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?

The real irony is my mum will say herself that I was pretty good kid up to a point. The point being when I stopped giving many fucks, because if I was going to get a beating for collecting conkers after school(one example), might as well have some fun anyway. Plus the hurt, rage, frustration and complete mindfuck that she did it because she “cared”.I never did anything terribly bad after that either, but of course, that’s my perspective.

I remember being very scared in infant school of the possibility of being hit by the teacher. My parents never ever smacked, but when I started school in the 1970s, corporal punishment was still at thing. I remember kids regularly being whacked on the hand with a wooden ruler and I can remember by brother getting the slipper from the head and being held back by other teachers (it was probably only one but it felt like more) as I tried to rush down the corridor to get to him. I was never hit but I do remember the fear that I might be.

I was born in the early 90s and smacked occasionally. Doesn’t bother me at all. Like a pp said I knew I was loved, it was just part of discipline then so it doesn’t effect me at all

I was never smacked. I was the youngest and ‘the pet’. One of my sisters was though - by our mum, never our dad.

It taught me a good lesson. I’ve never been an angry, shouty parent. I’ve seen first hand how awful it is to have a mum that’s quick to anger. We would never in a million years hit our kids and I think any parent that does it - ever- is simply terrible and should not have had children.

I was smacked at home and at school. Not excessively but now and again. I still resent one time being smacked at school because it was completely unnecessary (I asked for help with a maths problem - who smacks a child for asking for help?). At home I was told repeatedly that I was a bad person and forced to pray to God every night to make me a good girl. I grew up believing I was a bad person and had zero self confidence as a result. I struggle to forgive that part as I was only a child. The smacking didn’t bother me so much as I could be hard work at times.

No I mean autistic children attack people when they having a meltdown. They hurt other children and adults.

I was bought up in the 60’s, smacked by both my parents, (not beaten black & blue) I don’t even give it a thought now & has done no lasting damage,

Born in the 60s, raised in the 70s-80s. I am one of 3 girls. All of us were smacked and hit. With hairbrushes, canes, sticks - even a plate. Never on the face or torso - always the legs or bottom. Dad hit my sisters so hard with a stick you could see the 'stripes' on their backs. My dad woke me in bed once, tore off the covers and my nightie to deliver a very hard smacking for something I must've done earlier to annoy him. It hurt so much I couldn't cry out or breathe after the third whack.
It was really frightening, but I suppose at the time we saw it as 'normal' parenting.
Now I see it as totally, horribly wrong. I vowed never to smack our children.

It made me hate my dad, and me and my sisters were never close to him.
My mum I can sort of 'forgive' as she had a lot of life stresses as we grew up, and she didn't have a good parental role models.
I'm really glad it's not acceptable any more.

I was smacked throughout childhood. It was normal. All of cousins, friends and classmates were smacked. I felt humiliated when smacked. It hadn’t affected my relationship with my Dad (Mum has been dead decades). It just is what happened. A cultural norm.

I did not smack my own children. I never once felt that impulse.

I think it’s parental volatility, cruelty or loss of control that’s the issue - the cause of smacking does not go away if you stop smacking, it just comes out in another form. I distinctly remember a sense of injustice on the extremely rare occasions I was smacked, but I didn’t find smacking any worse than everything being swept off the kitchen table, or being shouted at. Imvho, most parents have occasionally lost control of their emotions with their children; the damage comes from this being par for the course, or the result of a nervous breakdown, not from a rare, unfortunate outburst.

I wasn't smacked very often and whilst it 'didn't do me any harm' I still remember the shame and humiliation that came with being smacked. I remember once it was my birthday party and me and my friends were sitting round the table eating our party food. I must have been getting a bit giddy and my mum gave me clip round round head. It wasn't very hard but I still hate that she did that and felt like it was deliberate to humiliate me.

That is so awful, just appalling.

Do you feel that it led you to behave on the correct path

I was smacked and don’t even think about it. I didn’t smack my own children as times and parenting have changed but being smacked didn’t impact me in any way. It was normal.

I haven't RTFT but I have read your posts OP. I'm reluctant to post as last time I made my views known it was a pile on but given i appear to be once again going against the tide and you've asked for different perspectives....
I was smacked 3 times as a child and each time was because I had gone way over the line in my behaviour. I didn't do me any harm and because I fortunately wasn't smacked like you were for every transgression big or small, the lesson I learned those three times stuck. I would smack my children if I felt a short sharp shock of a smack on the hand was warranted for behaviour that was way over the line. I'd give warnings first including a warning that I'd smack and I wouldn't leave them battered etc but yes I would smack. Thankfully I've not been put in the position where I've felt I've had to give a warning of a smack let alone followed through but my belief is it didn't harm me, it worked, and if I felt it was necessary then I would.
I fully understand my position is not popular and last time I posted on this topic I did engage in discussion about it but I'm not willing to do so this time if anyone replies attacking me or calling me abusive. I welcome and value discussion and different points of view but I'm not interested in defending myself.
I am sorry for what you went through as a child though @ButThisIsMyHappyFace I do not agree with what your mother did and I will never agree with smacking a child for every single thing a parent deems is 'wrong or naughty' and I don't agree with anything more than a short sharp smack on the hand.

Reading through some of these comments breaks my heart x

I was smacked by both my parents but they weren’t cruel with it, I had been up to no good / naughty. The same for my Brother. Same for all the kids I grew up with. I don’t give it any thought at all. I feel like that’s how it was back then as all the kids where I grew up had the same type of parents as we did.

But it was never for nothing. It was never to humiliate me, it wasn’t abuse. By what so many of you are describing is just that. Child
abuse.

We were loved fiercely and I never felt unsafe.

I was a '70s kid and every kid that I knew got smacked now and then, it was a working / lower middle class environment and normal to be sometimes smacked on the bottom a couple of times - through clothes - if we were especially naughty, probably between ages 6 - 11 ish. It wasn't normal to be hit, or slapped on the face, or dragged, or sworn at - parents doing that would have been considered abusive.

I think it must have been a different experience for some children depending on family environment and how it was done - if you had a stable, loving home and felt loved and it was occasional, it was not the same as being hurt or frightened.

It didn't feel abusive in my case, it was rare, it didn't hurt, more like a kind of theatre to mark the level of naughtiness. It was meant to be shaming - I got my bottom smacked when I bullied a little kid to tears with my best mate e.g.

I went to a 'modern' primary where teachers didn't smack but it wasn't illegal. I was once smacked hard on the legs by a teacher there when I was 11 and was outraged. She was near retirement and I suppose felt smacking was legitimate but interestingly she was very abusive in other ways in the classroom - verbally and psychologically, especially towards kids who didn't do schoolwork well or came from poor homes. I utterly despised her and gave her as hard a time as was in my power after that.

Yes, I do.

I was smacked occasionally, mainly by my mother and always out of her frustration and anger. She has a short fuse and can lash out. It was usually over bad behaviour or me being thoughtless and damaging things (I remember mixing up my paints with her wooden spoon - that led to some smacking) but I was sometimes smacked for things like wetting myself, which I don’t think were really my fault. Or at least it wasn’t a helpful response.

My dad is a much gentler character and I can only remember him slapping me once, on the back of the legs, over some misbehaviour in church. I remember him threatening to smack occasionally but I always knew it was a pretty empty threat.

I don’t remember any pain or marks and don’t think I was ever hit particularly hard but I do remember the feelings of fear and shame.

It seemed to stop around the age of 8. I guess I was just better able to regulate my behaviour by then and was overall a very good kid. I was born in the mid 1970s.

I don’t think it did me any serious or long-term harm and it’s not something I think about much. My relationship with my parents is pretty warm although I know my mum feels tremendous guilt and she sometimes brings it up.

I’m mid sixties and autistic, that means (to me) that I can remember things clearly. I remember being chased along the hall being beaten and smacked all the way, and so much more. My mother has a dx of narcissistic personality disorder. Nobody is allowed to be better than her. I slapped her back when I was sixteen and told her I’d tell her father. It stopped then, although there were other equally abusive punishments.
I left at sixteen and a half.
I tried very hard to keep calm with my children and they will all tell you I am patient, I’ve slipped a couple of times, no excuses. I have apologised.
I haven’t spoken to my mother for years, but it still affects me now.

I was smacked and It certainly never left a lasting negative effect on me. I really don't give it a lot of thought. If I do, I accept it for what it was, discipline. It certainly was not abuse. There was/is a vast difference between abuse and the occasional disciplinary light smack.

I was smacked (not beaten) by my mother. It was very normal in the sixties/seventies. My father was a very gentle man, I don’t remember him ever smacking us. I think we were very accepting about smacking because it was the standard form of discipline. I feel much more damaged by the shouting, I found that very stressful and still do to this day. I think that’s much more abusive to be honest.

Thank you for contributing, and I’m glad that so far this thread hasn’t degenerated into attacks on people. I asked the question because genuinely interested in different perspectives and yours is part of that.

I was smacked, but not too often. The threat of it was often enough. It’s not something I particularly focus on, there was a lot of emotional abuse in my childhood which has stayed with me.

I knew where I was with smacking. I got smacked and it was over and done with. The mind games, etc not so clear cut.

My mother never laid a hand on me. She would screw up her face and give me the silent treatment for days.
My weak father enabled her.
It hurt like hell and affected my life.
I am so sorry for all of you who also had cruel parents.