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...

Mum used to lose it and hit me round the head. Usually for having an untidy room. Once I got slapped around the chops for spilling a bottle of food colouring.

Dad lost it on a couple of occasions - once punched the wall and said he was punching the wall because he didn't want to punch me. I'd asked if I could go to youth club. I was about 14.

The other time he grabbed me around the neck because I'd closed the patio doors wrongly.

The therapist is planning a cruise...

Got smacked, kicked, hit, pucked and lots more by both Mum and Dad. Dad had quick temper and lost it often. My mother was much worse though. She would lose it when you'd least expect it and that would be it. I remember I once was being really naughty and she really let rip and belted me around the kitchen, kicked me when i was on the ground.... then much later she came to my bedroom where I was hidden in a wardrobe in the hope that she wouldn't find me. She was crying her eyes out apologising and i remember being so confused and feeling so guilty for her crying....
I think she may have lost it around 15 times in total with me but I remember each adn every time so clearly.

My kids were born in 1970 and 1974-there was the odd slap on leg but never more and I dont think either was smacked more than a couple of times in their lives.

Can I just issue a note of caution to those whose parents are wonderful grandparents? I know it does happen - my own grandmother was a dreadful mother, but the only adult who loved me unconditionally. But. My mum is toxic around her grandchildren. My father punched them, full force, when they were only toddlers. Mum told me all this recently (he's dead). My sibs still don't know what their father did to their DCs.

This thread is so sad :(
We were gave the odd smack on the backside if we misbehaved, but it was more a tap, my Mums raised voice was enough for us to behave :)

A couple lived downstairs from us about 10 years ago, the Mum had 3 boys, the girlfriend lived with them, when the youngest was "naughty" he would get a choice, kept in for 4 weeks or battered by the girlfriend (who was the size of a house), the wee soul was only about 7 at the time, and always chose the "beating" because he didn't want to be kept in, and him being "naughty" could have been something as simple as not putting the lid on the toothpaste :( He was too bloody scared to be "naughty" :(

My father hit me once and once only and I deserved it,I called him a cunt at the age of 16,he slapped me around the face,I think he did it out of shock.I don't blame him.

I didn't speak to him for over a year through my teenage angst.I missed him terribly as he was one of my closest friends but we met up when I was 17 and we told each other we were sorry for our behaviour.I love him dearly and we are ultra close now.

My mother beat me with a wooden spoon (parents were separated).She also liked to pull me down the stairs by my hair and I mean all the way down the stairs.

My mother is abusive full stop.

garlicbutter that is horrifying - I find it incredible that people can hit small children so hard! Do these children still remember it or are you not close enough to them to ask? So :(.

I can understand far more why more people are fully against even the lightest tap now, from reading this thread.

Oh my goodness, what awful stories.

I think that whole "wait-til-you-father-gets-home" delayed physical punishment is just atrocious; I can't envisage EVER doing that to my DCs.

I got away fairly lightly. I was born in 1967, and was mainly brought up by my mother and (passive) stepfather. If I was being particularly dreadful my mum would occasionally lose it, grab my arm, and give me a slap on the back of the legs before sending me to my room. It was no more than I deserved, and certainly not traumatic in any way. We have a close and loving relationship, and she's a perfect grandmother.

As a parent of three DCs I recognise such situations; when your buttons are being pushed and you are losing control there is an overwhelming temptation to deliver a little slap, but I very very rarely do it; I hate how it makes me feel. The thought of hitting a child around the head, well, I couldn't contemplate how anyone could do that, however provoked.

Bumble, it is quite common for mums like yours to take it out on one specific child for no very obvious reason sometimes. I suppose you've heard of that book "A child called It" - written by a boy who was singled out for the most godawful treatment by his mother. His father and siblings not only let it happen, they sometimes joined in, their excuse being that they didn't want the mother to turn on them. Pack mentality - side with the perceived stronger one, not the weaker one.

I have to say though that it is very interesting how different siblings' perceptions can be of childhood - in my own family, my brother hated the way he was brought up so violently that he has gone completely the opposite way with his own DC, and they are now completely unruly and with no manners. There are some things that I would never do that my parents did, but they did instil good manners into us and I think that's important and I havedone the same with my DS. My sister also has taught her 3 children good manners, and claims she can't remember anything about our childhood (but then she has a bad memory anyway).
I don't remember my brother being treated any worse than the rest of us, apart from getting the wooden spoon from my mum, in fact he was my mum's favourite child as the only boy (yes it was obvious). So I can't really understand his bitter resentment and hatred either.

I am, I suppose, trying to say that no one can really understand another person's feelings about how they were treated, even if it was pretty much the same, because how you react to the treatment you get is dependent on your own personality.

Those of you who have said that you weren't harmed by this stuff, genuine question: how do you know that?

I ask in part because although I was never smacked, my husband was. Back of the hand with a wooden spoon, occasional swipe to the arse, nothing even slightly approaching the abuse detailed on this thread. But there've been times where a gesture I've made near him, when I've raised a hand or something, has made him flinch a little. Of course I've never hit him, I don't even really do raised voices, so it must be a hangover from childhood.

I cannot, cannot see how being hit by one's parents at the most vulnerable time in one's life can do anything but affect someone deeply. There's a reason they're called formative years.

Being smacked on the bottom was easy. My mum would smack me on the back of my legs with her slippers. They had really hard soles and one day, after being smacked for nothing yet again, I took her lighter to them.

Blamed the cat as well, I was about 7 or 8 at the time. Spent the rest of the day locked in the bathroom until my dad came home, if she had managed to break the door down I'd have been dead meat.

"Those of you who have said that you weren't harmed by this stuff, genuine question: how do you know that?

Perhaps it depends if you were given a warning first that you would be smacked if you carried on with whatever you were doing?

Maybe your husband was hit indescriminitely?

Aside from the time I was slapped across the face, we always got a warning - until we were old enough to see it coming anyway so there was no need to flinch.

There is only 1 way I can think of that it has affected me (and sorry in advance if this is really long) - my stomach goes in knots if I see a child disobey their parents, for example in the park if the parents say "Come on now we're going" and the child refuses I can't bear it. I just sit there thinking "Just do it will you!" However I'm sure most of these children have completely reasonable parents, unlike my mum was.

If we ever did anything like that then my mum would fly off the handle as soon as we got home for "Showing her up" it could be at the park, at a party, a friends house. To me, it is a normal response of a child that has had fun to not want to go home but to my mum is was a betrayal. So we learnt not to say it.

I think we had even forgotten about it because we just knew not to say it by the time I was about 13 and my brother and sister and I were out with my best friend's mum because my mum had been ill. My mum called to check how we were and what time we would be home and my friend's mum said "They don't want to come home" then asked us "do you?". We were just sat in the back of the car completely horrified, my mum kicked off about us at my friends mum and she told her to go away, calm down and she would bring us home once mum had calmed down. When the call was ended we begged her to just take us home now - even if she did calm down as soon as we walked in it would kick off again so it was better to get it over with.

I think I spent the next 3 years of my life trying to convince my mum that we hadn't said that we didn't want to go home, friends mum did and that we would never say that to anyone because we know how it makes mum feel. I still don't think she believes us.

Ok I take back what I said in an earlier post about her not being a bad mum.

Has anyone read "The Illustrated Mum" she was a bit like that (but without the tattoos). When she was in a good mood she was an amazing mum, but if she was unhappy, stressed or more often drunk she was a nightmare.

I don't hate her for it though because I understand why she was/is that way and I feel sorry for her. She had no-one to help her and we were the only people she could take it out on. It's not right but I understand her and I still love her. DH can't see why and often says I shouldn't have anything to do with her but I can't do that to her. She waited so long to have children but then due to outside circumstances she couldn't enjoy them. My brother and sister don't feel the same way even though I always had it worse than them being the eldest. They have told me they can't stand her and hate her.

Does anyone else feel this way towards an abusive parent or is it just me?

Shiny I think you and I might have had the same mum!

the phrase "showing me up" makes me shiver

My mum used to smack my bum, over the kneew job, Slap me round the face, I really hated that you should never do that to kids

when I was 11 I hit her back, she's never done it since...

My dad was more of a 'put the fear of god into type'

I can remember clear as day he used to stick his finger in my face,get right in my face
on the odd occasion I didn get thrown into furniture, hit with objects.

Its wierd how parents can differ on physical discipline.

^^ this was in the 90's

Born 1975, smacked on a few occassions on the back of the legs by my Mum.... stingers, as I remember.

I remember once on a bus she whispered in my ear if I dont behave i will pull down your pants and smack you infront of everyone.... that made me behave.

I dont recall my Dad ever smacking me.

I dont see it as abuse. I think my Mum and Dad are good parents.

It was a few times. Thats it. No biggey !

My younger brother agrees (on the rare occasion when we've talked about it) that I was really singled out for hitting and punishments my our mum when we were children. Something about me seemed to make her violently angry. Not sure if it's because I was the only girl, or because I was the middle child (neither PFB nor baby of the family) or just something about my personality. I guess I did push her buttons sometimes and could be quite wilful and stubborn - I always had a strong need to 'win' in any situation, i.e. by refusing to back down at the threat of a slap, or cry if she hurt me, so maybe she felt she had to go to extreme lengths to break my will...

I am against smacking. Not because I think the occasional quick smack on the back of the legs is abusive, more because it's a fine line sometimes between that and real violence, and it's easy for parents to justify what they're doing (as mine did) by saying it's 'just smacking', that's it's an essential and normal form of discipline. Simpler to have it be completely unacceptable to raise your hand to a child in any circumstances.

I know lots of people will strongly disagree with that (have had debates on here before) but it's my personal view, and I hope I will never resort to smacking my own child.

Wooden spoon was normal during my childhood and a belt but with the buckle end.

I am like Ephiny - I don't smack and don't think I would ever smack DS. My childhood had such violence that I vowed I'd never do it.