Smacking - how your parents did it?

[notalreadyinuse]

• [Message from MNHQ - please note, this thread was started in 2011]

I assume that most people who were young children in the 70s were smacked by their parents, but a thread today reminded me about something that has been bothering me.

My dad always pulled my pants down to smack me - until about the age of 8 I think when I think the smacking mostly stopped.

I wondered if this was "normal" then?

Namechanged for this one...

These stories are shocking

I was smacked in the 80's, but only rarely. It was to show "that there is a physical consequence to dangerous disobedience", so if we were told not to run out on the road a few times, and then did, then we would get a smack. It was very lightly though, and knickers never pulled down. Or sometimes on the hand.

I think I was smacked about once a year, and always for something really dangerous (stealing money and going alone to buy sweeties was the last time, when I was 8.)

I was born in the '70s and none of us were ever smacked. However Mum would grip my hand really hard and she could shout from here to eternity.

My main feeling about my childhood is indifference. My parents were only interested in the academic side of school life. I have no memory of them playing a game with us, being interested in whether we had friends or our opinions on anything. I also have no memory of being told I was loved or having a cuddle. We were often sent to our bedrooms.

My childhood best friend was often smacked / beaten. To me, this seemed to happen for the most trivial things. I used to go to their house after school and there were so many occasions when I would be left downstairs while my friend had to go to her bedroom to be smacked. She was not allowed to cry or show me any emotion about it, but afterwards we usually had to do something that did not involve sitting down. There was one time her Mum hit her with her hairbrush so hard the brush broke. My friend lost her pocket money to pay for the replacement. They were a very religeous family - church for at least 2 hours on a Sunday. I think their treatment of their children is a big factor in why I am so uneasy about religion now.

I was born in the 80s. My dad would smack once but hard, but then you knew it was over. My mum would worse and used to strike repeatedly. Was always through clothes though on the bum as far as I can remember.

I remember clearly the last time my mum ever smacked me. I was about 10 or 11 years old. Can't remember what I'd done but when I saw her swing to smack me on the backside I jumped forward out of the way and she hit her hand off the wall, breaking two fingers! She wasn't impressed, but never did smack me again.

In my teens I was a sucker for "we're really disappointed in you" and that hurt way more than if they had hit me.

MY mum did. She used to slap me on the face. And she always said "Take off your specs, I don't want to break them" So I took them off and waited to be hit.
She still talks about it and is very proud of it.

I was born in the early 80's. We were smacked on our bums, pants down, by hand, slipper or garden cane.

We were hit with the cane if we had bad table manners too, over the hand of whatever they could reach.

Nice

Us too Teacup. If we put our elbows on the table we would have our knuckles rapped with a fork/knife that my Mum or Step-dad were eating with.

My saving grace was that I had my Dad who was lovely and going there one day a week was like heaven. No smacking or shouting and he made me feel happy.

I was terrified of my mum. My stomach used to flip over when I heard her calling me or coming in from work.

I can still hear the sound of my dad's key turning in the lock when he came home from work...and I'm 41 now!!

Yep, I was smacked by either parent, but not over much. My mum went after my brother with the wooden spoon, my dad with the slipper. Once we were all given the stick in a gross miscarriage of justice - something I had discovered, told my Dad about and then because my brother wouldn't own up, we all got the stick in turn. I honestly do NOT know what he was thinking.

DH was hit with a belt occasionally and threatened with it more - but was smacked fairly regularly (born in the 70s).

My mum slapped me across the face when I was about 15 but that, I think, was the last time because I seem to remember I offered to do it back to her if she did it again.

It was effective though - we didn't need repeated smacks for the same offence, and fear of being smacked did stop bad behaviour most of the time.

"Back of the leg. Never EVER knickers down."

Same here.

I can´t believe people did that.

Don´t tell me that some of you were put across the knee also.

Dad never smacked us-and it was rare from mum tbh-with a warning first.

I was sent to a downstairs loo and made to wait for what seemed like ages then pants down and repeated smacks on backside. I was 6 or 7.

I was hit with a wooden spoon.

I routinely flinch.

Brother got hit more than me though - used to terrify me and although he was a little shit to me regularly I tried to protect him from 'punishment'.

He got lost in a shopping centre once aged about 5 or 6 Mum's first instinct was to pull his pants down and beat the shit out of him in public with dad holding him still - I am trying not to cry typing this.

If my DS went missing my firs response would be relief when he was found...

I was born in the early 60's and can remember both my brother and I getting the cane across the back of the knees. My Dad had one of those bamboo canes that you supported plants with.

The last time he hit me was when I was about 13/14 and I stuck two fingers up at my little sister who was being really annoying. My Mum caught me and then told me to go and tell my Dad what I'd done. I was then sent to my room and 5 minutes later my Dad came into the room and punched me on the arm. I had a huge great bruise which was there for ages.

I was born late 60's.

Never smacked always beaten.

Mother kept several garden canes which were used like whips across my back, buttocks and legs, always skin contact, no layers of clothes to protect you. Left welts like a whip too.

Father beat me (not other 2 siblings) with whatever was nearest...buckle on his belt, steel toe cap boots, broom hand, Mothers cane...sometimes it was a regular beating, laid over bed, bare backside and thrashed or sometimes it was a real temper loss, of punches and kicks.

I was the eldest so it was my 'job' to take the other siblings punishment as well as my own, just as it was my 'job' to control them so my Mother could cope with us.

Mother would tell Father of our misbehaving...he would at first shrug it off as kids being kids...3 hours later he couldn't managed Mothers hysterics about how 'evil' I/we were, so he would give me due beating to shut her up...she would stand in the doorway watching and smirk during the beatings.

Father is a violent bully...Mother is a master manipulator and very, very cruel.

Left home at 16...the day after my last beating. I scared myself with the thoughts I was having about what I would do to him if he ever hit me again.

I've had to skim most of the last page and a half as I'm so upset at reading here

My mum was very heavy-handed and her raised voice could stop traffic. She still brags now how one look from her could stop us in our tracks

I can remember my sisters' head bleeding from 'mum' brushing her hair so hard (sis was late up for school) and on more than one occassion I stepped in front of my youngest sister to stop 'mum' beating her.

She stopped beating me when I fell as she struck me and I hit my head off a cupboard. I was 14.

My experience as a child has had a massive influence on how I parent my own children, and also over the contact they have with my mother.

I don't think the era you were brought up in has much bearing on this, there are still parents who treat their children like this.

I think smacking was more usual & more accepted, but I don´t think the abuse as mentioned on here has been the "norm" since Victorian times, has it?

Only for abusive parents?

diddl

I agree I think smacking (open hand, back of the legs/bottom type smack) was fairly 'usual' during the 70's.

I also think it's easy to forget that my grandparents actually were of the Victorian times, my own parents were 'war' babies...so only one generation between between my upbringing and the Victorian times...not much time to become 'enlightened' particularly when not well educated or 'worldly'...small rural community and no-one EVER spoke about this stuff.

It twas normal as far as I was concerned...until I was 16 and went to work...where no-one was giving all their wages to their parents each week and still copping a beating!

But there is a difference between smacking and some of the punishments detailed on this thread :(

My mum and i use the term loosely used to make me choose a belt from her collection and then beat me with the buckle end

She alo let her bf beat me too

Closed hand

And once when i stole she put my hand over the cooker ring

Marioandluigi

My mum would of said she smaked me although she wasnt and was clearly beating me and thats the think one parents smack is another persons beating so its best if its not done

And anyone who says it didnt do the any harm their just luckly they didnt get the "smacks" i got

I was born in 76. Mum smacked me but always over my clothes on the arse, often as I was running upstairs to my room. She would smack whilst saying a word.

Get to your room Smack>

I only remember Dad smacking me once. I must have been about 8 and I answered him back. I was sitting cross legged on the floor wearing a skirt and he slapped mt thigh so hard it left a hand print He felt so bad he took me to the corner shop and bought me a Wham bar. He never did it again.

Dh was born in 1970 and his Dad was very heavy handed, more so with his bro who was older by 18 months. What I found weird though is that my parents smacked me at the very moment of my bad behaviour, DH's Dad would smack hours later when he came home from work and was told about bad behaviour. They would have to go into his study to be smacked. He sometimes used belts and slippers too

If you asked my Mother and Father, like maypole1...I was 'smacked'...and the topic would/will be dismissed and changed.

When I was a child...I thought I was 'smacked' too...abuse happened to other kids...not me.

I now know differently.

And somtimes my mums would give me what is called just in case licks

When i was a bit quite and thought i was plotting somthing they would beat me just in case i was thinking of doing somthing naughty not often just now and then to keep me on gaurd

last beating i got when i ws 14 and i slapped her stright in her face when i decied i wasnt having it any more she chucked me out on the spot havent seen her since thats was about 20 years ago