Is it wrong to think this is a "beating"?

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I used the phrase "when you beat me as a child" to my mum and she cane back with "pffffft, beat??? So exaggerated"

I would really like to know if this is considered beating.

Hitting with a palm but causing a half bruised handprint most times or minimum a huge red mark with raised skin. Hitting with TV buttons, also leaving bruising or marks. Dragging me outside by just my hair or ripping my clothes trying to drag me. Digging nails into my arms/hands if I wouldn't let go of something. Pushing me very hard back into my room. Sitting on me if I wouldn't stop doing something.

I was a bit older so around 10.

Most days were filled with happiness and love and laughter and nice memories but the reality was, this did happen and I am actually quite offended it isn't seen as beating? Is it considered beating or am I really exaggerating?

You are definitely not exaggerating. I'm sorry this happened to you, and that you have to listen to her trying to minimise the abuse.

Thank you. I don't think of it much but I do sometimes occasionally bring it up to her maybe that's really wrong of me but if we are watching a TV show and she is like "god if he said that to you when you were younger I'd have got rid" yet the person on the TV was just telling the child to fuck off. Of course not okay but she did way worse than that so it baffles me when she says stuff like that. It always ends in a huge argument which is making me think of it more and more and maybe like I should never have brought it up to her because I am just exaggerating you know?

Not to minimise your experience, and I have no idea how old you are (or your ethnicity / cultural background, which could also be relevant), but decades ago physical punishment of children was more common and socially acceptable and so it’s possible your mum genuinely doesn’t think of what she did as “a beating” - a phrase which in her head might mean repeatedly and regularly hitting you with an implement or a fist for example. Particularly as you say she was an otherwise loving parent.

That doesn’t make it right: just that whilst you are certainly not exaggerating and are entitled to think of it any way you want and need, it’s possible to see why your mum thinks what she did wasn’t so bad.

Do you have a good relationship nowadays? How important is it to you hat she acknowledge and recognise how she hurt you? Would she agree to family counselling?

As a question about language I would say a "beating" would involve sustained or repeated violence within a single incident.
The incidents you describe above sound like largely singular or individual acts of violence. So abusive definitely, unacceptable, scary, damaging but not a "beating" as such. It's semantics perhaps but probably important if you are trying to open conversation about those incidents with the perpetrators.

I had similar to you growing up (and to be fair most days werent filled with laughter!) My parents are similarly dismissive of how awful they were.

However in my mind "beating" is repeated and sustained so isnt the word Id use in dialogue with them.

I've had similar internal battles about trying to get my parents to recognise what they did!

Maybe the word 'assault' would get your point over and is perhaps a more descriptive word for the abuse you suffered.

I was hit by my parents. They used either their hands on my bare bum, or a slipper if they felt so inclined. Up to a point, I agree, times were different back then (70's), but I cannot ever imagine hitting my children and I know, talking to my friends of a similar age, they were never hit, so I struggle to come to terms with what they did.
I can't bring it up now, I am NC with my father and my mother has dementia, so I accept that I can never put my point across, although I think my mother would minimise everything if she were able.

I was 70s80s and it really wasnt uncommon. Doesn't at all make it right, but I know my parents would be horrified if they knew I considered them abusive. They were. At 40 im still seeking counselling....! But they would say they werent like those who were intentionally nasty to their children, just doing what they could with what they knew at the time....

My Mum used to think it fun to slap me around the face if I displeased her. This was not infrequent as, in fairness, I was a lippy kid. This stopped when I was 12 and slapped her back. I suspect she and Dad had a chat. It didn’t happen again. This was in the late 70’s though when this was accepted as okay parenting.