Did all parents hit their kids in the 1970s?

[Polythene]

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

Yes me and brothers and my husband, cousins all smacked. All born 70s. All normal well adjusted adults. It worked and we definitely toed the line (for a while anyway)

On another note I do have a recollection of my best mate in about 1991 showing me bruises on her shoulders where her mum had pinch gripped her and thinking thank god I only got a smack on the arse with a red outline. Don't remember it ever happening to me after about year 6.

Wow, I definitely don’t think this was allowed or seen as acceptable in the 90s.

Yes me and my husband both born in the 70s were smacked.

The two prong was bloody agony.

Definitely smacked, though very very rarely and I think for good reason, and always after several warnings. My brother got the slipper at school a couple of times. Heavy wooden blackboard rubbers were frequently thrown across the room in class at secondary school. Misbehaviour wasn’t tolerated at all.
I've never forgotten seeing an infant head (ks1 these days) line up a small group of perhaps 6 children and then walked along the line asking each ‘how did you get the cuts?’
As each refused to answer, she walloped them on the bottom, and moved onto the next. I was appalled.
They’d been coming in with tiny cuts all during break and each wanted a plaster. They refused to say how they got the cuts.
Turned out one had climbed along the bath at home, reached up to the top of their bathroom cabinet and got down their dads razor blades ( the old styled Wilkinson Sword ones, thin, with a blade each side, very dangerous) and had been using these to have mock sword fights in the playground at break. The mind boggles at the damage they could have caused.
I couldn’t believe such tiny, Reception, children could lie like that to the head teacher. But they could!

Butter wouldn’t melt.

I don’t know any of my peers who weren’t smacked, it was definitely normal. Remember, corporal punishment wasn’t banned in schools until the year I left in the mid 80s.

Most were lucky and only got smacked with hands, some of us were regularly injured with belts, shoes, wooden spoons… my parents actually had a special stick and it was all perfectly acceptable….

Yes, as far as as I know. It was normal for me and everyone I knew.

I think children are actually able to contextualise better than we think they can.

I suppose what you absorbed was that it was their way of doing what they felt was correct disciplining in the context of that era.

I'm still not sure I agree with it, couldn't do it to mine - but then I am sure we are all doing things subsequent generations will be aghast about. Probably that we are letting them indulge too much in things as MH issues.

As far as I could tell, nobody else was hit - they always seemed shocked when I said it and I'm pretty sure some of them told their parents it was happening to me. Until their reporting it meant I got it five times worse and told how stupid the parents were.

I was born in 1996, I got the odd clip round the ear by my dad in the 00s for what were fairly minor misdemours. Most of the time it was when he was in a bad mood.

Of course it never happened when my mum was around, and today my mum still does not know about this physical punishment (he died when I was 13) because I am too scared to affect her memory of him as they were happily married.

Great dad but I still struggle to reconcile why he thought physical punishment was acceptable in the 21st Century.

I recall being in infant school andy class teacher shaking me. I recall the grip on my shoulders hurt. Can't recall what I had done.
Cain was a thing at school. Board rubber and chalk being thrown were normal everyday classroom occurrences.
I was left in the car with a packet of salt n shake crisps and a bottle of Coca-Cola whilst my parents went nine the pub. It felt like a treat.

I also recall very rarely going to pubs with Children's rooms. It was absolute chaos and although I always hoped to go to a Children's room, i found it quite overwhelming and initimidating.Think loads of kids high on full sugar cola left to go wild in a room with no supervision...it was bonkers!!

Different times but yes, by my mum I was slapped, legs or face, hand or slipper. I didn’t know of anyone who wasn’t slapped at home. It was normal back then. As others have said, common at school too, as was getting the belt. Thankfully I never had the belt at school but remember getting a really hard shove in the back from deputy headmistress at primary school. She came walking down the corridor and I was in her way so she forcibly pushed me out of her way. I was 6 years old. Unbelievable really when you think about it.

I was a 60s and early 70s kid. And smacking was absolutely normal. At school it was either the slipper or the cane, almost always carried out in the head's office. But one day my maths teacher slippered one of my classmates in front of us, which I was really shocked by. Usually the only 'in class' physical punishment was the ruler across the hand.

My late husband was there only person I know who was never slapped by his parents. His dad was Polish and was horrified even by the idea.

I was smacked by parents and twice got the belt when I was 8 years old by the same teacher. Didn’t do me any harm!

I was a 60s/70s child and me and my brother both got smacked by dad. It was infrequent, it was never hard and it didn't hurt, but we knew if we landed a smack then we'd pushed too far. I loved my dad (gone now), and didn't resent him for it. I knew my dad loved me.

When I see some of today's youngsters running riot while the parent tries to 'gentle parent' them, I sigh inwardly. I'm sure some kids respond well to it, but others...

I was smacked - not often, but enough to make me scared, usually on my bottom/thighs. The last time was the summer I turned 7, I was slapped on my wrist. I look at my seven year old daughter and wonder how this could be the oldest I would have been to be hit.

Yes!! A 4 pronged one no less!

I was born in the 60’s and never smacked by my mum and maybe once that i can remember by my dad. I just got a look and that was enough. My cousins were smacked though, as were my friends. In school it was the slipper in primary school and the cane in senior school. Watching the same boys (aged around 8) being slippered, bent over the teachers desk until they cried traumatised me enough.

I grew up in the 80’s and I think was still common then - I definitely remember running away from my dad, although he was more of a threatener of smacks than an actual smacking parent (although he did other things like drag us up the stairs, throw things and shouted a LOT). My uncle used to openly threaten to ‘wallop’ my cousins often and they were definitely smacked by both parents. I had my dc in the 00’s and still witnessed smacking - the premeditated sort where a very controlled ‘tap’ was given - I found it quite chilling. And my sil quite cheerfully announcing giving her dd a ‘hard smack’ for taking the soil out of a pot plant. We have never smacked our dc.

This is wild - “carry on caning” 😳

news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_2516000/2516621.stm

I was smacked by my school headmistress in primary school when I was about 7 years old. So early 80s in Scotland.

My nan and grandad didn’t they didn’t believe in it, I think because of how often my grandad got smacked as a child and he’s too gentle natured. My mums cousins on the other hand regularly got smacked.

The few slaps I did receive, were nothing when compared to the explosive verbal abuse I used to get, in some ways it has helped in my job, I don't react emotionally to abuse because its rarely at the level I received as a child and I know it will pass if I wait it out, standing quietly thinking ' Amatuer ' !

Hi @Calliopespa
yes I think you are right.