Did all parents hit their kids in the 1970s?

[Polythene]

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

Norm in my family - when I told my mother I would not be doing it she said my kids would be ruined. Her mindset caught up though and was quite horrified if she heard of someone doing it since then whilst conveniently forgetting her own actions

But presumably you don't think the reason you turned out polite and respectful is because you were hit?

Yup. Born ‘76. We got smacked with hands and slippers. One time my dad whacked my sister with a carpet tile he was laying down, it left a triangle mark on her legs for a couple of days.

One teacher used to throw a squash ball at kids in class in secondary school, but he was the only one, the others just used to yell a lot.

mum said a couple of years ago that she couldn’t believe she smacked us and felt guilty. Think watching my sister and I raise our kids without smacking made her realise how unnecessary it was, but it was the norm back then.

Born in 1970. Smacked as a child. But never 'hit' or 'thrashed'. Never did me any harm. You learned respect and discipline.

We had corporal punishment at Junior school. Our headmaster would cane or slipper people. I was never naughty enough to be on the receiving end but used to live in fear of what it would be like to be caned. It kept me in line

I just feel that we'd have a different type of society now with respectful children growing into adults if it hadn't been banned from schools. On the other hand the threat if physical violence isn't good. But for a lot of kids growing up, threat was all that was needed to make you behave.

We were slapped, smacked and threatened. I remember hiding in a cupboard with my brother and sister to avoid my dad when he was in a rage.

Teachers regularly hit pupils, either casually or as a formal punishment with a cane. All allowed. Domestic violence wasn't taken seriously as a crime, either but considered a private matter.

I don't agree. As a child I would certainly not have preferred physical punishment to stuff like a naughty step.

Interesting- my mum's dad was Polish and the one who used the slipper (with her mum's agreement,). I'm not sure if Polish culture then was necessarily opposed to smacking. It might have been more an individual disagreement.

https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/artykul/3440536,onethird-of-poles-accept-the-use-of-physical-punishment-for-disciplining-children

Otoh Poland did progressively ban school corporal punishment in 1783. And the famous child educator Janusz Korczak wrote in 1929 A Child's Right to Respect : "In what extraordinary circumstances would one dare to push, hit or tug an adult? And yet it is considered so routine and harmless to give a child a tap or stinging smack or to grab him by the arm".

Regular occurrence in my house. Always my mum, not my dad. Slapped but sometimes she lost it completely and hit me around the head repeatedly. Remember significant bruising on my arms but no-one ever noticed or at least said anything. She did apologise later in life but I still judge her.

Nor can I, so dangerous!

Can I ask where you did grow up? I get if rather not say.

Yes. We were hit with hands, leather belts and also a large wooden spoon that was kept for that purpose. All very normal for the time.

Not in my childhood. My parents used to talk about the corporal punishment they’d received at school (in the 50s), it enraged my Dad that adults could get away with this treatment of kids, so I guess that shaped his views.

I was one of those girls (I hated school dinners and was made to eat everything on my plate otherwise I would get the cane

I got the cane.across my hand

I remember a school dinners lady laughing at me for my dislike of mushy peas and saying that when I grew up I would love them and think how silly I was for refusing.

Don’t know if this insistence I eat everything was the start of my eating habits

Still hate mushy peas, meat, potatoes, and Christmas pudding. Been vegetarian for 40 years

My mum was very handy with slaps, the odd punch and push. She also threw a teapot (tea was lukewarm) at me and pushed me into her china cabinet. This was how she was brought up and she thought it was the norm. My dad also had a violent drunken dad but in contrast, he never laid a finger on me but I was more scared of him funnily enough because h had a sharp tongue . Both are good people and have been supportive of me. We’re a close family. However, when my son was born in 2007 I was clear that any of that would not be tolerated and they were very different with him. At school, teachers would slap, push and pinch. Girls weren’t formally caned or slippered like boys but subject to random violence. My chemistry teacher whacked me hard, several times down the centre of my head with a metre ruler. This was because I talked in class and it didn’t stop me. It really hurt though! He was from the Isle of Mann where birching was still legal for adults. Some of the more right on teachers didn’t hit you and belonged to a pressure group called STOP and wore badges so you knew who the ones were who didn’t hit. Both my husband and I were teachers, it was outlawed by time I arrived in classroom but my husband was given a cane and a box of chalk by the LA when he qualified in the 70s . I was born in 1965 and left school in 1982. That all said, growing up in a working class family in the 1970s was brilliant, we had a good laugh and no one had mental health issues or was neurodivergent - well, actually, I was dyslexic but at the time it was called “thick”!

Yep, for both me and DH even though we grew up in different countries/continents.
my mum would do the whole “wait ‘til your father gets home” thing. My dad later told me how he hated getting home from work in a good mood only not have my mum tell him what I’d done and that he’d have to give me good hiding. Why he went along with it, I’ll never know.
Middle school we got the slipper and high school was the cane. Always administered by the headmaster/deputy head.

Catholic primary school - solid ruler across the knuckles for some perceived insubordination, leather belt on the legs (eg for skipping along the corridors, as 6 year olds are wont to to) The belt was part of the nuns' apparel. Thankfully made me an optimistic atheist.
Grammar school - a whack upside the head for an overheard comment, blackboard duster thrown with accuracy across the room.
Never hit at home,

Born 1964. Never hit by my parents. No corporal punishment in school either. It was a private girls school. Good behaviour and courtesy were expected at all times. If you fell short, after a meeting with the head mistress, your parents would be advised. After this, you either behaved, or were excluded/expelled. There were no in between measures.

Yes, fairly frequently, with a plastic spoon usually. Boys had the strap in high school, were kicked off classroom stools, students slapped across the face by teachers, knuckles to the head in primary…

Early 2000s my cousin's were smacked with a belt I remember it was horrible I think he was 9 or 10 only because he didn't hoover he's now 30s and don't talk to he's parents now

I think most kids got smacked / caned etc, both at home and at school, for most of recorded human history up to about 1990 or something. It's the parents / teachers of today who are the odd ones out here.

Did you tell your Brother?

I would go MENTAL if my parents had ever smacked my children... But they also knew my thoughts on it by then (many a discussion had been had where I said it's a form of abuse and they said a "good smack is fine"..)

Most kids I knew were hit by their parents. I was threatened with a "hot bottom" and the threat was often carried through. I remember being about 10, being put over my father's knee and my arse smacked so hard I almost couldn't sit down again.

We would get a slap round the head too.

I was by no means a naughty child.

I remember the saying
spare the rod, spoil the child, was on the wall of the head’s office.

I do agree with you that young people seem to have lost respect for their elders to a large extent, and I do think that is a problem.

However, I am not quite sure I can make the leap to feeling it was the smacking (or worse) that generated respect.

Something is missing in today's youth, but I think it is something else.

To me it is most acute in those born in the 90's and early 2000s. I do often wonder what it was, and feel surely they should be MORE respectful, if anything, as that was kind of when attitudes to children were changing.

Maybe there was a blip when the parents who might otherwise have relied on that kind of discipline just felt generally uncertain in the wake of corporal punishment etc going out the window, and they had still not fully honed other forms of discipline. But I think going back to physical punishment is definitely not the way forward, even if some buttressing of "gentle parenting" is needed.

I was born in the late 60s. I was a pretty amenable child and faintly remember being smacked a couple of times. Mum made threats pretty often though for crimes such as ‘showing off’ or interrupting. I remember boys being hit with a slipper at school - the class had to watch. And board runners being thrown around. I was once hit on the head with a pile of books for talking. I saw stars.