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 think sometimes smacking is pretty ingrained and new parents especially can struggle a bit not to revert to that when they're basically learning to parent, when it's what they grew up with. I know so many other parents from when this has come up that smacked or tapped a couple of times in the younger years but just didn't buy it as a form of anything positive. That's genuine progress.

I got smacked (I am 50). I remember the humiliation rather than the pain. My DS is 11 and I have never smacked him. That would be teaching him that it is ok for a bigger person to hit a smaller person. There are other ways of correcting bad behaviour.

I can't respond to that. It's psychotic.

I wasn't smacked in the 90s and I don't smack my son (4yo).

I just can't imagine purposefully inflicting pain on him as a form of discipline or punishment. Which is what you're doing, even with "the occasional light smack on a clothed bottom," as one PP put it.

It's lazy parenting IMO.

Does your partner give you a light smack on your clothed bottom when you're naughty? Only when he has to, of course. Or if you're late to work 3 times, it's your choice then to get a light smack off your boss, right?

Honestly I think this is way over the top, and I really hope you're being hyperbolic with the "ought to be sterilised"/ have your kids removed comments.

What do we all mean by smacking, for a start? There's a world of difference between a quick slap on the wrist as a quick alternative to a lecture, and being beaten with a belt for minutes because Dad has lost his temper. And if that's what you grew up with, it can be weird to realise that some people take a different approach. Or if you grew up with severe physical abuse, you might see the slap on the wrist as fine because it's so different in degree.

I think smacking should be banned everywhere, btw, and would never hit my kids, so this isn't about my own opinion.

I was smacked in the 90s - on the bum or the back of the legs. It was quite normal amongst my (primary school age) friends to have been smacked if you did something really naughty at home. The fear of being smacked was always there when being told off for something.

Except it did. Quite effectively. When used on very rare occasions.

It's psychotic to hit people because you can even though all the research shows you it's harmful and ineffective.

I was born in 1960 and was aware growing up that my parents were unusual in not smacking us. My granny, born in 1883, was of the view that smacking was good for children, and gave that as a reason for whacking my two-year old brother, who had done nothing wrong. Some parents gave their children 'a good belting' even in public.

Caning and the slipper at school were commonly administered, and wooden blackboard rubbers often thrown at pupils by teachers. On the one occasion I was hit, with a ruler across my knuckles, I was outraged because I had never been hit before and my transgression, getting out of my chair to throw a piece of paper in the bin, happened because I hadn't been listening when we were told to stay in our seats (while the male teacher left the room to snog the next-door teacher in the adjacent cloakroom).

As a parent, I have taken the view that smacking is about parent failing to manage themselves. I smacked DD once as a toddler because she wouldn't stop talking whilst I was driving. It felt absolutely wrong.

When something is so common, I can see how your DH doesn't harbour bad memories of being smacked.

I think it was less common than in decades before, but it still wasn't exactly uncommon. I remember one of our primary school teachers in the early-mid 90s throwing chalk an chalkbard erasers at people or hitting the backs of their legs with tennis balls thrown at speed! Not sure that was actually legal, but no one, including parents and other teachers, batted an eyelid really!

Nothing calms a person down like whacking them. 😂

That's one of the stupidest things I've ever read on here.

God OP you sound so patronising. Of course it was common. Lots of kids got a hiding growing up in the 80s and 90s. Including me. You can’t possibly be that naive?

Absolutley agree with this. The pants down thing is abusive, in a sexual as well as physical way. That never happened to any of us.

I’m in the date range you’ve and was given a smack on the bum on more than one occasion. Always by my mum but never my dad. Like your DH I’m totally unfazed by it.

I’ve just asked my office colleagues (there are 16 of us!) and all but one of them was smacked as a child.

I was smacked a few times in that era. Although threatened with being hit more than I remember being hit. My dad justifies it as he did it once when I was running off in a dangerous situation. I m not going to hit my child. Although I think you can harm just as much with emotional blackmail. My friend was smacked more than me and Although she is sensitive she can also have a great 'fuck it attitude' which I think comes from having to put up with smacks where as I used to really stress out just at the thought I might be doing something wrong.

I agree. A smack in the heat of the moment, while not good parenting, is one thing. The deliberate, almost ceremonial behaviour, IMO is quite worrying. I am not a legal eagle but I am not sure that would stand the legal test of "proportionate punishment"

The belt/tawse wasn't banned in Scottish schools until 1987 and physical punishment was banned outright in 2020 so I'd say probably not common but fairly "normal" at home especially if no belts/slippers etc were involved.

I was smacked as a child, my parents had a stick in a drawer, and part of the punishment was to get the stick. This was on bare skin too I might add.

I'm 42 and I seem to recall it being fairly common. I know I was smacked by my parents for doing bad things and also witnessed friends likewise being smacked by their parents for doing bad things.

I think it was pretty common, yes, although not as common as in the seventies and eighties. Most of my friends and I got smacked, but not the lie-across-the-lap type, more like grabbing an arm and giving one swift smack on the bum over clothes.

Anyway, however the smack was administered, looking back I can see how humiliating it is for children to be smacked on the bum, and how awful it is to hit children at all.

I'm not a parent, but I assume there are effective non-violent ways to discipline a child? Surely you can take privileges away, cancel outings etc.

I learnt that hitting people when you were angry with them was normal

Same. My parents stopped smacking me when I started punching back. It took me a while to unlearn that normalisation of violence.

I was never physically abused by my parents and never did to mine.

I doubt if a smack would cut through panic, it might make it worse.
It's a bad situation when a school child needs a padded cell.

Honestly, it's not. If you hit your partner, or any other adult, even a "light slap on the wrist", the police would arrest you and you'd be removed from the home. So why wouldn't you get the same treatment for doing it to someone smaller and weaker than you?