Did all parents hit their kids in the 1970s?

[Polythene]

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

Born in 1972 and we were smacked as we’re all our friends from memory. Never by my dad as he was usually out working shifts but my mum was definitely a slapper - bottom or backs of the legs with hand, slipper or wooden spoon. Me and my brother only had 18 months between us and could be really naughty - gentle parenting would not have worked with us at all. My mum was a really lovely woman and it didn’t cause any lasting damage.
The nuns at primary school were handy with a 30cm wooden ruler, and the De La Salle brothers at secondary had a strap which they used - one long piece of leather split into two and rumoured to have lead in the ends.

Yep. Mum would grass me up to my Dad when he came in from work and then he would do it. So bizarre. It was awful and sometimes it was for things I’d done by accident.

Yes, totally normal in our house. My mum would hit us with a wooden spoon. My dad used his hands, but very hard.

I was hit by my Dad with a slipper, a cane, and his hand but never by my Mum. Though she talks about a time I had infected chicken pox and she couldn’t take me to the doctors because I had bruises on my backside and legs. He was violent towards her too.

It didn’t happen often, but he constantly threatened it. He once hit me because I’d left my shoes out on the floor in the hall, it was never for anything major. I was terrified of him, and grew up in fear of men. It’s not a surprise that my first husband was also an abusive bastard.

I have never smacked my (adult) DCs. I don’t hold with all this “It never did me any harm” bullshit. I can’t understand how a child can ever grow up feeling safe and trusting of a caregiver that can be violent towards them.

My mum never hit us. Her mum (my granny) never hit them. My granny had 5 kids in poverty in rural Ireland between 1941 and 1950. My mum had 4 kids between 1968 and 1978 in London in fairly comfortable circumstances (my mum and dad worked hard as immigrants).

In South America my in laws had 4 kids between 1980 and 2005 (teenage parents and then more kids in their 40s because they still hadn’t learned what contraception was). Hitting, violence, emotional abuse was the norm and still is.

at school 70’s and 80’s, slippers, ruler, neck squeezed hard from behind in a tech drawing class for no apparent reason.

the threat of being smacked, occasionally was, but the threat generally was enough to stop whatever it was we were doing. My DB def smacked a lot but he was often causing trouble.

Left in the car with cousins a couple of times with crisps and lemonade while the grown ups went in the pub .
They checked on us frequently. They very rarely went out so I have no resentment whatsoever, we were a nice family!

My mum chased me trying to smack me with a French dictionary ….. I do remember I was being particularly obnoxious mind. She didn’t catch me though, quick as a cat round that kitchen table.

I remember when I was about 12 a teacher throwing one if those at a naughty boy in the class and it hit him on the head and cut him. There was a lot of blood. I don’t know what the repercussions were.

I was born in 1967. My parents hit me. Random smacking and slapping, but also with a slipper. It would be a planned punishment and you'd be waiting all day for it. Horrible really and I still don't really understand how a parent could do that to a child. I'm both angry and disgusted but I also know that if I brought it up, they'd either deny it ever happened, or get very angry, or somehow blame me, as though I drove them to it.

I have never laid a finger on my child. Thank God it's now illegal in this country.

I was born late 60s and was smacked once at home and given the belt once at school.No trauma, don't feel hard done by, don't hold it against my parents and certainly don't think my MH was impacted.

My sibling and I were born in the mid-60s. Unlike others on here, we were never actually hit. Threatened with it yes, but not hit. A fair bit of emotional bullying happened though, to both of us.

Im 67. I never got hit by my parents.. l was made to go to bed early once in 1968 ( l was 10). My cousin had taken me apple nicking in someone's large garden. But a teacher smacked back of my legs with a ruler until they bled (same age 10) for something l didn't do . Said l'd wrote my own absence letter ( l hadn't..my Mum had arthritis in her hands). I still have night mares to this day. ( My Dad did go to school to complain).

My Primary 5 teacher had a meltdown and walloped a pupil, this was in 1988 Scotland and totally illegal. She also used to grab kids by the shoulders, shake them and scream/spit in their face. Totally evil women but we were all so terrified of her no one dared complain.

I think smacking was a thing my parents thought they should do. We had smacks on our buttocks for very serious infringements. I think my parents hated doing it and tbh it was just kind of amusing for us children as they didn't hurt us. I guess it was the solution for bad behaviour in the 70s like the naughty step was when my kids were little. Thankfully, it didn't psychologically damage me because my parents were loving and didn't threaten or hurt us. However, ligitimising this as a punishment probably allowed abusers to go under the radar.

I didnt get hit by my parents although they did threaten it (I fully deserved to true!!) I did get hit by teachers though

Once at school as I was being silly.

My dad tried to smack me but couldn't catch me and I hadn't done what I was accused of anyway.

Once after the corporal punishment ban came in a teacher slapped me on the head because I said midnight was am and noon was pm he said it was the other way round and I wouldn't back down.

I was born in 1970. My dad used to chase me round the house until he caught me and then beat me up. I can still remember how humiliated I felt afterwards and how scared I was. Try as I might to overcome it, it has affected me really badly. I have three adult dc and I would never in a million years have smacked them. I abhor any form of physical punishment.

No I was born in the 1970s I was never hit by anyone, neither was my mother (1940s) or my grandmother (1920s). So it’s not a thing in our family at all, I’m a pacifist as an adult as resonates with her I was brought up.

I still had an unhappy childhood sadly .

I was born in 71. I had a friend who'd only been smacked about 5 times in her life (she told me.) It was surprising to me as I'd long ago lost count of how many times id been smacked or hit. It would have been more like 5 times a fortnight for me I'd think. I would see kids be smacked every time I went to the shopping centre.
My friend's mum was middle class and highly educated. My mum wasn't the brightest and didn't engage her brain when parenting. Just lashed out. It was one of many ways she was a crap parent

My siblings were all born in the 70s and I was born in 1980 and my parents never hit any of us. My mum's parents never hit her or her siblings but I think my dad's dad did though.

Just wondering really, off the back of a conversation.

My parents used to hit us, and I can remember when there was a "debate" about whether it was okay to hit children, which seems like madness now. I mean , madness that people would ever argue in favour of it.

My mum slapped me in 2003 I was 15

Born in 1989 and my dad smacked me a couple of times when I was a toddler - I don't remember it but my mum told me I was. I remember being terrified of my dad though, until I got older (>7) and then I loved him dearly.

The smacking doesn't bother me so much, it's more the passive ignoring of my step mother's verbal and psychological abuse from when I was 3 years old up to leaving home at 18 years old that has damaged my view of my father . Incidentally, I've only had this view since I had DD and it made me wonder what posessed him to allow such abuse of me in front of him without even uttering one word to defend me!

I think you have packed quite a lot in this post that is interesting.

I agree with the idea that some parents seemed to feel it was what they "ought" to do for good parenting (spare the rod, spoil the child etc), and I think it pays to retain some awareness that we haven't necessarily got it "right" in our era of parenting.

I was interested you mentioned Naughty Step, as something always felt very off with this for me. Hard to articulate, but something about and cutting off the interaction during that time feels wrong to me. I feel as though it teaches emotional shutdown or something. Luckily my dc have not been too challenging on the whole because, in truth, discipline just isn't that easy.