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

This im sure things will change again over the next generations and we will all be seen as abusive. People do what they know

JFC I'm so sorry. What sort of monster could do that to a toddler and a small child? Children who are being toilet trained often have accidents. They are not being naughty. That is so upsetting.

Sorry - I've read your post over and over again, and cannot see how you seem to find what your parents did to you, especially your father, acceptable.
It wasn't, it was abuse, and that make me so sad.

It is weird though we all think we are doing things so much better these days but we have the biggest mental health crisis among young people that we have ever had.

That’s to do with social media and tech not smacking and being violent towards them ffs!

One of the few signs of real progress in today’s world is the law around hitting children, and it is now not acceptable to hit children. There is never an excuse to use violence against a child.

You are taking my response out of context.

It doesn’t matter what any of us think or don’t think about it, the law allowed corporal punishment in all of the UK, but didn’t support beating of employees.

It wasn't a case of being seen as worthy of going to the police, insomuch as when you did they wouldn't act, such was misogyny.

I think it's different because sexual abuse was still against the law whereas 'spanking' children and other punishments were not.

@Welshmum2010 I am so sorry this happened to you, you didn’t deserve it. It’s hard to have healthy boundaries when your feelings have never been listened to, let alone respected. Do you think counselling might help you work through your childhood?
It’s taken me a very long time to come to terms with how I and my siblings were treated as children, and I know my life would look very different if I had felt loved. I was born in 1968, and no, I don’t use the excuse of ‘it was a different time’. I knew plenty of families that were kind and loving. I wish you peace

Ah but people are more open now so it’s hard to judge

in the past we suffered in silence usually because we were dismissed

MN astounds me sometimes. On the one hand you have posters blithely encouraging others to "cut their parents off" at the drop of a hat, to stop talking to "toxic" siblings, to not allow their children any independence until they are 18, (whereupon they are suddenly and magically "an adult").

And on the other hand you have the testimony of a poster who knows that the style of discipline her parents indulged in - planned, physical, emotional - has left lasting scars, and she is urged to let it go as it was a different time back then.

Weird.

Well, this basically!

But some people were smacked occasionally and yet did feel loved.
And look back on a happy childhood.
And had enduring warm relationships with their parents.
Incidentally it is still not illegal to smack children in England as long as it is within reasonable chastisement.
Leave no mark
Use open hand only.
No implements.
On back of legs or bottom only.

I wonder if their parents have ownership of what they did or they were otherwise loving

I think when they carry on being dismissive of your feelings and say it’s you in adulthood it maybe makes the difference and carries the hurt on

My Parents were the most kindest loveliest parents I could wish for but I was smacked. I say with pride that I was never smacked in anger. My parents never lost their temper and beat us out of anger or frustration, it was always a measured punishment. Usually “when Dad comes home”. It would happen at 6pm. Over his knee for how ever many smacks I’d “earned”. Very frequently it was early bed too as a punishment. I remember sometimes trying hard to “earn it off” by being very good before Dad got home, but I also remember sometimes carrying on being a little shit and earning more smacks! I even remember my Dad pulling over at the side of the road to smack us for our bad behaviour!
I was born in 1978 so this would be the 1980s. It was very normal then. The difference might be I considered the punishments fair. I had been naughty and that was the consequence.

Godalmighty. No. No this was not "normal". And your parents weren't kind and lovely.

My mother used to lose control, lash out and whack me round the face. leaving a big red mark on my cheek. No it wasn't illegal but damn right I consider it abusive, especially coupled with her other behaviour.

I wouldn't bother trying to call them out on it OP. They will just tell you you imagined it, or you're remembering wrong or something.

It's not so much those specific behaviours, but more, were they otherwise warm and loving? How has your relationship been since then? I wonder if they are maybe just not that loving as parents and it has taken you longer to realise that and just not want to make much of an effort, and of course remembering these unpleasant punishments doesn't help. If they were super great parents who smacked but were otherwise genuinely warm and nice, that is a different matter but the planned smacking and punishment just for asking a question is getting a bit into Roald Dahl territory.

So many parents smack because they "just snap" and "lose control", and yet as soon as the child is bigger than they are and can smash the fuckers right back, suddenly they learn to control themselves. Amazing.

ETA: No, autocorrect, I definitely meant "fuckers".

Yes my dad used to whack us round the head out of nowhere - I was scared of him until I was about 25 - it was so unpredictable

I can still feel the humiliation, at the time that overode the physical pain

my mum used to shout “hit them in on the legs not the head” because she’d been at school with a kid who was now deaf after having the board cleaner thrown at his head

I also have friends same age whose parents are horrified at this and my husband who is significantly older so I tend to not believe it’s a generational thing given I have lots of friends who didn’t have this experience BUT everyone in my circle then did

Try reading her post again, it specifically calls out washing out a mouth with soap and going to bed hungry, you ignored it all and said smacking was usual. Way to minimise

'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.'

Well, my DM does see smacking as wrong now, so she doesn't try to justify it at all.

I don't know how damaging it was to me to be smacked, because I also went through CSA, as did my DSis, at the hands of our F. But I do think it played a part in us not confiding in our DM about what he was doing to us. Because we had no reason to think she would believe us. (She did believe us when we told her as adults around 10 years ago.)

OP hasn't mentioned that they're horrible now, so why would she be afraid of them?
I bought up a few things to my dad,
Because he was so so strict and unfair with us and so laid back with my much younger siblings and he did say yeah I understand.
But he didn't apologise or anything.

I just don't get what purpose cutting him off would do?
It just seems so pointless?
I only see him sometimes anyway he's nice enough, still in his own world really.
But he's old and weak.
I wouldn't bother him in his old age.
How would that help me in anyway?

@Welshmum2010 Bloody hell I’m going to phone my parents up and tell them how wonderful they are!
I can’t believe everyone saying it was normal. I am from the 80s and I can count on one hand the number of times my dad smacked me and on one finger the number of times my mum did. I had been particularly awful on that day and my poor lovely patient mum lost it.

But to mete out the punishment in such a measured way and for the other parent to watch is awful. And washing out your mouth with soap, no I’m sorry but that is abusive.

I hope you get the closure you need OP, but no, that behaviour is not kind

That's what you think,
They may decide you did something wrong and you'll get blamed.
Let it go and live your life, what exactly do you have to do for them?
Are you afraid you'll have to care for them?

OP hasn't mentioned that they're horrible now, so why would she be afraid of them?

Some people can't fuck their families off, even though it would be very good for them.

I can absolutely fuck mine off... but not the kids.

I was born in 1970. My parents didn't smack me. They knew it was wrong. There was some hitting with a leather strap in school, my father became a school governor to help put a stop to it. I think he and his brothers experienced brutality at school. I also know that my mother was badly treated as a child. They did their very best to protect their own children.

What you experienced was abuse. Time does not excuse it.