For calling out my parents on abuse as a child

[Welshmum2010]

I have been thinking a lot lately about things my parents did to me as a child that are illegal now and would be classed as abuse. Because if this I don’t really want to have much to do with them but do I tell them or just reduce contact. I think if I said anything they would say all parents did it but I dont know if that’s really the case. I’m realising now I have my own children how bad it really was. I was a well behaved and polite child who did very well at school. I’d be smacked on a regular basis and this would be arranged to happen at a certain time and not just a tap on the hand at the point of doing something. I’d be sent to bed with no tea for a minor issue. I had my mouth washed out with soap on 2 occasions, once for saying a word I dint know in a sentence and another time for asking what something meant. We’re these typical in 1980s or was I harshly treated. They are very judgemental people or others for example if someone is what they would consider to be ‘common’ which now seems crazy when they used to hit kids and lock them in their room

I thinks it's unfair to judge parents of the past by the parenting standards of today. I remember as a child of the 80s driving around in cars with no seatbelt or car seat. Gettng occasionally smacked and or sent to bed without tea. It was all very much the norm in my circle. I don't hi k it's fair of me to apply moderne standards . If I was born 100 years earlier I'd probably have been down the mines !

having said that op. Cut off your parents if you want to . It's a decision only you can make.

They weren’t kind then

My parents wereimw this. It was the 80s and my friends parents were mostly the same.

I was raised in a very Catholic home and never experienced any of this so called "discipline". Maybe my family are the anamoly. I don't know what friends experienced but I was never witness to any smacking/hitting, washing out mouths with soap etc.

What do you hope to achieve? Are you planning on going LC or NC with them afterwards?

To keep a decent relationship afterwards you'd have to manage the conversation very carefully.

All these people justifying being smacked as kids is so sad.
If parents honest thought it helped them learn, did the same parents also let their bosses smack them?

I was talking about evangelical circles, there were popular child rearing ‘experts’ expounding the virtues of corporal punishment.

As I said, washing the mouth out with soap and water was not a punishment advocated at all. I've never heard that advocated or practised anywhere. (Apart from one threat by a nun at my convent school as a punishment for swearing.)

I can’t speak for Catholic circles.

There is a thread right now on the board by a poster asking if she should send her DD to bed without dinner. 🙁

I thinks it's unfair to judge parents of the past by the parenting standards of today.

It's a choice that you make of how to discipline your child though isn't it?

My dad, having been smacked as a child decided that that wasn't a way of parenting that he wanted to continue.

My mum, having not been smacked as a child, agreed with him.

I was born in the 60s.

I was born in 1947 and my sister and I were never treated like that. I remember being threatened with a smack but can’t remember it ever happening. My cousins were all treated well also except for one whose father was a horrible man. The punishments described here were abusive and must be difficult to forget and forgive.

Yes they were. Just misguided. I know for a fact my Dad didn’t like doing it, but my brother and I were very naughty and back then that’s how kids were disciplined. My friend’s parents were all the same.

As times changed they learned other methods and my (much) younger brother was never smacked. He was put in the naughty step which was the new discipline of the time. I believe that’s now also considered abusive.

They were just parents doing the best they could with what they believed was right with two naughty kids. When my little brother came along they did the same with him.

When their grandchildren were born they never laid a finger on them, or put them on the naughty step, because they had learned that’s no longer the correct way to discipline.

I completely disagree.
My DM abused me physically as a child. many, many decades later I had counselling & there was really no excuse for her.
My resulting anxiety has undoubtedly resulted from this treatment.

It’s quite sad seeing people justifying their parents smacking them. No young child needed a stronger adult to beat them into good behaviour. People who had that knew to go unnoticed because they were scared of being hurt again, not learned their lesson. No reason is good enough to hurt a little kid and make them starve, over what?! An attitude? A child’s reaction to something?!
The parent couldn’t control themselves to calmly teach their child, so they hit them instead?!
Theres no chance I could hit my child, and no one else would be allowed either.
If someone honestly thinks that was the right way to handle it, they haven’t learned anything but hurting a kid is ok if you call it parenting. And that’s not good either.

Below 5 probably 3

I echo this, I am a child of the 70's, my parents never beat us, yes we were told off, but mostly we were talked to and reasoned with and sent to our room etc - never without food though. You might miss a meal, but we were always offered bread and butter before bed and never sent to bed on an empty stomach.
My friend however, was beaten regularly, as was her little sister, for the most minor thing too, when their Mum was in a mood the daughters would be apologising before they knew what was wrong, they were scared witless of their Mother and would be beaten by her on a regular basis. I am traumatised now just remembering having witnessed the violence on display, it was horrific, I used to go home deathly pale and worried sick about them. It wasn't normal, they were the only friends I knew that endured that level of abusive punishment.
Both daughters are a bit of a mess now as a result of it too, the now elderly Mother that inflicted all the abuse on them totally denies it ever happened. I'd respect her more if she owned up and said she was harsh and over the top and apologised, I'd be happy for her to admit she didn't know any better too! The sad reality is that she couldn't actually control her temper because these girls would be beaten for the most trivial issues.

Yes OP, call them out, tell them it has affected you and go and get some counselling too, if it is affecting you then it is affecting you! Not everyone can shake that stuff off easily, my friend is now an alcoholic who won't see her 60th birthday, she went from a controlling Mother to a controlling husband - the cycle of abuse goes on...

No as they were adults, but they let their teachers dispense corporal punishment and it wasn’t illegal to do so.

@Welshmum2010
I had my children in 1987 and 1990. I didn't do any of those things to my kids that were done to you. The behaviour of your parents towards you was certainly not common for those times, (unless it was happening to other children and I simply didn't know).
Posters who say what was done to you was "the norm" in those times, or say they received such treatment but they weren't/aren't affected by it, or ask you why is it bothering you now after all those years........please ignore them. They are minimising, excusing, and dismissing frankly appalling parental behaviour.
What was done to you is totally and absolutely child abuse.
I used to be a social worker in the '70's and '80's, and if those parental actions became known to us, back then we would have investigated.
Where the bar is set now regarding when Social Services would become involved - I don't know.
What should you do about it now?
I don't know, but you you were most definitely abused and have every right to have that acknowledged.

Why was it common?

All these apologists for violence are astonishing to me. And it is perfectly fair to judge bad behaviour, just saying 'it was different back then' doesn't make it ok. Jimmy Saville abused kids because it was 'different back then', but we don't handwave his behaviour, do we?!

I know. It wasn't compulsory to abuse your children back then, Can't believe all the apologists minimising this ❤

It wasn't. Certainly not as late as the 80s. More common than now, but not 'common'.

Some do. I was in a multiple person conversation where a woman said after it had all come out in the news, what good does it do to bring up what saville did now? Should just let dogs lie.
And yes I was perplexed.

Inflicting physical punishments on your children was still an active choice that some parents made. Some posters on this thread, including myself, have said that we didn't use physical punishments on our children and neither did our parents use them on us.

The punishments inflicted on OP were psychological as well as physical as her misdemeanors weren't dealt with at the time but the punishments were saved up to the end of the day, so that OP had to worry about them all day.

It sounds as though OP's mother actively enjoyed punishing her daughter and causing her anxiety for the rest of the day until the physical punishment was carried out. She sounds sadistic and cruel.

You miss the point.
The mechanisms of learning are the same in adults as in children. The only exception is children learn faster so need a lighter ‘touch’. So IF you believe corporal punishment works for children (ie receiving violence from someone with power over them) then is hast to work and be implemented for adults too.
So, if you believe in violence, and you mess up at work, you should accept a beating from your boss.

I was born in 1966.

Smacking was fairly commonplace and seen as acceptable amongst my parents and their circle when I was growing up. I got smacked occasionally but it only happened occasionally and I can't say that I really remember what it was for. I remember the fear of it though. I didn't smack my own children for that reason.

Going to bed without any tea/dinner did happen, but mostly because I was a very fussy eater as a child and wouldn't eat the food very often. That went down like a cup of cold sick with parents who had been children during the Second World War and remembered rationing and food shortages. They would sometimes put my meal in the fridge and get it out at the next mealtime in the belief that I would eat it next time and would learn my lesson from that. It didn't, and I didn't. If anything it made things worse although I know I worried them sick with my food refusal and they tried anything they could think of. They did admit once I was an adult and having my own children that they had got that one very wrong.

I heard about children having their mouths washed out with soap and water for swearing but I don't think I knew anyone that it actually happened to. It certainly wasn't done to us. I think that was abusive then and is abusive now.

You seem to have a dysfunctional relationship with your mother now though, and you seem to be saying that she is judgemental and unkind. That being the case, call her out on it if you think it will make any difference. Otherwise, cut contact or lower significantly it to a level you feel you can cope with.