GP's who are teachers not being remorseful for corporal punishment

[maratara]

I have recently found out that my MIL and FIL who were both primary school teachers ( so up to 12yo max) have both caned children who were badly behaved when they were teaching in the 70's and 80's. It has blown my mind. I burst into tears - I have left all my 4 children with them alone at various times . I had no idea. They think it was just the times, and I am overreacting and I don't understand how things were. This is not that long ago though really! And nobody had a gun to their head to hit a child.

I think they were bullies who used a power imbalance to hit a child with a stick.
Needless to say our relationship has taken a bad turn. I really liked them until now - been with their son for close to 20 years but only found out about this 2 days ago.
What would you do?
My youngest is 11 so it's easy to say he just doesn't want to stay at Grandma's anymore in the holidays for a night. Other children are adults so would never stay the night - just come to family gatherings and things.

What do other people think?

What a ridiculous thing to get upset about. Would you be upset if they had been in the army and killed people ? Or worked in an abortoir?

It was a job. They were following the rules of that time

, that doesn't mean they're going to that your kids with a stick

I am a bit sad about how many posters are all in favour of it because it was just the thing done in the day

Good grief. Do you not see the difference between saying that they weren't necessarily awful people because they confirmed to what was the norm in their schools at the time, and saying that we're in favour of it?

I am absolutely NOT in favour of any kind of corporal punishment and am hugely relieved that it's no longer allowed in schools, and that it's now extremely rare to see parents slap their kids (in public at least). I wouldn't dream of laying a finger on anyone, never mind a small child.

But back in the 60s, even teachers that I liked and respected would send my classmates to be slippered or caned. I don't believe that they were all terrible people.

I'm with you on being very disappointed that the PILs don't regret that it was part of their culture at the time though. I'd have hoped that they wouldn't be as gung go about the memories as they appear.

I feel disgusted, as I do that many respectable and otherwise good people owned slaves until the 19th century.... but you're naive if you think that our descendants in 50 or 100 years won't look back on us with similar disgust for things we accepted and partake in today.

OK but why are so many people here responding to OP as though she's totally batshit for seeing her PIL in a different light because they think it's fine that they assaulted children?

You may wish it wasn't so, but it's clear that corporal punishment was extremely common before the mid-80s.

A policeman giving a misbehaving kid a clip round the ear wouldn't have raised many eyebrows... The world was different back then. It was much more violent... that generation lived with the privations of war. When 10,000s of young men are being sent to their deaths, the odd smack was nothing.

In fact, and I see it a lot on here, it's shitty as hell to make someone feel like a lunatic for having an emotional response to something like that. I'm sure there's a word for it.

Where I lived, we had three police officers who patrolled the streets, PC Henry, PC Martin and another, whose name I forget. During the summer holidays, they would patrol the local park and would regularly clip the naughty boys round the ear if they were out of line. Funnily enough, some of those naughty boys were the same boys who were regularly sent to the Headmaster's office for a caning.

Where I lived, we had three police officers who patrolled the streets, PC Henry, PC Martin and another, whose name I forget. During the summer holidays, they would patrol the local park and would regularly clip the naughty boys round the ear if they were out of line. Funnily enough, some of those naughty boys were the same boys who were regularly sent to the Headmaster's office for a caning.

I guess regularly being 'clipped' wasn't solving their behavioural issues then...

It's a statement of disbelief, usually accompanied by stroking of the chin

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OP you’re overreacting. Have a word with yourself about being melodramatic.

@AllOfThemWitches

I guess regularly being 'clipped' wasn't solving their behavioural issues then...

I don't think most posters are saying that it necessarily did solve anyway, but are responding to those who can't believe that it actually did happen and isn't the construct of some right-winger's febrile imagination!

The majority, probably the vast majority, of people over 50 in this country have been on the end of some kind of corporal punishment as a child. I'm not saying that's a good thing. It really isn't, but it's a fact.

It's also true that it didn't have any particular adverse impact on most, with the exception of course of those who were beaten badly or alongside other cruel treatment.

Life was like that then.

it was what it was. 🙄

Perhaps everybody here who ever got a smack off their parents should refuse further contact, given they were so abusive. After all, we shouldn't let them off the hook just because it was pretty much normal back then to physically chastise their kids. As anyone who read the Beano could attest. And while we're at it, we could add not making their kids wear seatbelts to their list of crimes, along with frying food in lard rather than olive oil and giving us too much sugar.

Nobody is saying corporal punishment was right. What people are saying is that there is normally a huge amount of cultural background that we don't examine or protest. We accept it without thinking. I would hazard a guess that there is a huge amount of cultural baggage that every single person on this thread carries around without realising it, unless you're suggesting that the humans currently inhabiting the planet are the most enlightened generations ever to draw breath.

What has your husbands reaction been?

Yeah, I just can't believe some of the blasé attitudes around assaulting smaller, weaker people here, considering the 'I slapped my husband' thread.

But I understand that people aren't generally supporting it. What I'm questioning is the whole 'omg OP what a drama queen you are for seeing them in a different light based on their lack of care about hitting kids!!'

@maratara i did respond to the thread - see above. Have you mentioned your dh’s views yet? Did his parents hit him? If the gps are basically kind people as far as your dcs have experienced them, they won’t thank you in the future for stopping their relationship. IMO that would be a very selfish thing to do, based on your overreaction. Being shouted at for taking a biscuit when you’ve already been told not to may have been a shock for your dc, but is not abusive. Do you really think you are morally superior? In every way? That is quite a startling claim!

Seriously? I was at primary in the 70s and it was standard. Leg smacking for minor things, caning for serious things in juniors (7-11). Caning was for fighting, bullying and vandalism. I saw two boys caned in assembly for throwing stones over the perimeter fence and smashing a car windscreen. Teachers would have been expected to follow school policy on corporal punishment.

And I went to a standard local authority school, not one linked to any religious group with a bad reputation.

Whilst I agree that historical and cultural context are important when discussing past practices, I take issue with the views of some that the culture of the 70s and early 80s was unquestioning in its acceptance of corporal punishment. It wasn't!

Reading the thread you might think that until legislation brought an end to it on the 80s, hitting children, including primary aged children, was commonplace. The reality is that there was a great deal of opposition to the practice from teachers and parents at the time. Many schools stopped it long before the law changed.
Even in schools where it was a punishment on the books still, it was likely to have been reserved for extreme misdemeanours and only administered by the Headteacher. Not generally handed out ad hoc by class teachers.

I am NOT saying it didn't happen. I'm saying 40/ 50 years ago doesn't wholly fit LP Hartley's " The past is a different country, they do things differently there"

Why do you find it hard to believe?
Attitudes were changing in the 70s. The legislation in the 80s didn't bring about the change. It merely rubberstamped it to ensure it was universal. Because it was a period of change, people's experiences might be very different. But it was a practice that teachers would have been aware of as being called into question, whether they agreed or not.

No one I was at uni with experienced anything different. We were all smacked in infants and saw caning in juniors. Quite a few students I taught who were at school at a similar time went to convent schools and saw far worse. Great for those who didn’t experience it but so far I’ve not met anyone who didn’t .

The reality is that there was a great deal of opposition to the practice from teachers and parents at the time. Many schools stopped it long before the law changed.

I was at secondary school in the early 70s. I wasn’t aware of any opposition to it by teachers or parents. I remember being hit on the head with a book by the deputy head in a lesson. Apart from the fact, it gave me a headache, it never occurred to me to complain about it and who was there to complain to anyway?

I was at secondary school in the early 70s. I wasn’t aware of any opposition to it by teachers or parents

If there had been no opposition from either parents or the teaching profession the practice would still be in place. Legislation doesn't appear from nowhere.

If legislation had been brought in that was wholly contrary to the educational and parental beliefs of the time, there would have been mass objections. But there weren't. I'm not saying everyone in the 80s agreed, but it was not seen as an extreme or controversial imposition. It was widely seen as appropriate. That change in attitude takes place over time, and started before the 80s.