Did all parents hit their kids in the 1970s?

[Polythene]

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

What? Yes they were. Not county lines because that’s a new phenomenon dependent on mobile phones, but they were certainly involved in gangs, knife crime, drugs and drug dealing.

To be fair to my Mum, she stopped hitting me when i was about 8 after she had hit me so hard it left a bruise. That was the 80s.

My dad hit me (Inc slaps to the face right up into my late teens) in the 90s.

It was normal for me. I thought it was normal for everyone, but it looks so fucked up now write it down

So you think corporal punishment is a good way to install discipline?

😱OMG, that terrifying!
OMy dad would threaten us with the belt as well but never actually used it, but we would get an occasional slap from mum (not often). I remember once her running up the stairs after me to slap me but I'd got old enough to outrun her and managed to lock myself in the bathroom until she'd calmed down 🙈😂
She never slapped me after that.
Whilst I've never slapped my kids, I never doubted my mum loved me....it was just more acceptable at the time and we laugh about that incident now (me running up the stairs 2 at a time and her not being able to catch me).

A school friend was nearly blinded by his dad after being beaten with a belt and the buckle caught his eye.

SS involved but nothing happened.

Awful times. Kids were hit in school too.
I considered myself lucky that we were just slapped at home, not thrashed with a belt.
I wouldn't want to return to those times.
Stray dogs just wandering around and unwanted cats/kittens just drowned on the canal.

I have extended family members who was hit with wire coat hangers. They all, have nothing but praise for their parents. I still don’t think the discipline did me much harm, as it was a couple of slaps. But the beatings some friends and family received were on another level.

@Carla786 i imagine for some cultures, our way is not the right way, in the same way, we don’t think theirs is the right way.

My friend (born in 71) said a teacher in her prep school used wire coat hangers to hit children. It was the slipper at my junior school.

Yes.
I mean 'hit' is a harsh word, but i don't think i knew of anyone at school that hadn't been smacked at some point in their life! (Me included, but only twice that i can remember, and both times well deserved! )

Slipper and chalk eraser thrown at my school.

I understand why posters on here don’t like the word ‘smack’, as they see it as minimising abuse. But there has always been an important legal distinction; a smack is done with an open hand and doesn’t leave a bruise (though it can be flipping painful if done hard), whereas a ‘hit’ tends to means to use a fist, as in a ‘punch’It has always been illegal for a parent to do this, whereas a smack is still legal in England and Northern Ireland.

Once it becomes illegal to smack children, which I believe will happen eventually, then the distinction will cease to be thing at all.

Singapore still canes male students in school. Compare Singapore's educational attainment and behaviour in school to ours.

I think it was very normal for children to be smacked. You’d see it outside the home too. Too much crying or “misbehaving” and there’d be a swift smack to the top of the legs.

At home we were smacked and occasionally a slipper would come out. However the physical punishment came from my mum who we all loved. My dad didn’t smack but had a terrifying temper and moods that were really frightening. With my mum you kind of knew it was coming, and we had probably been pushing our luck, so she did it and it was over.

I think worse was corporal punishment in schools. Only happened once but I still remember it. I was sent to the Head and had the back of my hand slapped with a ruler for laughing in Assembly. It was infants’ schools and I was only about 5 or 6. Looking back it was probably only a tap. But still I was terrified.

Many smacked, as a last resort. . No more parents thrashed or abused than now. There’s an ocean of difference between the two.

Yes, some cultures may certainly think our way is not the right way. That doesn't mean it's just a case of different strokes for different folks, of course : such an excuse has been used to justify clearly wrong things like forced marriage & lack of education of girls.

I was smacked a lot in school; there was one teacher in particular (year 2 in today's terms) who used to smack the kids regularly, it definitely wasn't a case of me being targeted. She had unrealistic expectations of behaviour; she seemed to think we were all 7 year olds whereas I'd only just turned 6 when I started the year.

I was used to being smacked so I can't say I was particularly scared. But looking back, it’s shocking to think about, that there was so much corporal punishment of very young children.

@LizzieW1969

i probably wasn’t so much scared at the physical side more that my parents might find out I’d been in trouble at school also it was being picked out of Assembly and being sent to the Head. I don’t think I even knew who the Head was! It’s quite weird now to think a Head teacher was allowed to physically punish your 6 year old even if it was just a tap with a ruler. And for the crime of laughing in Assembly. It wasn’t even a lesson!

Do you think it’s ok for a man to smack his wife as a last resort?

I think it was a relatively common, favoured actually, form of discipline until mid/late 80's.

In the 80's, my Mum would clip my ear or the back of my legs. My Dad never once lifted his hands, he never as much as raised his voice, and I was always taken aback by friends with hitty/shouty Dads (as a child, you assume all the Dads will just be like yours).

My Mum 'hitting us a stoat' as it was known in Scotland never bothered me, but my older sister still talks about being hit as a child and how awful it was. Being kind, it probably did bother the more sensitive kids, that said though my sister is a complete drama queen about everything!

It was common but my parents never smacked me. My mum was very clever and if I misbehaved gave a very small punishment (like no tv that evening) but she always stuck to it. Neither parent ever lost their temper or shouted. I was only child and well behaved so it was a very calm household.

In South America, but in a community of people who came from Northern Europe and have maintained a traditional life.

I'm against smacking, but this argument, which is often used, really doesn't work. You can’t really company a parent-child relationship with that of husband-wife. No, it obviously wouldn't be acceptable for a husband to hit his wife as a ‘last resort’. But then, it also wouldn't be acceptable for him to remove her devices as a consequence, or deprive her of pocket money/send her to her room. All these things would be rightly considered to be domestic abuse.

When a male relative of mine was at school. Prefects you to slipper people.
The boy with the iron arse comes to mind.

I was born in 66.

we were occasionally hit, but less than our peers. My parents didn’t really like the idea (my dad especially was often physically abused by his parents) and tried to work out alternative strategies. My mum learned her parenting techniques from Dr Spock who even back then encouraged better ways to discipline children.

I can only remember it happening a few times and I don’t think my sister who’s 3 years younger (and who was often a little sod when she was a kid!) can remember it at all as I think by then they’d learnt better ways.

I do remember being hit at school. I was hit by the head teacher in juniors for the crime of hanging out in the toilets during a cold playtime. (And she was a nun.) I was watching some early reruns of Brookside recently and Damon Grant was being caned by the head….apparently it was only outlawed in state schools in the early 80s.

I’ve not got kids, I doubt very much if I’d hit any kids I did. I do think there’s a difference to giving a rare, light slap if a kid was about to run out in the road or something (it may be instinct in that scenario) to routinely abuse your kids.

Fair enough. Thanks btw as you’ve made me think about my post in a wider context.