Was spanking/smacking common in the 1990s? Struggling with PIL

[onlyonsunday]

Found out recently that FIL would spank/smack/hit DH, until DH was age 11/12. FIL only stopped when DH got big and strong.

These weren't awful 'hidings' and didn't result in injury or broken skin. DH had to lay across FIL's lap and he would hit his bum over his clothes so no bare skin.

DH is totally unfazed by this and says it didn't do any harm. I have never known anyone hit their children in any way and am horrified. This would have been between 1985-1995. Was it fairly normal then? Or was this unusual?

There are other things in DH's childhood that I find horrifying, so I know my feelings on the spanking will be influenced by the other stuff.

So looking for thoughts on how this would have been viewed at the time.

TLDR: was spanking deemed normal as recently as 1995?

Edited to say: this is in the UK

I was born in 1991 in a working class area (Croydon). I think my dad hit me once (although I don't remember it) but I remember some of my friends were very much regularly hit or smacked by parents whenever they were "naughty".

In my experience it seemed to start dying out more in the early 00's.

That's abuse obviously id wash their mouth with soap.
I was belted at school and battered at home 70s Scotland.

My brothers and I weren't smacked. I have a friend the same age as me who was and she has a laugh about it and said she deserved it.

And there it is violence experienced as a child doesnt leave you.
50yrs later with therapy I've reconciled with what I saw and the violence put upon mum and me.

Born mid eighties. My mum smacked me on a regular basis, although I’m not sure if it was the physical smacking that damaged me, so much as how angry she used to be.

My dad smacked me twice - I know exactly what I did wrong and am happy to say I’m a better person for it.

sometimes I wonder about smacking… when you hear about kids having to be kept in padded cages in classrooms until they calm down… would a short sharp smack, not designed to hurt but to cut through the rage or panic, not be helpful for that child.

I was smacked once or twice (80s-90s). I vaguely remember one time, I'd run across a road and gave my dad such a fright. I don't have any scary memories or trauma from it.

The damage my parents caused me was more to do with pressure to do well at school and do the "right" things in life!!

I don't think they were bad parents, they were fairly average and clearly love(d) us a great deal.

I think Larkin's poem "they fuck you up your mum and dad" is pretty apt. It doesn't matter how you punish your children, you're always going to cause some kind of damage. So pick your poison I guess...

Yes, my husband in the 80s got the same and his sister (who, by all accounts was wild) got belts, pool cues, shoes, in addition to things like having her duvet taken and cold water poured over her before being locked in her room over night.

His sister went into care at 11 because of it and he was left behind because it supposedly wasn't as bad, mostly because he learned to retreat into himself and stay out of everyone's way. He's still oblivious to anything going on around him now, you can be talking directly to him and he will be looking right at you and not taking in a word you say. He also gets extremely agitated at minor things, like dropping a spoon or my daughter spilling something because he associates that with punishment. My daughter interprets it as anger but it's more fear. He was out the other day and my daughter dropped some yoghurt on a footstool and said, "Oh no, Daddy will be angry!"

I had to have a talk with him about how it was affecting her.

His sister now has severe MH problems and some sort of PD and is still effectively a very badly behaved teenager at the age of 47. It definitely did both of them a lot of harm. We're no contact with his parents and his sister.

It was not 'normal' in the 1990s. And certainly not that kind of humiliating hitting. You might come across the occasional mum giving a slap on the leg to a kid having a tantrum in Tesco's, but even then, people would look askance.

It might not have been entirely uncommon, but bending a child of that age across one's knee and hitting them was absolutely not the norm. My children were born in the late '80s, and were never slapped, and I didn't know anyone who thought it was right to do so. Even acquaintances who gave the occasional leg slap to a younger child, would feel bad about it.

Born in1990 and got a smacked bum as described. No often but enough to know it wasn’t an empty threat. Didn’t impact me personally but I would never smack my own children because I don’t want to model that hurting someone is acceptable (ie they are not allowed to hit me, their siblings, friends etc.). It would be more difficult to implement that if I was hitting them. Mine have never hit each other or me after the age of about 2

Very comment in 70s and 80s.

I remember being hit with a metre ruler across my knuckles when I was 8.

As a late 60s child smacking was common place at home and at school. We were rarely smacked and if we were it was a gentle tap on the bum, no laying across laps or use of slipper/belt etc. However, my mum did shout at us (a lot). We also weren't allowed to swear, but were allowed to go out across the fields, to play in the river next to the railway line for hours on end, from a very young age. The 70 into the 80s were a very mixed up time

That caning was still used for discipline when I was at senior school in the 80s seems barbaric to me. Only the boys were 'allowed' to be caned. The girls got a stern telling off from the head instead. He was one of those older men that were very imposing and all children were afraid of.

My DC are 90s born and I never even considered shouting at or smacking as something to be done, not because of my upbringing but because I couldn't fathom why I would ever want to hit my DC and couldn't see the point in shouting. I was horrified when my DSis smacked her DC on the hand for misbehaving.

Because nothing helps you with anger or panic better than being hit. 🙄

I was a child in the 80s/ early 90s and honestly my parents were considered unusual and a bit ‘hippy’ for never smacking us. It was a rural community so perhaps attitudes were a bit backwards but many of my friends were regularly smacked as primary kids some with implements. The headmaster had a cane on display and would sometimes walk around with it although he knew and we knew he was not allowed to use it.

My parents had been brought up with pretty brutal corporal punishment in the 60s (dad recalls being hit with shoes and caned until he bled at school) and they were ahead of the curve in promising never to smack us at all.

Exact same time frame, I was born in 1985 and yes I was smacked and even kicked once by my mother. She’d leave bright red hand marks on me. It was humiliating and scary and I grew up despising her so it’s amazing your DH is so okay with it. We’re close again now as adults but I did bring it up with her when I had my own children and just got ‘oh everyone did it’. How anyone could be okay with causing physical hurt to their own child I just don’t know and my own experience means I wouldn’t even think of it.

Absolutely not. I had my first DC mid nineties and I don’t know anyone who hit their children. I am sure it happened, but it was considered to be abuse.

Well, I'm not sure what the purpose of hitting a child as a punishment is if it isn't designed to hurt? I'm always suspicious when people say it's "just a tap" or similar - if it isn't intended to cause pain, how is it a punishment? Why are you hitting rather than hugging or holding their hand or even just speaking to the child if you aren't intending to cause pain?

I also think that there's categorically no science to suggest hitting a child "cuts through rage or panic". That just isn't how the brain works. People's brains don't move out of their stress response system when exposed to additional pain and fear.

I'm amazed anyone would think we should hit a panicked child, that's really quite a worrying stance to take.

Corporal punishment was still legal in private schools until 1999ish. It was an anachronism though, almost comical, and we never feared it even in the 80s.

My impression is smacking at home persisted longer than formal corporal punishments in school. My parents, who raised us in the 80s, still feel that smacking makes sense but mainly for very young children. I remember my toddler cousins being smacked around 1990.

I would love to know if siblings interact any differently now that smacking is so much rarer. My two have always been so gentle with each other whereas me and my brother used to physically fight all the time and were "just left to sort it out between ourselves". Of course it may just be luck and I'm sure siblings still fight, but I wonder if there is less of that now that we don't model to very young children that if someone does something you don't like, you should whack them.

My older sister was smacked once for pushing over the TV. This would have been the 80s and I’d imagine that tv was like gold to my dad. Neither myself or brother was smacked. I don’t think it was normal at all but I think you will get a whole range if answers.

same. born in 1988

I was born in the early 80’s and my mum used to smack my siblings and I with her rubber soled slipper

I'd say up to mid late 80s it was more common, especially as schools used to give pupils the cane. At my comprehensive it was 3 strokes of the cane across the palm. The kids who had it just became celebs at the time so it wasn't the best deterrent for those kids tbh!

I was smacked a few times as a young child in the 70s, have vague recollections. My kids were 90s babies and we didn't smack them - definitely not the norm, in my experience anyway.

It was still happening well into the 200s. I never was but my partner and plenty of my friends were, a few even got the belt

Born in the late 80’s - I remember being threatened with a smack more than it actually happening - the one time I clearly remember it was when I had run out into the road without looking and in hindsight was probably a reaction of sheer panic from my mum.

Born in mid 70s and was smacked as a child. Mainly by my mum and a couple of times by my dad. Always on the bum or thigh. My mum left welts on my leg and I can remember showing my little sister the handprints etc.

I wasn’t a bad or ‘naughty’ child. My mum just couldn’t cope with me asking questions and not always doing what I was told immediately.

I hated living at home and moved out when I was 19. Had a difficult relationship with my mother ever since.

My ex H (and father of my children) was beaten regularly by his dad with a belt. And his mum with a slipper. They did this from when he was a very little boy.

Neither of us have ever laid a hand on our children. They behave perfectly and as a result of not having their primary care givers hurt them, have not inherited the issues their father and I have.

I was born in the 80s. I was smacked with a hairbrush (so hard that it broke once), a wooden spoon etc, I was hit around the head for answering back, had water thrown on me. But then they did also break my bones so I’m not entirely sure where “normal” lies.

Banned in schools from 1986 but it took a while to filter down to older staff I think, as I remember being caned, hit on our fingers with a ruler, and having the board rubber thrown at us.