For calling out my parents on abuse as a child

678 replies

Welshmum2010 · 09/12/2025 13:21

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

OP posts:

WestwardHo1 · 13/12/2025 13:27

Beenthroughit · 13/12/2025 10:58

Well, you're the one that sounds feral tbh.i would never have dreamed of setting fire to a woodland, killing a tree or smashing people's windows. Neither would my children have dreamed of doing anything like that. When my son was old enough to want to have campfires we taught him how to do it safely, so nothing was damaged. Going around smashing windows-that sounds like being a hooligan, if it was by accident playing cricket, and I admit that it could happen once, why on earth didn't your parents teach you not to play cricket or whatever near neighbours buildings, so you broke another 11! That sounds like you got away with it. An accident I can understand once, for anything, even adults have accidents, my son and friend damaged our neighbour's garage door, not stopping in time, it wasn't deliberate, the door was actually already badly damaged. They paid for the rivets to mend the new hole (which wasn't much, just a token really) and never did anything like that again, and never played near the door again. Many years down the line that mend is the strongest part of the garage door!

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You could argue very convincingly that all these physical punishments were clearly no deterrent at all if you kept vandalising things.

RawBloomers · 13/12/2025 16:02

Beenthroughit · 13/12/2025 11:16

Modern sensibilities? So a woman should be compelled to obey her husband, because you don't believe in modern sensibilities? So it's not right that we no longer stone adulterers, because of our modern sensibilities? Should we get the townsfolk to stone a disobedient son because not doing so is just modern sensibilities. When thank heavens for modern sensibilities
(if someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, * his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” *Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. )

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Don’t read what you want into my posts to use as a springboard for your grandstanding. I have not at any point endorsed the phrase you are so eager to reinterpret. I’m pointing out the moral bankruptcy of the church, not pushing for people to use them for guidance.

AnneLovesDiana · 13/12/2025 22:14

Tessasanderson · 12/12/2025 11:23

No, you keep using the word violence, i use the word discipline. Discipline can take many forms, just as violence can.

In the eating example i was not touched once. No slipper, no belt, nothing. It was made clear to me that i was wasting food and i would not be getting anything more until i ate it. That set a clear message of this situation PLUS it also gave me the realisation that if something was said, that would be the case.

So i realised that if my mum served me something for dinner, i ate it. Some things i didnt like but thats hardly child abuse. It gave me a real appreciation of what was on my plate and i have tried to pass that on to my own children.

Have i disciplined my children (Both adults now), yes. Have i ever used a belt or a slipper, no i havent but they have had a smacked bum in the past. I am extremely proud of the people they have become. They work hard, are intelligent and grounded. I would prefer this to the happy clappy brigade or the just plain lazy parents with their feral offspring who are all self diagnosing SEN issues because no one can now control their kids. I feel sorry for the people who genuinely do have SEN children because their fight is getting drowned by these lazy parents.

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It’s not a binary, hitting one’s kids vs being ‘happy clappy’ and imposing no discipline. A happy medium is perfectly possible. But it’s interesting that you seem to think your kids have turned out as admirable people because you hit them sometimes, rather than despite that fact. And imo it’s deeply ironic that you equate not hitting with lazy parenting.

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