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

If you read all OP's posts, you would see that her parents, particularly her mum, weren't 'good' in their own time. OP didn't just get a quick smack at the point that she did something 'wrong'. OP has said:

'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.'

'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.'

When her mum carried out these punishments at the end of the day, her dad would be there watching too, as if abusing their daughter was entertainment. This is something that sadists would do, not loving parents.

Some of the emotional cruelty from the 70s/80s still stings. Also parents trash talking about their children. It really did leave a mark.

What OP is describing wouldn’t have been considered acceptable by a lot of people in their own time. My df wasn’t even treated like that by his parents in the forties and fifties so presumably even then people didn’t necessarily believe they had to do this kind of systematic punishment

I’m pretty confident that a lot of parents who physically harmed their child back in “their time” would have their actions condemned by other people who lived during the same time period.

So yes, those parents (including OP’s parents) should still be held accountable for the actions they took.

Just because some people back then thought it was ok to physically punish children, that doesn’t mean it’s ok and it should be brushed off. The chikdren were the victims of their parent’s actions, and the lasting damage can last go on for decades (as this thread shows), and the victim shouldn’t be expected to just “let it go” because according to some people it was the norm in their experience too.

I'm rather intrigued by all these adults who "just snapped" and were "pushed to the limit" and all that by their small children. I definitely know how much kids can drive you insane, but none of these people ever "just snapped" and slapped their boss, or a stranger who was a dick in public, or, I hope, their partners (and if they did, that just makes them bigger shits).

When kids "just snap" and start hitting or tantrumming, we are supposed to be teaching them ways to manage their emotions, but the actual fucking grownups can't do it themselves? (Yet somehow learn to do it once the children are bigger than they are?) And yet expect their small children to be more emotionally regulated than they are?

Smacking was common but not right. Do you otherwise have a good relationship with them? How can you let it go? Can you let it go? I think there was smacking and there was abuse. My grandmother would smash me on the head with a broom and honestly I hated her at the time. I now see she had good qualities and herself had been severely abused physically as a child. But that doesn't make it right. I don't know, it's a hard one. If they were otherwise good parents perhaps you can try and forgive and forget.

They're still not good parents.

Exactly, where is the line drawn?

Is a woman who is a victim of DV meant to excuse the odd beating because he’s otherwise a good man?

A general trend of this thread is that the occasional physical abuse and making someone live in terror doesn’t really matter if they were otherwise good people. Whatever that means.

When it comes to someone’s willingness to harm another person, just because someone may be “good” 95% of the time, that doesn’t mean the other 5% doesn’t matter.

The fact that the perpetrators being discussed on this thread are adults who are happy to physically harm their children just makes it even worse.

Completely agree with you and I think some of the "forget it, it was normal" comments are why the OP hasn't returned.

I agree. She came on to be understood and was shut down.

I really hope that even if she isn’t responding, that she’s still reading and she can see that she has the sympathy and understanding of many of us, and that we understand why she feels the way she does.

I’ve been here OP and counselling massively helped me come to terms with my childhood and my feelings towards my mum and it also helped me unpick how I wanted to move forwards. Please consider seeking professional support and guidance if it is an option for you.

I hope so too.

Some of the comments were dreadful.

All of those actions were rife in the 80s. I was born in the 70s and even remember the school hitting my relatives.

😱

Reading your post i had most if not all of your 'incidents' throughout my childhood. So did my 2 brothers. We were a family of 5. Me and my brothers were always getting into trouble of some kind.

TBH if we were brought up by 80% of the people on this site we would have either been tagged as ADHD/SEN or we would have been farmed off to social services.

My DF was a strong man. He took zero shit and he parented like that. We always feared the phrase 'wait until your dad gets home' from DM. He never once backed away from disciplining us (Including a belt or slipper). If we deserved it, we got it. Not once have i ever deemed it as physical abuse. It was parenting in the 70/80's.

On the other hand, i had a DF who was out with me and my brothers from the minute he got home from work until dark playing games with us. He spent weekends taking us all over for our sports. He was about as hands on as a parent could be.

I would rather my upbringing 100x over compared to most of the kids these days who have a ipad shoved in front of them or told to go and play in the garden by supposed parents. My older brother has gone down the no smacking route with his children over the last 30 years. The grief he has had with them.......

Two incidents remain in my memory.

Laughing at my mum when she was telling me off and my dad walked into the room. I never did that again.

Refusing to eat my mums pasta for dinner. I sat for hours with that cold pasta in front of me until i went to bed hungry. It was reheated and served up for breakfast too until i ate it. I always finish everything on my plate regardless. I cannot bare to leave food on a plate now.

On the other hand, i had a DF who was out with me and my brothers from the minute he got home from work until dark playing games with us. He spent weekends taking us all over for our sports. He was about as hands on as a parent could be.

Or belt and slipper on, if he was abusing you, which he was. I guess he took you to stately homes?

People often excuse abuse by saying "but look at all these totally normal parenting things they did" as if a) you get merit marks for doing what you're supposed to do as a parent and b) enough of these merit marks makes a beating OK. You're supposed to look after and spend time with your kids, it doesn't make you an incredible person to fulfil your responsibilities. And it sure as fuck doesn't mean it's ok to hit them with a fucking belt.

I was born in 1977 and no one was ever hit by someone in authority at my primary school. I wonder whether it was a regional thing

WTF are you harping on about. I got the belt once for playing with matches with my brother and setting fire to a small woodland which needed fire engines and police. It was an accident but I fully deserved to be disciplined. I never once played with matches again.

There was the time i destroyed an adult tree by stripping all the bark off it from ground level to about 6 foot up.

I probably smashed a dozen of my neighbours windows over the years.

This is just me. My brothers were equally capable of similar.

You can call it what you like but i have only happy memories of parents who took parenting seriously. I would take them every day over pissy parents who let their kids get away with everything and their kids are now ferral.

If you're going to weigh in to berate me, then you need to read all the commentary and what I was actually referring to.

WTF are you harping on about.

Child abuse. If you didn't know that playing with matches was dangerous then your parents failed to teach you that before you got your hands on them and also failed to keep them out of your reach until you were old enough and smart enough to know. Even if you were old enough both to know and to take them from wherever you found them, a beating with a belt is a lazy, shitty, authoritatian and abusive way to communicate danger to a child.

The fact that your father carried out some of his duties as a parent - like he was supposed to do, no special praise deserved - doesn't mitigate doing something that's so shitty no matter what time you're living in.

People who need to justify hitting and beating always try to make out that there's no other way to avoid raising terribly ill mannered and feral children, and yet the threat of the belt didn't stop you setting fire to stuff initially. It's also just proof that they haven't followed any of the research carried out in the past few decades. If you really do think small children should still get belted, I advise you to keep it to yourself. You're objectively wrong and will at best merely embarrass yourself and at worst embolden some fucking sadist.

The school I was referring to was in York, we were there 1975-77. My DB and I were smacked a lot there. We moved to a different area after that, where I don’t recall any physical punishment taking place. Although they did have a cane.

The legality i was referring to was hearing what i heard. Not the action. I had no control over either.

Me too. Our teacher used sellotape as a gag to shut the mouth of one of the girls in school, because not oonky did she never stop talking, she was really loud, her voice carried far and wide.
Another kid wouldnt stop picking his nose. His hands were taped together.
My mum didnt hit us, I do not recall ever being hit, but we were threatened with it on the odd occasion.
I do remember her hitting my sister who was in the throes of a huge tantrum. I also remember asking them both afterwards if they were OK. I also remember my mum apologising.
It was just the way it was.
I do not, and will not ever agree that holding people responsible for past normalities using today's normalities.
On saying that, teachers using cruel and extreme ways against kids should never have been normal, and you will all be pleased to know, we all heard that she got fired. We were k7ds listening to playground gossip, so ive no idea if that was true.