First time on here... but it seemed the most appropriate place to post (I'm by no means new to MN :) )
Just wanted some un-biased feedback, I guess. Will try to keep it as brief as poss.
I'm about to pop with DC2. It's been a complicated pregnancy, not helped by the fact that I've been signed off for weeks for contractions and threatened early labour (DS was born at 36 wks). We moved to a new area less than a year ago, and haven't really had time to build up the kind of social circle that would mean we've got anyone to drop DS with when labour starts. My DMum came over for the holidays today, and I breathed a massive sigh of relief: DS loves her, she'll be here for 3 weeks, so if/when I go into labour I don't have to worry about DS (or give birth on my own with DH looking after DS)...
And then tonight, just before bedtime, DS (who's 25 months) was overtired and in that crazed bouncing off the walls mood that toddlers can get like when they are ready to sleep - if only they would stop for 2 seconds - iykwim? He kept going to hide under the xmastree, and I asked him to come out/got him out a few times. I sat down (and as I said, am ready to pop so getting up takes forever...) and DS, of course, went back under the tree. Mum got him out. Repeat about 10 times. So, the last time he did it, she pulled him out, told him off AND slapped him on the bum. Not hard, not even a smack, but a gentle slap if there is such a thing... But still.
I told her we don't do that in our house. She was like "what?" so I repeated that we don't do slaps or anything of the sort. So she comes over to me and slaps me on the knee and asks if it hurt: of course it didn't, I could barely feel her doing it, but that's not the point.
I said, again, that we don't do that in our family. She said "but he was being naughty and it had to stop". I asked her how she'd explain to a 2-year old that HE gets told off if he slaps anyone, because it's wrong and hurts people and their feelings - but other people may slap him sometimes, and that's ok? Or that it's ok to slap someone if you're gentle enough, only he shouldn't?
In my opinion, physical punishment is a slippery slope and the line in OUR family is drawn here: we don't do it at all.
I don't want to turn this into a "I was smacked and I'm ok" thread, I really just wanted to know what people's thoughts are re: my DC, my rules?
It certainly seems my mum has taken offence as I've just come downstairs from having put DS to bed and she's gone to bed in the meantime...
Not sure that this is relevant at this time, but just so that you're aware of why exactly I see this issue as very much a black-and-white thing, and why my mum should know how I feel... I grew up with a stepdad (her H!) who had a very volatile temper and regularly attcked me physically. I'm not talking slaps or smacks, but punches and kicks.
I always swore that if I ever had DCs of my own, they'd grow up feeling loved and respected - with firm boundaries, but these would never be physically enforced.
Thank you if you've taken the time to read this...