Did all parents hit their kids in the 1970s?

[Polythene]

I often hear that this was the norm. But was it, really?

Yes, normal in the 1980s in my social circles. I also remember going to work as an au pair in France in 1990 and being instructed to smack the kids if they didn’t behave. They were 5 and 8. It seemed entirely normal to me.

Mine did - frequently. That’s why I won’t be doing any ‘caring’ for them.

I’m pretty sure SCHOOLS still hit kids in the 70s, never mind parents.

I was born in the early sixties, had liberal educated middle class parents and was smacked by my mother. My father never hit us. It was the norm. I thought it was normal parenting and to my shame did smack my first child lightly on the bottom through a nappy twice when she was 2, I can remember doing it. By the time my second was born 3 years later I had realised it was not a thing one should do so he never got smacked.

In my primary school any naughty boys got caned by the headmaster but girls didn't. In our daily assemblies if a boy had been sufficiently badly behaved( no girls ever were) they were called out to the front and made to publicly say what they had done whilst a teacher twisted their ear. My class teacher who was a woman around 50 threw her hard wooden blackboard rubber at misbehaving or stupid pupils who couldn't answer the questions.
If any older primary pupils heard younger ones swear they were allowed to wash their mouths out with soap.

I was a well behaved clever child so never had any of this and loved my primary school days.

Mine did. I suspect most did. And it was never OK.

Those who say it 'never did them any harm' imo are demonstrating that it normalised violence against children for them. And yes, so-called smacking is violence, I say so-called because I believe having a different word for the act of hitting children is an attempt to downplay/normalise it. I firmly believe it's part of the problem.

Yes, loads of times, mum and dad

I used to get a smack every now and then, it didn't do me any harm at all and probably made me better behaved in the long run.

Yes my parents did. It did do me harm, and I suspect many of my self destructive behaviours were worse for the abuse.

You missed out,it was great fun with a bottle of lemonade and a packet of cheese and onion crisps 🤣

Not my parents.
I was at school in S.A
Slipper,cane... And the most awful was a Knobkerrie.
For some reason it had to be wet!

Grew up in 70s Smacked with a belt a couple of times, slapped around face, heads banged together with sibling, if we both misbehaved, slippers used, smacked on backside, punched really hard in head once. All for the smallest of misdemeanours, making too much noise, pulling a face, eye roll, anything perceived as answering back. I thought it was normal growing up. Parents have tried to justify since, as the norms at the time and that everyone did it. But reading these shows that not all parents did this.

My mother carried around kitchen implements to hit us with, a favourite being a large spoon that my brother got off her in the car and chucked it out of the window (verge side) on the motorway 🙌

I was hit and i was born in the late 80s. My mum born in 1965 said it was common and the teachers used to throw or whack you with the chalk board eraser

Born in '72, yes we were smacked by our Mother, her hand on your bottom or the back of your legs (over clothes), but only when you'd done something really stupid/dangerous/naughty - or decided you were clever enough to give her a mouthful of cheek. Only once by my Father, it didn't really hurt but I was devastated! I don't know anyone my age who wasn't smacked. Corporal punishment was used in schools regularly as well. My parents usually tried to explain though, or sent us to our rooms, smacking was a punishment of last resort. They never left us sitting outside a pub!! I do not feel that we were abused, I am very close to my Mum, my Dad was my hero. They have loved and supported all of us all our lives.

Born in 60s. My father would've but he buggered off and my mother didn't.

Yep.. Mum was pretty free with her spankings. I think all of us were spanked although I bore the brunt of it. Dad never hit the younger two but liked to give me a good slap round the face if he felt I’d stepped out of line.
Funnily enough we were talking recently and he was telling me about some child of his acquaintance misbehaving. Purely to see his reaction I said I’d have given it a clip round the ear. He looked horrified!

My mum would get hit with the slipper on the bottom if she misbehaved. She said it didn't hurt very much & she was never hit in anger, it was a controlled punishment. She didn't do it herself but doesn't see it as wrong in the context of the 70s

What you describe sounds like it went beyond what was generally condoned then anyway. Punching in head & for tiny misdemeanours sounds abusive 🫂

I read in the 2014 Pamela Druckerman book French Children Don't Throw Food that spanking/smacking was still being done in Paris when she was there. Unsure how accurate that is, though.

My mother can also remember the maths teacher at her GDST school throwing chalk!

Throw them across the room? That sounds like something out of Roald Dahl! 😱

That sounds like terrible abuse : the 70s was wrong to allow slapping but I don't think level this was standard 🫂

Born in 1975 and I wasn't regularly hit, no. I was probably smacked twice in my whole childhood. But I did see kids being hit with a slipper at school, just before it was banned, and occasionally other kids being slapped in public by a parent.

Yes, my mother did slap me once when I behaved really badly and I was so upset. It felt violating. I think because she had been slapped as a child and didn't feel that way about other herself...but when she saw how much it upset me, she didn't do it again.

I was born in the late 60s. I think everyone I knew from school was smacked occasionally. I reckon probably half were hit with implements like a belt.

At primary school teachers would slap you across the legs and the cane was also used. One of my friends was educated by nuns and they used to hit them across the knuckles with a steel edged ruler for getting maths sums wrong!! In high school (1980-85) they only caned the boys. I think it was outlawed altogether in Australian schools in the mid 80s.

I will never forget in late primary school a girl was in the principal’s office and he got the cane out. She ran away to her house a couple of blocks away. While we were in assembly her mum came storming into school and shouted at the principal in front of the whole school that if he ever laid a hand on her daughter she’d whack him and see how he liked it haha.

Some of my friends had kids in the late 90s and were smacking them - especially the dads. I was pretty surprised that well educated intelligent people were still doing that. We never hit our kids and they’ve always been very well behaved and respectful.