to be shocked by a 40-year-old woman telling me tos mack my kids!

[Upsidedowncake]

So I was at a dinner party last night hosted by friends with kids my age. There was a couple without children there who were in their 40s. Their choice not to have kids.

The woman spent half an hour telling me repeatedly 'What is wrong with society today is that nobody smacks their kids any more. You really should smack your son'

I know this has been done previously on MN. ButI really thought nobody in our generation thinks this any more. She was like caricature.

"Thanks for your opinion. Missed the bit where I actually asked you for it, but thanks all the same. I'll certainly start smacking my child because someone with no children thinks it's the way to go."

or is that too confrontational?

'The Smack Shop' - have you been reading too much Enid Blyton? Sounds like the Land of Clever People, did Hop Skip and Jump (think that was their names, or were they from Rice Krispies) get sent to the spankers in Enid Blyton's The Book of Brownines?

My mum is in her late 40's, my ds is 2. She has often said to me 'he needs a good smack, that will calm him down' or she will say things to him like ' if you don't get away from the tv, i will phone the bad man to take you away' .
I don't think it is an age thing though.

Context - the hostess and I were talking about what makes 4 year olds tick. And the dreaded testosterone thing.

DS is going through a growth spurt at the moment and is rather challenging ... I was describing how he poked DH in the face with his plastic pirate cutlass when he didn't get what he wanted.

Oh god ... given that the two of us were swapping notes, maybe she thought we were being smug mummies. Although she at least five times said that she had never wanted kids.

It was a Playmobil plastic cutlass before anyone starts telling me not to give my child weapons ...

I'm fifty, and have never smacked my (now grown up) children. They are decent, kind, hard working adults.

I strongly disagree with the implication that if you're not smacking you must therefore be using emotionally abusive language. I didn't use either in bringing my children up. And they had very clear boundaries.

I had a lot of folk advising me to smack my children - because it was more common I think 25 years ago. Usually I gave them my half hour lecture on the difference between discipline and hitting, and they usually walked off with glazed eyes

"I strongly disagree with the implication that if you're not smacking you must therefore be using emotionally abusive language. I didn't use either in bringing my children up. And they had very clear boundaries."

I quite clearly said "some people" so that sentence is based on a (charitable) misreading of my post which is how all discussions of this type descend into ridiculousness

You did indeed Activate, my apologies, as you say I misread your post.

I hope the rest of my post was not entirely ridiculous, I certainly didn't intend to bring the thread down to a bun fight. Simply to express that I have found it unnecesary to use smacking as a parenting tool.

yy everything else you said made perfect sense

(thought you were going to smack me)

my ds went through a stage of coming out of his room at night, and after 3 days of constant picking him up and putting him back in bed for hours, i snapped on the 4th and did smack his thigh and strongly said no, i did feel bad about it, but it did work, and for over 2 months he hasn't done it again, he also now knows that he has to call mumma to get a drink etc and i call him or go into him in the mornings, and he always has a big smile on his face
i wish i didn't have to resort to smacking him on that occasion, but in my head i had nothing left to give and my instinct was to smack him.
although i haven't done it since, i can't say i will never do it again.
for the mean time the change in my voice will stop his bad behaviour.

oh and i was smacked and emotional tormented by my parents and tbh, the second damaged me a lot more in the long run. and past the age of 7-8 smacking never bothered me, it didn't act as a deterant lol

You should have smacked her for her inappropriate behaviour and not sat through 30 minutes of it.

If she objects tell her "otherwise you will never learn and society will become a place nobody wants to be"

Ask her if she likes smacking old people and kicking dogs as well

Agree abbierhodes. I'm in my 40s. Not sure about smacking - remember doing it once when one DC about to jump up and grab a hot cup of coffee after I'd yelled no and I was terrified she might hurt herself. But only ever in circumstances like that. But I certainly tell them off and am frequently shocked when people seem to just tolerate/ignore terrible behaviour (eg boy in park pushing his sister/female pal off a swing really roughly - his mother/carer appeared to think it was just funny). I think that some people honestly believe that their children can do no wrong or at least that it's never their 'fault'. And no I'm not simply 'chav-bashing' here. Often v middle class mothers adopt a very half hearted can't really be bothered 'Oh Rupert really you shouldn't beat that little girl to death now do say sorry darling (turns back to mobile phone)'

I was smacked - I remember the fact of being smacked but never what I did to deserve it.

Sometimes I pull DS roughly to stop him from tormenting DD.

DH was so upset with DS foor nearly taking his eye out that he snapped the cutlass in two ... which probably had far more effect than a smack. In some ways it's the same though ... he lost his temper.

I'm 44. My DD is 2.6. I hope I never smack her. IMO the lack of discipline in society has nothing to do with lack of physical violence in the home. Possibly more to do with over exposure to it as first resort, quite frankly.

Belle dame - do you mean overexposure to violence ie video games causes lack of discipline?

Surely society has never been disciplined?

Upsidedowncake - not really. Aware that I didn't word it well.

I think what I really meant is that I think the lack of respect in society in general is perpetuated by parents who have no respect for their children or for themselves. It's not really relevant in the context of this thread, I guess.

I suppose I just think that smacking is wrong. It feels like bullying to me - that someone who is physically weaker is hit by someone bigger. Just feels wrong.

people without children are always great experts on child discipline i have found.

My abiding memory of being smacked is not one of repentance, but one of very sullenly and evilly thinking to myself, "you can hit me now because you are bigger than me, but one day I will be as big as you and I will hit you. So there."

Personally, if your dinner party companion is so much into hitting other people, you should have hit her. Just lightly, just to teach her a lesson.

But why the buggery did you let her go on for half an hour?

pissed and trying to persuade her she was wrong ...