Was this abuse by my parents?

[redsequins]

I am trying to unpick what may or may not have been abusive in my childhood, I now have dc and some things from my childhood seem unimaginably cruel but I know that times have changed.
I was born late 80's. Until the age of 12 my parents made me fill a small basin of water and use that to wash with. Was this normal?! I don't think it was. I had to beg to use the shower at 12 because I was so sick of squatting in the bath with a tiny basin of water and bar of soap.

If I had a bath as a young dc my mum used to fill it with a kettle boiling the water then filling the bath, I don't know why we didn't have running hot water or maybe we did but they'd do very strange things like this.

I remember one day asking for something as a dc in the bath and my mum hitting me over and over with the empty kettle. I was raised that if I'd upset my mum to that extent I deserved it. I don't know what was the norm in the late 80's/early 90's. I never talked about any of this.
My dad used to cane me for being disobedient. One day he took me to a hardware store to pick out a particular cane saying we would build something nice with it. In reality he got me to pick the thickness of the cane I'd be hit with. I didn't know.

There were other incidents but these ones I am trying to work out what level of parental 'discipline' would have been ignored back then. I lived in a poor area. Other dc had parents arrive with broken arms and other such things at school through DV. My 'norm' I feel was very skewed. It's having dc that's made me think wow I could never do that.

Whether it's abuse or not isn't related to the comparison between what other parents were doing, or to what was generally accepted.

Violence is abuse, unless in self defence.

What would it mean to you if MN classified your experience as abuse?
What would it mean to you if MN classified your experience as not abuse?

I wonder if you're trying to validate your feelings, because you feel it was abusive and you need some back up to truly believe that?

@Watchkeys I wasn't looking for mn decisions just what was normal of other people had similar experiences in that time when it come to being disciplined. My dad always used to recall his canes at school and I was born before canes had left the school system entirely so it stands to reason he thought that was an acceptable form of punishment.

Genuinely wondering if other people had this in the late 80's/early 90's. I suspect others in my own class did. If everyone else was doing this I would expect my parents thought it was acceptable too.

Of course by todays standards it is unacceptable but so are many other things so really, although I'm feeling one way, I want a benchmark to say well that happened to you decades ago but it was more normal back then or it wasn't normal..

That’s not normal, OP. I was born in 1969. My parents spanked me occasionally but nothing like what you describe.

The behaviour you describe is very abusive. It may have been normalised where you grew up - which is a horrendous thought - because what you’re describing is very serious physical and psychological violence. It’s pretty horrifying. So sorry you went through this, OP.

It wasn’t normal at the time you describe. That would have been regarded as child abuse by everyone I know - family and friends. The era is not the explanation here.

Sorry to post again but it sounds like your parents had some kind of screwed up misunderstanding of the expression “spare the rod, spoil the child”. Did they claim to be religious by any chance? Some people use religion as a justification for abuse.

I was born early 80s OP and this is definitely unusual, caning and the like weren't really a thing for anyone I knew of my age, let alone 5ish years after us. I did however get a smacked bum as a young child, but this was more of a psychological thing as I never really remember it hurting, just the threat of it was enough to shut me up. There were never any objects involved and I'd have associated these with very old fashioned families or perhaps ultra religious ones (I'm not saying they're all like that at all, but that's where my mind may have gone).

We had hot running water and I had regular baths and then showers when younger, all my friends and family had baths and showers installed so I assume they used them too - I certainly never heard otherwise.

It genuinely sounds like you're talking as if growing up in the 60s or maybe early 70s OP, it really surprises me that you were effectively a 90s child. I wasn't from a middle class family at all either, we struggled at times and parents had very standard working class jobs (milkman/bus driver and part time receptionist).

Yes, it's abuse.

No, we got spanked very occasionally.

The exception was when My Dad once decided to hit us with a stick to make us confess to stealing my mother's knitting club money (the container had fallen down the back of a chest of drawers, I think).

(The background was that one of my sisters had stolen cash from her paper round and from a neighbour's house. Another sister stole jewellery from my Grandmother & Mum occasionally to give to school mate's to try to make them like her/hang out with her. So they jumped to the conclusion someone had stolen Mums money).

I ran away in terror before being hit .. though he's hit my sister.

That was exceptional though. And my parents were, in some ways, absolutely batshit. I'm aware they were batshit and don't think it was normal.

The kettle thing - absolutely abuse. The caning thing + absolutely abuse. The pretending the cane was for a nice project and getting you to pick it ... Proper psycho level twisted abuse.

The bath thing - bordering on abuse/neglect .... Sounds like they were extremely stingy about water heating/use.

Teachers continually talked about canes and caning in my primary school - I was there 81 to 87. But it was bluster and then not being capable of instilling discipline without the threat. Never actually saw a cane.

Never heard of anyone being caned at home - crazy.

The thought of an adult man caning a little girl ...... That sort of thing gives me the urge to repeatedly beat that man around the head and other sensitive areas.

I remember one day asking for something as a dc in the bath and my mum hitting me over and over with the empty kettle. I was raised that if I'd upset my mum to that extent I deserved it

Your mother evidently has/had significant issues and should not have been "caring" for children.

It's horrendous how much child abuse went on and was never reported or acted on.

My dad always used to recall his canes at school

Does he have some kind of sick fetish?

Caning a little girl and making her choose a cane while telling her it's to make something nice for her at home.

That piece of behaviour has a level of twistedness to it that suggests something ..... I don't know what word to use. It feels like he got some sick gratification out of that scenario.

I was born in 1969. My upbringing featured a lot of adults drinking and things getting out of hand. Lots of arguments and my Dad behaving very erratically, like throwing stuff when he was drunk, or threatening violence to my Mum (but never carrying through). My Mum would smack us if we were naughty. BUT.....what you are describing sounds SO much worse. We were never hit with an obstacle, for example. We were always told how much we were loved. We had everything we needed, meals out, holidays etc.

The washing from a bowl, well, that could be money related, so not too bad. But hitting you with a kettle and a cane is absolutely abusive. The lest generation in my family who used canes was my Dad's generation (he's 81). That was when caning was accepted in schools.

Do you have any relationship with them now?

Yes, its abuse. My children were born in the 80's. I never hit them.

Thank you for the replies. I'm waking up to it all because I look at my dc and can't quite fathom even if this was supposedly normal how you'd go about doing that to a dc.

Not religious. I am starting to think he was a complete psycho as i go through some of what he did. I think my mum took some of her issues out on me.

It does help to confirm that, despite the times, this wasn't normal. It was my normal and it can be difficult to unpick things. Especially that other dc in my school almost certainly had similar upbringings.

I was born in 1968. My parents did smack us as young children, I was probably smacked up until about the age of 12. My mother would probably argue still argue that most badly behaved children nowadays need a smack.

I was also caned, at secondary school in the UK in the mid 80s (I was schooled in a number of countries, but mainly in the UK and Australia) .... I remember being pretty shocked, 3 of us got blamed for something someone else did, so we all got caned. I remembered thinking right up until the last minute that our caning would get 'commuted' to detention instead... I never told my parents about it.

To answer your question, yes I would say your parents were very abusive. The whole bathing situation was not only abnormal, it was abusive. The caning was both emotional and physically abusive. My parents both had emotional and mental health issues that they took out on us (I had two brothers). I've been no contact with my father for 34 years and very low contact with my mother for 26. At the point in time I've not seen her for 13 years.

Neither myself or my two brothers have had children of our own.

*At this point in time

Genuinely wondering if other people had this in the late 80's/early 90's

Some did, some didn't. However many people had it as their normal, it doesn't matter. It was unhealthy, and you knew that, because even if it was your normal, it didn't feel good to you. You need to validate yourself here. It's really important, otherwise you'll end up in other relationships (and maybe already have done) where you are treated poorly, and end up asking on forums if it's ok or not, rather than getting out immediately.

So, in answer to your question, yes, some people were treated the same way as you. Some worse, some better. Yes, it was abusive, as violence always is, and if it felt like shit, it was emotionally abusive too, because parents are meant to help us out of feeling shit, not put us in it.

'What happens to other people' and 'what's normal' are not good rhetorics to use. There are neighbourhoods where abuse is normal. So what? The majority of the adult population of the uk is overweight, so that's 'normal'. So what? The majority of us drink too much alcohol, so that's 'normal'. So what? 'Normal' doesn't mean anything. Some good things are normal and some bad things are normal. Everything that happens happens to 'some' people, but so what?

You have to judge your life by how you feel, and MN can't tell you that. Abuse is impossible to define, except for what comes up on google. For example, if you're terrified of dogs, and someone knows this and buys you a puppy because they know it will scare you, buying you a puppy could be regarded as abusive. You have to decide for yourself what's abusive to you, i.e. what crosses your boundaries.

What do you think their response would be if you started a discussion about how you felt about some of their treatment? How does the thought of even bringing it up with them make you feel? Coming to terms with an abusive childhood is massively about validating yourself over and above anyone else. For decades I was told it was okay. It was when I listened to myself that I could start to unpick it with any clarity.

Sorry you had issues with your parents too.

@sianiboo it has been eye opening having my own dc.

@Watchkeys fair enough but it is interesting to see what was normal according to people from that time rather than reading generic some people had it worse or better because as I said the cane was normal of the day but it may not have been normal at home.

@Cleotolstoy I did ask my mum once how she felt now I'm an adult about hitting me with things but she went silent and left the room. She thinks I'm ungrateful for
I haven't raised it since. My dad would probably say I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and I've turned out alright. I wouldn't ask him tbh.

I’d be very surprised if your parents could properly face up to what they did. That’s why your mum left the room. Have you had some therapy to help with this, OP. There’s a lot that’s really horrible about what you have described.

I think what your parents attitude is like now is a continuation of the abuse. They're still acting as if your feelings mean nothing.

I was born late 80s. This would have been considered abusive in the circles me/my parents moved in. At most we had the occasional light snack on the bottom. I don't think it's "normal" for the time.

@Dery I can't really afford therapy atm but I will get some when I can. I do really appreciate the replies. It's hard to explain because if I read how my parents treated me in a newspaper say, I'd probably say well that's not right but because I've spent a lifetime like this I do feel like I need to think it all through as I've almost accepted that was how a childhood was back then.

Getting through adulthood so far really just pottered along and all has been ok and I've mostly just pushed it all aside and got on with life but having dc has made me question things to a much deeper degree than I had previously.
This is me working through it now I suppose. Was this normal. Should I have been treated this way.
I think my end goal is cutting my parents off without guilt! And maybe part of that is validating that things weren't ok.

And maybe part of that is validating that things weren't ok

Were things ok for you. That's what matters. Not whether some people say it was ok or not. There aren't rules or guidelines. There's no judge. Or rather, you are the judge. There's nobody can do it for you.

@Watchkeys well my parents actions were acceptable for almost my entire life as I've said it's only since having dc that I'm not really sure where I stand on it.

Obviously no one else can decide on how I feel but I think others can help me put these two incidents (out of others) into a place of what was normal and what wasn't. Because I've found it a difficult process understanding that perhaps this isn't all normal, when this is all you've known and I have found peoples replies here very helpful.

I was born in the 50s and although I was smacked as a child and the cane was used in schools (not on girls), none of what you experienced was 'normal'

It was abusive and I find it strange that you say other children you know experienced the same.