IN this thread the topic came up of parents hitting their kids. Some people acted as tho it was inconceivable that a parent would ever strike their kid in anger. Others maintained that it was not at all unusual. We can develop any specifics as the thread develops, but basically I’m asking whether one of your parents ever hit you - or whether you ever hit your kids, and if so, how often.
I was spanked as a child but never struck in anger.
No kids myself, but I got spanked plenty as a kid. Spanking was also used in public schools, and I’d get my licks every now and then. You do something stupid, you’d get spanked. It wasn’t anything shocking or unusual at all.
As a matter of fact, if you did something really really bad, you’d progress *past *a spanking. So what passes for punishment nowadays (grounding, timeouts, etc.) was actually *worse *than getting it over with quickly.
After posting this poll, I see that it does not capture all the info it might have. For example, I voted once or twice - but that doesn’t make clear whether I was the dad or the kid. Actually both. My dad hit me once or twice, and I can think of one time I was physical with my son.
While I greatly regret my actions towards my son, my dad having hit me doesn’t bother me at all, because on those occasions I was being a completely disrespectful jerk, basically egging him on, assuming he would never do anything about it. When he actually cracked me it was more of a shock than anything else.
My wife was beaten by her dad once, and I know she backhanded one of our kids across the mouth once.
While I never understood such violence to be universal, and do not consider it desirable, I guess I assumed it was reasonably common. I would have assumed it happened in at least a quarter to a third of all families. And, in my opinion, if a parent hits their kid once or twice, that is far different from what I would consider abuse.
Whether or not it matters, my parents were middle- to upper middle class, white collar, from Chicago, and I am the same.
Just my opinions and experience, and I’d appreciate hearing yours.
My older brother took a swing at my father when he was 16 or 17. Dad took him down, pinned him, and talked to him for awhile. I was about 15 feet away. I decided that trying to punch dad was not a good idea, and it did not seem to have any payoff.
My boys were spanked once or twice when young. Now, shutting down World of Warcraft, cell phone access, or simply being sent to be early is a much more efficient means of punishment.
I’m not sure how to reply. Aren’t spankings, in some ways, done out of anger? What is the difference? Are you considering spanking when the hitting is done because the kid has done something that (according to the spanker) deserves it? And just plain “hitting”, are you considering it when the kids had NOTHING to do with why the parent is angry (ie, parent is drunk, lost his job, neighbor teased him/her, bad prank, bad workday, etc.)?
The former, I had enough in my life. The second one… no. Unless you count the time I got slapped in the face by my mom… after I had hit her. My friends comment I was lucky that’s all I got.
Yeah, I don’t know if I was sufficiently clear, but I was talking about something different than spanking, which most advocates say should not be done in anger. And I’d rather this not turn into a debate on whether or not corporate punishment in any form is acceptable or beneficial.
But the type of situation I’m thinking about is when there is an argument going on between a child and their parent, and most likely in response to something the kid said or did, the parent lashes out and strikes them. The most common thing I’m thinking of is the kid says something they know will push the parent too far, and the parent backhands them across the mouth.
I was surprised at the number of people who reported in the other thread that they had never heard of such a thing happening, equating it with abuse or assault, and more.
In my mind I can distinguish between a spank in which the parent is not angry, but feels a few swats on the butt is a way to make an impression and discipline within certain parameters, as opposed to someone who is spanking the kid because they are mad at him. But even an angry spank is different from what I was getting at, because it is premeditated and involves more than just a lashing out.
Folk who are confused by my inartful poll might get a better idea by reading the other thread.
I was spanked, never hit in anger. I’ve never done either, though I’ve sure as hell wanted to a few times with the teenager.
I think I misunderstood and selected the wrong option. I put once or twice but I thought we were talking about being exposed to this kind of thing at all, so I knew one or two people who had gotten hit. I should have selected the No, never option.
Corporal punishment may include a spanking, a mere slap on the butt, or even a slap across the mouth as long as it is done for the purposes of correction or discipline. A wrong must be committed by the child for the parent (or the person standing in place of the parent) to institute corporal punishment.
I can understand corporal punishment. I received it when I was a child, I doled it out (or tried to) when I was a parent when it was necessary.
I never dispensed corporal punishment just because I was mad. There had to be a clear reason for it to occur in the first place, and that clear reason usually had to do with the child doing something dangerous that could have resulted in their own injury, such as when my daughter tried to run across a busy street without any regard for the situation.
I heard of situations where parents would strike their children for no reason, while saying something along the lines of “That was for nothing…just imagine how much harder it would have been if you had actually done something you shouldn’t have.”
That to me is just plain bullying.
I voted occasionally.
I wasn’t a bad kid–but I got into a lot of trouble for goofing off in elementary school . Unfortunately for me, my father had a zero-tolerance policy for mishbehavior of any type. I don’t know how many times he got his belt out–it probably wasn’t that many–but there was one time that harmed our relationship beyond repair. Without going into details, I vowed that when I got big enough he would never, ever hit me again. It was another couple of years before that time came. But when it did, my father was smart enough to see the look in my eye and realize that the era of one-way violence was over.
I’m honestly not sure. I have a vague memory of making my mom so angry that she hauled off and slapped me in the face (over what, I don’t remember), but she denies it, and I wouldn’t swear to it in court or anything.
My mom has popped me in the mouth a few times for talking back. And I don’t mean normal kid sass talking back. I mean way too big for my britches, out of line talking back. That learned me to keep my mouth shut real fast like.
I was spanked twice - once by my mom, once a quit swat on the bottom by my grandfather. Neither blow was made in anger. My sister, on the other hand, laughed in the middle of a spanking, so my mom hauled off and slapped her across the face. At a much later date, my sister slapped my mom during an argument. She also punched me in the stomach and, when I fell to the floor, kicked me in the head. She has thankfully mellowed out and we’re now quite close. And she has never hit my mom since.
I’ve never hit my son. The closest I came was when I had cut off a piece of my finger and, as an 18-month-old toddler, he was very, very interested in the enormous pressure bandage on my finger. He was so interested, he ripped it off, which was excruciating. My first instinct was to slap him, but I just grabbed him by the back of the neck like a misbehaving cat. I’m so glad I did that instead.
I’ve been tempted to give my son a spanking, but I’d like to avoid it at all costs.
My parents were both educated and upper-middle class, but they hit us in anger all the time.
My mother beat me 1-3 times per week with her hand, shoes, wooden spoons, belts, whatever was at hand when I annoyed her. And everything I did annoyed her. Once she grabbed me by the arm and shook me until she tore my shirt, and left bleeding nail marks in my skin. Her favorite way to solve disputes between her daughters was to grab the two who were fighting by the scruff of the neck and crack their heads together as hard as she could. When my little sisters went through a “biting phase” (at age 5 or under), she “taught them a lesson” by biting them herself. She threatened me with a gun once.
My father was worse. He became violent when angry…and everything made him angry. He didn’t just spank. He once slammed me into a wall because I left a water mark on a book. (It was my book. I bought it with my own money.) He once dragged my sister out of the car, over the back seat, by her hair, because he got tired of her giggling. That sort of thing went on all the time. He’s a sadist who used to kick us for fun as we walked by, for no reason at all. Thank god he worked a lot when we were young.
As we got older, the abuse became more psychological. He constantly walked around wearing a gun, and would point them at us at the dinner table, then get angry at us for getting upset, saying that we were ridiculous. To this day, he acts as safety officer at regional and national practical shooting events, so he knows the rules of gun safety say that you never point a gun at another person, whether you believe it to be loaded or not. Once, he pointed a gun at my sister and pulled the trigger. He claims he thought it was unloaded, but who knows? The bullet went into the wall less than a foot from her head. He slapped her hard across the face for crying, and later told the story to his shooting buddies. They all laughed.
To this day, they decry us as “ungrateful bitches” and claim that what they did to us was “no big deal.”
Child abuse is not confined to the poor and uneducated. All it takes is a bad temper and poor impulse control. And the attitude that children are the property of their parents.
I tried to tell people, including one teacher, what was going on in our house when I was a child, only to be told to stop spreading such stories about my parents. They were and are respected members of the community, and no one would believe that they did such things. But you never know what goes on behind closed doors.
I wondered about this too. There is exactly one time that I saw any hitting at home (my sister slapped my Mom), but I have seen/heard of physical stuff happening in other families. Does that count?
Q. N., that’s horrific and I am sorry you went through that.
Our parents (white upper middle class) tried to act like a unit, but really they disciplined us differently.
My mom did hit/spank/smack rather recklessly, and it was usually me (the girl) who got it rather than my brothers. She would seem to have infinite patience, but then some little thing would set her off. Maybe having three kids age 5 and under just occasionally sent her over the edge. I could be a little snot, no getting around it; I pushed her buttons, but I am sure that sometimes it was displaced emotions, with me bearing the brunt of them. She used a belt a couple of times–not regularly. She once gave me a swollen eye, and the faculty at my elementary school was suspicious (I lied about it. This was back in 1963-64, I was 9 or 10. AFAIK they never called my mom about it.)
With my brothers, Mom would often do the “wait till your father gets home” routine and then my dad would be the tired commuter, home from the office, doing a sit-down with my brothers. He rarely spanked them, never spanked me, his temper could be hellacious but he never did anything physical in anger.
I know spanking was done in middle school as well, my youngest brother told me that they would give him the choice of calling our parents or getting paddled. He took the paddle every time.
In separate incidents, I did smack each of my own boys once in anger. They had misbehaved, but I was the one who crossed the line, and instantly regretted it.
I felt awful about it and never did it again.
I certainly remembered what it felt like.
My husband was much like my own dad, perhaps not wanting a whole lot of fuss at the end of the day, but wanting to help make everything copacetic.
I was beaten frequently as a child, it didn’t actually take me doing anything wrong, just being in front of the stepdad when something pissed him off. He would use his fists, a brick, a piece of firewood and one memorable time he chased me around the yard shooting me with a pellet rifle. Several required trips to the emergency room. He left when I was 13, never seen him again.
My sister was also smacked around pretty good, and my cousins seemed to get black eyes from time to time. It seemed completely ordinary and I was grown before I realized not everyone was beaten every now and then.
My mother has only smacked me twice. The first was when I was a 4 or 5 and ran out into the street in front of our house (causing a car to swerve into a neighbor’s yard). As soon as she realized I was OK she pulled my pants down and starting spanking me on the road side. My butt was sore for awhile afterwards. The only other time was when I was 7 or 8 and kept kicking my feet under the table in a restaurant and she smacked me across my face.