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...

Quick smack round the head if we were cheeky.

Skirt up/trousers down and a big hearty slap - hard enough to leave welts - if we were really bad.

Pants down, over the knee, several big, hard smacks if we were naughty at our grandparents' house.

It's hard to believe that this was considered acceptable back then (late 70's/early 80's) and these days, my mum considers smacking to be abuse (she is such a revisionist).

I was born in the 50s and I remember caning at school, by the headmaster in front of everyone at the morning assembly. I was never smacked, or hit by my parents. I can remember friends being absent from school until the bruises healed a bit......

Some kids had a terrible life...

From the Stately Homes thread, some people who have posted here may find the Pete-walker.com website useful. There is information on there about how to handle post traumatic flashbacks.

Some people seem to be describing what sound like flashbacks.

thanks thisishowifeel, I am checking out that website

I suffer with flashbacks to my childhood and it isn't fun

I was smacked as a child but only very rarely. I don't remember my pants being pulled down but they might have been . I think I remember my mum smacking me once for deliberately pulling a huge patch of wallpaper off the wall and my dad a couple of times - once for running away from him and running and full pelt towards a motorway. I got a proper hard couple of smacks on legs and bottom for that one, but I think it was mostly out of fear (his).

TBH although I don't believe in smacks being dolled out as a punishment, I think there are occasions where it's not the end of the world. DD is 5 and has been smacked once. DS is 4 and hasn't been smacked at all. I don't know if I'll ever do it again as i found it very hard afterwards but at the time, I felt that I had run out of options and her behaviour was awful.

The thing that I think is really damaging is the threat of violence. "You're going to get it when we get home" and the like.

"showing me up" and "showing off" are two phrase i seem to recall as well

Plastic fly catchers on a bare bottom, wooden spoons, a sort of karate chop to the back of the neck, slippers with really hard soles were the weapons of choice in my house.

Being kicked down the stairs by my mother with her shouting 'where do you think you're going so fast'

I was beaten and punished every day of my childhood by both of my parents, a fact I find it difficult to comprehend to this day.

Worse than the physical beatings was the physiological terror both of them liked to inflict.

Together they would 'plot' what things they could do to me next (overheard the discussions sometimes so know I didnt make it up)

Luckily for me I remember thinking 'this isn't right' from a very young age. Quite where that came from I'll never know as I was a quiet, shy and terrorised child.

Thank god form my lovely grandmother who forced my parents into letting me live with her for a while. It must have taken such a lot for her to go against her own daughter and do that!

Sorry to hear about everyone else's painful experiences btw.

Not physiological, psychological, d'oh

What do you think of a mother who bites her daughter on her arm enough to leave a mark? And what do you think if you add in the fact that said daughter had a habit of biting her older sister and it was done by the mother to stop the biting, which it apparently did. It's never struck me(oh fgs!) before that this could be wrong. is it wrong? what do you think?

Obv, i was the biter, and my mother often recounts this as evidence of her successful parenting. In fact I have been known to say to people "well, i never did it again" etc. Actually, I have no recollection as to whether it stopped me, but I do remember being bitten, even 35 yrs later. I have "issues" with my cold hard mother!!! and have posted on stately homes before, but would really be interested in if you think this is ever justified.

I do find the biting in order to deter a biter completely unacceptable. We never had a biter in our family but I remember being smacked by my mum in a "How do you like it" way if I ever hit my sister. I don't think either punishment is justified tbh.

I grew up in the 60s
Neither parent believed in smacking, in fact my dad went as far as to inform the school he not tolerate corporal punishment for his kids.

I was talking to my cousin about family earlier, Her dad believed in keeping them "in their place". he'd fly into a rage if anything wasn;t to his standards.
He'd even punch his kids. Classic bully but pillar of the community. Left cousin with HUGE confidence problems now.
Funnily enough uncle never hit us when we stayed there. He could control it then, maybe he knew he'd have to answer to my dad. Like most bullies uncle was a coward, he could hit his wife and kids but his 6ft, fit BIL was another story even if they were drinking buddies

Peppermint - my mum bit my brother and sister because they were biting each other - she certainly didn't leave a mark though! and it did appear to stop them, although the logic is a tad off in her case, as they were biting each other so obviously knew what it felt like.

what a sad thread

I was born in the early 70s, oldest of 3. My mum (or dad) never hit us. I would never hit my children.

My MIL used the wooden spoon, ALOT. She tells tales of chasing them up the stairs, hitting them. She laughs about it. Her children do too, when they are with her. When she is not around they tell me how terrified they were.

As a Grandma she so far seem very calm and loving.

Isn't it strange what living in a family can do to the brain!!! Until op posed the question, the biting "thing" was just another story from my childhood, alongside perfectly innocuous stuff. I have been dealing with the way my mother was and is with me for a few years, but it literally didn't occur to me that biting me was wrong too. But for me, it totally is-again I've just realised(iykwim) i would never ever do this as a punishment with my own children. I don't think I could bring myself to.More unpleasantly, I suspect my mother did not do it rashly, in anger, but probably in a "controlled" manner! Bit chilling!

It seems so obvious, and I seem to have been so dense about it, but I suppose it's all about thinking stuff is "normal" when it probably isn't.

Sadly I had a double dose of violence as a child.

Siblings can contribute just as much to it as parents can. My brother was horrendous. He was just as bad as my mother. I couldnt' look at him the wrong way, he'd have a go at me. He lorded it over me acted like a second parent and reported anything I did at school that wasn't to his liking back to mum.

He and mum used to laugh at me and make jokes at the way I said particular words or things I said. He'd constantly tell me I was stupid and when I'd had enough, I put my hands over my ears and he pulled my hand away and shouted it down my ear to make me listen to him.

When I was in my teens and erly twenties I had a very violent temper and I used to literally boil with rage and feel murderous. Now I've chilled out big time and I don't feel it anymore. But I wonder if it was my upbringing that caused it. The years of being put down daily for so long that when I was finally old enough to hold my own I lost control. Also my mum dealt with things by screaming and hitting first then asking questions later.

After reading this thread I feel that some people shouldn't have bothered having children.

As a child, my brother and I were horrors. We were mostly smacked on the bottom (with pants on) by the hand, but if we were really naughty it was with a slipper. I remember on one occasion when my brother was really naughty, he was hit with a belt. However, we did come from a very happy home, and so now we all look back on it and laugh. Smacking was endemic in those days, and I think how you view it needs to be seen in the bigger picture - was it just 70s style discipline, or was it more? We certainly were not afraid of our parents. I remember once when my brother was being naughty, mum was chasing him round the dining room table and at one point he even lapped her.

That said, we were also smacked in school. I remember being in year 6, and one boy was really naughty so he was called up in assembly, had his trousers pulled down and had his bum smacked in front of the whole school. Smacking was just the norm back then, and I never thought anything of it. Certainly never saw it as abuse, because of the bigger picture (a very happy home life).

youngjoly - we had a boy in our class who was very naughty as well - I remember him being smacked, both by our class teacher and the Headmaster, but never pants down first! that any teacher would do that in public.

I am a child of the 70's too. My brothers and I got the belt (dad) fairly regularly, as well as being slippered (mum), my mother also had a penchant for lifting the first thing that came to hand and launching it at us. I ended up with a saucer, thrown like a frisbee, impaled in my shin and wasn't allowed to go to the hospital for stitches as it would have been a 'showing up' for her.

My parents will never admit or apologise for any of their behaviour.

child of 70's

i got smacked once for walking home from junior school alone

i got smacked once for running into traffic.

apart from those two instances i can't remember my mother 'smacking' me as a child

i remember going to a friends house and there was a belt ont he wall, i was petrified

born 1985. Used to be hit regularly by witch mother, she also battered dad who never raised a finger back in defence. If she was shouting at my sisters and it was thretending to esalate I wouldd stick up for them and get hit - once she had hit me they were safe. She had to get that anger out then she would bugger off. It got worse as I was a teen and struggled with eating probs, she would punch me in head when I was sobbing as couldnt eat soup.

I left home when I started uni. I dont speak to her now. I now work for childline - but had to work through many issues I had with her before I could do that.

I was fairly regularly smacked on the back of my legs - usually for being whingy, demanding, a pain.

I can still feel the sting. And the outrage.

However, my mother died 25 yrs ago and my father now has Alzheimers - so I find that this does'nt really matter.

Much worse has happened to me since then and i'm quite resilient.

I was smacked by my mum on my legs and had pants taken down and smaked. When i was 5 she held my with one hand and smacked me with the other. My siblings call it the "one had shuffle" and laught about it. To me it was horrible and i dont laught about it. I would be hit with the pot spoon. I had my hand burnt on the fire, cooker and tea pot. I have a scar that looks like some one put a fag out on me. I was locked in my room. I was throw out of the house to sleep on the wall at night. And on one occation my my came at me with a knife, i was 8 years old and i ran out the door and up the garden and over the fence as my sister tried to stop her.

My dad never smacked me he got my brother to do it. My dad used to hit me in the arm or leg and give me a dead leg or arm. Then he tout my brother to do it.

My brother would tie me up with his school tie and kick me and hit me. He was punch me, kick me every day. I had to hide in the bathroom to get away from him. He would lock me in the gardge or my room. Throw stones at me, push me over and lock me out of the house.

This was all done to "teach me a lesson".