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

Well said @Tontostitis

All I can say is that you were very fortunate. It doesn't mean that there weren't others who were smacked a lot. Surely you can see that from the experiences of other posters on this thread.

The fact that if was common doesn't mean it was right, any more than children should be made to work up chimneys. It should be called out. As for me, the fact that my DM accepts that it was wrong so I've been able to move on from that part of my abusive childhood.

What I'm seeing is that so many people see their own childhoods as ‘normal’, whereas the truth is that it was ‘normal’ for them. The reality was that smacking isn’t illegal, so it's been a parenting choice whether to smack or not. Thankfully, it's become much less acceptable since the 1980s.

She said they still treat her badly...

@Welshmum2010 what do you hope to achieve by calling them out on it?

I'm not being unkind, but it doesn't sound as though they're likely to accept they parented you, at best, badly, so what is it you hope to gain from bringing it up with them?

The punishments you mention were common in the 90s still and I agree with pp that judging everything through a modern lens isn't always helpful. Most parents do their best, follow advice and standards of the day and most get it wrong somehow.

But two of your posts jump out at me:

So not a smack at the time of an incident. As in don’t do that and smack in the moment. They’d say that’s 5 smacks later and I’d get them in the evening and they could be built up to 10 or more

My mum would count up punishment during the day from very minor things, like not sitting straight enough at the table or my bedroom not passing inspection then that would be the number of snacks. So I was always worried and on edge.

This wasn't normal and I would say that regardless of how we now view smacking and washing out mouths with soap, this crosses the line into abusive parenting. They may not have meant it as such, but it doesn't change the fact that you seem to have lived in a state of fear or anxiety much of the time. It's also suggestive of other parenting behaviours which could have caused lasting emotional wounds.

So, what is it that you now need from your parents and how likely do you think you are to get it? What happens then?

It's just strange to me, I was hit but never hit mine and it wasn't difficult not to 🤔

Ah, missed that bit. Will read more thoroughly. Even so, it’s worth a hard conversation imo before cutting them off.

Are you talking to all the posters who have revealed the horrific abuse that they suffered at the hands of their parents? One poster's dad rubbed her face in poo and wee if she wet or soiled herself when she was three years old as well as other violent acts such as being whipped with a belt. Would you judge this as something that poster should just 'get over'?

The parents who did these things should be in jail, never mind being visited and cared for by the children they abused.

I think habits can become ingrained and when the answer to poor behaviour or perceived poor behaviour was violence, for some people it's hard to change the narrative.

how has your relationship been with your parents between the 1980s and now ?

It was harsh back in the day. I don’t know if it’s a working class thing or a northern thing but all those things used to happen on the regular.

My next door neighbour got caught pretending to smoke one of his mums cigarettes and she made him smoke the rest of the packet. He was probably about 8 years old.

It was the norm to get smacked and sent to bed with no food. For the most minor of issues imo.

I think you will find the only person doing the ‘beating’ was in fact her parents. And you sound just like them! Calling it ‘shit’ and ordering a person to ‘get on with her life’ and ignore everything she has suffered. How damaging and triggering for op.

You are victim blaming.

If op and others are still distressed and upset about their childhoods - that is how they feel. You do them a huge disservice being so rough, so dismissive and so ignorant.

Abuse, particularly emotional and psychological abuse is extremely hard to recover from. Physical abuse often leads to women being trapped in domestic violence as they enter puberty and adulthood, as the cycle continues. You do know that at least two women every week are murdered that way every single week just in our country?

Whilst you glibly dismiss domestic violence, most of the country are moving in the other direction.

Now more than ever we are beginning to realise the impact on children that live with violence and abuse, they have the most awful internal scarring and psychological damage.

Many go on to have life long health problems due to their central nervous system being in over drive their whole lives. They are caught up with addictions as they struggle to cope and to manage their emotions and memories. They have poor relationships into adulthood because they think being hit is totally normal, expected even.

Their mental health would be greatly improved with empathy, kindness, acknowledgement and validation not your awful dismissal.

I work professionally in this area, and I am appalled by your comments.

It makes me wonder if you are defensive because of your own childhood? Or you are a perpetrator and genuinely see nothing wrong in abusing small children?

Maybe read her posts?

These things you say were normal, actually weren't.

These were not "the methods of the time" as one poster said.
I grew up in the 70s/80s and was never subject to anything like this. I was never hit.
I do think smacking was considered acceptable then. But what you describe goes beyond that. The soap in the mouth and deprivation of food is particularly nasty.
You are entitled to feel what you feel.

That will have a go at you for -

1. Having an opinion different to theirs - whatever that may be
2. Not letting them go to X place as it "triggered" their anxiety
3. Not listening to them when you were dog tired by working, being a single mother and trying to keep all the balls in the air ("you had choices, I was a child and didnt")
4. Choosing a deadbeat for a father, even though he wasn't when you had children and only changed in middle-age
5. anything else they can throw at you that you just have to swallow because their recollections are 100% right and yours are "as an adult you should have chosen differently"

Twas ever thus

Of course families are individual, but just because a small number of families might have done something, that doesn't mean it was 'normal' and it doesn't mean it wasn't abusive.

I agree. It's turned into a debate about smacking, which always leads to a mixed response because it draws in posters who were smacked by otherwise loving parents who they feel the need to defend.

The OP’s parents were very far from loving towards her, their treatment of her sounds sadistic and she is thoroughly justified in calling them out on it now.

Works professionally in this area. So makes money out perpetuating this shit

No I'm not

Sadly, it seems you are determined to get hung up on this.

What?

The whole point is it wasn't regarded as such in the past. The term child abuse simply wouldn't have been applied. I am not condoning anything but there's no point as others have said, judging the past through the lens of today.

If you are one of these parents, it’s okay to say I am sorry I hurt you, it was never my intention - I made some mistakes but I have always loved you very much to your adult child/children.

Acknowledgement and a genuine apology in my experience can go a very, very long way.

We are all human, and most of us - not all, are doing our best with the resources that we have. It’s only right that we consider our occasional failings too.

Why shouldn't she be?

How on earth can you define what was normal or not? I think it was, you think it wasn't. Impasse.

Most parents didn't do these things.

Yeah maybe, don't think I'll ever really understand it myself.