they were born a few years after me and raised very differently).

But I'm sure there were also children being abused and that abuse disguised as "just a smack", which is why you'll probably get a lot of different responses.

This said, this isn't how I want to raise my children. I couldn't well articulate why, as I don't think it did me any harm. I guess I want a different relationship with my kids.

I was smacked in the early 90s. Dad was a little more heavy handed them mum. It was only done when I was being really very naughty or a danger and I don’t feel negatively about it at all. It is not a loaded statement if I say I got smacked “when I deserved it” because I was probably being a horrible little shit at the time but I was generally a very well behaved kid. I feel that It was one tool they used rarely in an effective discipline strategy- I love both my parents and think they did a good job raising me and my sister. We are both good people and well- adjusted adults