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

On the other side of the coin, you were polite, well behaved and did well at school. They must have been doing something right,?

A light smack, yes - normal.

This is not what the OP is describing.

Was it common?

Definitely depends on location, social class, income.

Corporal punishment for upper classes (gentry) and also lower-education in 80s absolutely. Liberal middle classes no.

Was it right? No.

What do you want out of your parents? If you want an apology from them you probably won’t get it. You want to go no contact? You can. Would it make you happy? Depends on your relationship otherwise. If they’re horrible maybe it would.

Totally common or garden parenting for anyone pre-90s I think. It doesn’t make it right and I do think it’s abuse, nevertheless what will you achieve by going NC with your parents? Will they acknowledge that they did something which lives with you even now, when they were simply doing something that was expected of them. Know better do better. Maybe an apology would go a long way. I got one from my similarly parenting Dad. It meant a lot to me.

I am polite, well behaved and did well in school. So are/ did my kids. With no smacking or starving or washing mouth out with soap. We do have very high expectations.

The storing up of the smacks is just so sadistic. I could forgive occasional smacking in anger.

My Dad did smack me now and then, but certainly not that often. I never got sent to bed without dinner and never had my mouth washed out with soap! That's awful OP. I knew my parents loved me. I remember my dad comforting me when the class bully was mean to me and I was crying about it at bedtime, and he used to wake me up early when he was getting ready for work so I could have the cream off the top of the milk as he thought I'd like it in my porridge. The smacking was of it's time I guess but balanced out with nice things. Actually I've remembered a few other unpleasant things as well now which were quite horrible, but he actually is a nice man who lost his shit from time to time.

No it’s not normal and is abusive my mum was fond of giving my brother a good beating generally when he had done nothing wrong and she used to lie to others to justify her behaviour I think she got pleasure out of doing it and being mean to her children in general

Everything you have mentioned except the soap was common where I lived and was the accepted norm. However my Dad actively cringed when he had to slap my thigh, there was no joy on either part. It was a sharp stinging slap that left no damage. Mum would slap my bum. I was occasionally sent to bed without tea. But then when I refused to eat the meal in front of me (without good reason), I was also sent to bed and that exact food was served up for every following meal until I ate it. That was life in the 60's, 70's and early 80's. No-one batted an eyelid if a misbehaving child was slapped - it was just life.

At school, chalk board dusters were thrown at kids chatting, knuckles were rapped with rulers and if you were sent to the Headmasters office for bad behaviour, you may get the cane on your hands or backside.

My Dad discovered I had stolen a packet of his cigs (I was 7), I wasn't smoking them, I was peeling the paper off and starting a little fire with it but he wouldn't believe me. Stealing is stealing. Both my parents were chain smokers and I hated smokers. He locked me in the empty greenhouse and refused to let me out until I had smoked all the cigs in the packet. I have never touched once since and so I can honestly say I gave up smoking at 7.

That would be classed as child abuse now but at the time that was parenting.

However, this isn't something that should be sadistic, belittling or controlling.. Only you know if that line was crossed. And if the truth is being told, the reason the laws changed in the mid 80's was to enable the police to take action against sadistic parents who went too far.

All these people siding with with the parents because you turned out polite and well behaved 🙄
Yes OP it absolutely does sound abusive. No child should be living their every moment in fear of how many smacks they will be given that night (for what sounds like very minor things.)
You are entirely within your rights to feel how you feel and cut your parents off. Their behaviour sounds cruel and calculated. Sending hugs 🩷

Posters need to read the OP properly. In the 70's and 80's a light smack was quite normal (at home and in school).

However this is not what the OP describes:

'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.'

This is beyond the kind of smack that was acceptable in the 80's.

I know what OP is describing and yes, for many families, that kind of thing was still normal in the eighties. I was never treated that way but know of people who were, even in the late eighties and early nineties.

You seem very keen to dismiss people's experiences because they don't align with your own view - it's odd.

At least do OP the courtesy of reading all her posts. She has answered your questions.

My DM used to take me by the scruff of the neck and rub my nose in the bed sheets when I wet the bed....I was 3 years old.
I'm NC.
She would be horrified to see how much I have "spoiled" my now adult DC, all of whom I'm very close to.

The arrangement to smack is unusual and pretty much everyone has been unanimous about that. But smacking, was usual. I'm not sure about all this light tap business, they weren't swating hands away from biscuits?

This is all true OP
But but unless you think your parents still do this to children, I don't know what benefit there is to 'calling them out '
If you don't want to see them for whatever reason that's fine. Just own it and do it.

I didn't get smacked but I can tell you I'd have preferred that to sitting at the dinner table for 3+ hours every night until I had finished my dinner. I'd also have preferred being sent to my room starving. Having said that, I don't resent my parents for it. I know they were trying to do what they thought was best.

I think my parents used violence as a threat but rarely carried through.
My dad would count to three with presumably 3 being a smack but he’d rarely get past one because it did what was intended and stopped the unwanted behaviour in its tracks.

I remember being sent to my room a few times but it was never locked just a request until further notice.
I think having strict parents did me the world of good as I was a little devil.
My own daughter is also a little devil but was not brought up this way and still is a little devil.

I can relate to a lot of the things you describe, OP. I think I am slightly older than you, but not significantly. I wasn't a naughty kid, and I always knew these punishments were more about the mood my dad was in than proportionate chastisement for things we'd done. Our mum only issued ad hoc slaps in the heat of the moment.
It wasn't uncommon, but I don't think it happened to everyone. DH and I have never laid a hand on our own DC, as is the norm for our generation of parents. I don't think our kids would acknowledge that as anything out of the ordinary.

If your parents aren’t kind and you don’t want a relationship with them you don’t have to have one. It doesn’t really matter whether it was normal or acceptable at the time.

Stating that something was not the 'norm' is not dismissing people's experiences.

To all the people who think this was normal in the 80s, I have to tell you it wasn't, and this sounds very harsh to me.

My kids were born in 83 and 86, yes smacking was more common than now, but I never arranged punishment for a later time, that is emotional abuse bordering on torture IMO. I never ever used food deprivation as a punishment, and I don't know anyone who did either of those things to their children.

I never said wait till your father gets home, that's just another way of emotionally abusing your child, and ruining their relationship with the other parent as a bonus. If I needed to be the bad guy, and sanction a child, I did it when it needed doing.

I would not wash my children's mouths out with anything, and I only heard of one mother doing that to her son on one occasion. And it was generally condemned in the school gate gossip as abusive at the time.

I must admit, my MIL thought I was incredibly soft on my kids, and spoilt them, but they were generally very well behaved.

There is some serious myopia and revisionism going on here around the word normal on this thread.

I was born in 73. Me and my brothers shared a room at one point and my brother would get 3 smacks with the slipper, I would get 2 and my younger brother 1. We would all cry but then my brothers used to giggle when they shut the door. I was still crying 😢 😂

My Nan used to say “children should be seen and not heard”

My Geography teacher threw things at me on occasion. No big deal was made of it. The classroom used to laugh at him.

Husband had his mouth washed wi
with soap
We both got smacked
We both got sent to bed without dinner

Fairly standard consequences for kids in the 70s and 80s in working class backgrounds we grew up in. We both have decent relationships with parents. We felt loved there was just firm consequences for not behaving

Dear Welshmum, I want to start by sending lots of love and healing your way 💐. This is something that’s been bothering me recently and this morning I found a lot more support from ChatGPT than you’ve found here on this forum.
Please don’t let others minimise your pain-

Your trauma is real.
Your reactions are valid.
Your healing is legitimate.
Your perspective is grounded in lived reality — not imagination.

People who haven’t survived what you survived cannot know what it feels like.

I was brought up in India and had a traumatic childhood. My dad is a narcissist and continues to abuse my mum emotionally. This reopens past wounds and family don’t know how to react to this.

You can go NC but don’t expect them to understand why or ever acknowledge the wrong of what they did. You can also ask chat GPT to guide you on this.

The main thing is you need to heal. Therapy might help resolve some of the more difficult emotions. You might get to the point that you even learn how to forgive them and let go of the past. Right now you’re hurting so cant forgive or release.