No, of course not. I got a couple of open-handed spankings on my clothed rear end when I was very small. I remember one. Primarily, I remember being pissed that I wasn’t getting my way - not being hurt.
I swatted my son once on the rear when he was two or three. I don’t remember what he’d done. He looked surprised, but not upset. I, on the other hand, cried at length. I can’t imagine thinking that’s OK.
Yep. My father was the product of a family that beat the crap out of their kids for the most minor things. He adopted that practice, but toned it down somewhat. I remember getting my ass beat for some pretty ridiculous things. He apparently had no other tools in his inventory for correcting a child. Sad really.
Good lord, no.
I’m kinda shocked and saddened such things are apparently so common.
I have my own six year old son right now, and I’d rather tear my own arm off than beat him and cause him misery and pain.
And continuing the threadjack, I always thought it was “wale” since the word is related to beating someone.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wale
sonofagun… yer right, rush. the correct term is ‘wale,’ not ‘whale.’ i didn’t catch that. well done. 
I don’t know if I can bring myself to watch that video. Parents abusing their kids makes me physically ILL. I was given my fair share of belt-whippings and slapping/hitting/pounding on by my dad. I don’t care to revisit it that often. He had a fair amount of demons he struggled with, I see this now that I’m older and don’t blame myself so much for what happened now. His fits of rage could be brought on by simply spilling milk at the dinner table. I’d go hide in my closet for hours. What was almost worse was my own mom never sticking up for me or defending me. The shame and guilt that I was left with has done its mighty fine damage.
It deeply saddens me to see how prevalent this is - abuse towards children. It desperately needs intervention, people need help dealing with their sadness and anger. I have vowed I would never, EVER do that to my children. I consider myself to be a patient (and non-abusive!), loving parent now. I decided to end the cycle with ME. So, maybe something good did come out of this 
I got some mild spankings from my favorite aunt when I was young that were deserved. I had this fascination with animals, stovetops, and electrical things which lead me to do dangerous things. My dad wasn’t around most of my childhood and I avoided my mother as much as possible. My father’s one attempt to beat me in my teenage years ended when I threatened him back with a handgun. Now my brothers got some beatings. Usually for getting stupid girls pregnant or unsuccessfull petty crime.
Yes, on a regular basis.
I wish I’d been brave enough as that girl to record the abuse. Can you imagine how he would’ve reacted if the camera had been discovered?
I came here to repeat my usual argument that “wale” is the correct spelling for the meaning “to beat,” but I’ve been beaten to the punch.
I’ve never really understood the confusion, frankly, since the noun “wale” means a mark or welt on the skin, probably from the same root we get weal and welt. But I admit I’m into obscure vocabulary.
Yes. My father had a boat oar that he sawed down and turned into a paddle. He broke it over my back when I tried to move to avoid the next swing once when I was gettting punished. I had lied and told him I was spending the night at a friend’s house and went to a keg party and dropped a couple of hits of acid when I was 13.
What I saw in the video honestly didn’t even phase me. It seems to me that people are making a much bigger deal of it than it actually is. Maybe my frame of reference is screwed up, but what she got didn’t seem all that bad to me honestly.
It’s very triggering; don’t watch it.
It made me cry because it brought back all the fear, rage, shame, humiliation, degradation.
Go hug someone you love instead. Trust me on this.
Your frame of reference is screwed up. IMHO, any punishment that leaves a kid screaming and cowering is abuse. Punishment is supposed to be unpleasant, but putting kids (or animals, or adults for that matter) into fight-or-flight mode is counterproductive. There are lots of ways to discipline a kid that make a strong point without making them afraid of you.
And maybe my frame of reference is screwed up, but I’d cringe if I saw someone hit a cow that hard, even once, let alone a human child.
I didn’t watch the video, but hell no.
My parents infrequently beat my brother and I when we were children, typical weapons were belts, wooden spoons or yardsticks. It wasn’t as severe or as long-lasting as the video, and they shifted to reason and other punishments by the time we were past puberty.
I’ve gotta say: if the best discipline choice for a 16 year old is a beating, you’ve failed as a parent.
I just watched the video for the first time. I’ve been reading all the ongoing threads, and from the descriptions people were posting, I was willing to take people’s word for it that it was a severe beating, worthy of the term “abuse”. I didn’t need to see it, and probably wouldn’t find it anywhere near as bad as some things I’ve seen, but probably well beyond “crossing the line”, nonetheless. It would probably be just another boring example of “man’s inhumanity to man”. This thread demanded that I watch it, before commenting.
Unfortunately, I did.
That wasn’t a “beating” from my perspective. I’ve gotten much worse, but at least at the time, and in retrospect as an adult, I knew why I was being abused. The worst part of that video, for me, was the fact that she got what I would have considered a mild whacking (my father was much more adept with a belt), but was not told before-hand what it was for. It wasn’t until the whipping was nearly done that her “dad” even mentioned what the fuck it was about. At least I usually got a 5 to 10 minute “more in sorrow than in anger” lecture, beforehand, telling me why I was about to be belted more severely than she got.
I saw a scared teenager, about to get a whipping, and her behavior indicates to me that she was expecting something much more severe than it turned out to be. Note that word in the previous sentence. Expecting. She didn’t dare turn her back on him, even though he was demanding it. And still wouldn’t, despite the whacks on her legs. That screams to me that he had done much worse in the past. “Mom’s” behavior, too, screams of abuse. Too bad for me, the dynamic was different in my family.
I’m done with this. Nothing more I’m willing to say. Maybe I’ll continue reading these threads, but somebody shoot me if I start to post again…
Before I posted the OP, I checked out the spelling of whale. I did not want to appear lacking in education.
I check your reference. Sure , a wale (amongst several other meanings) can mean a linear mark left by a whip, but that as close as you are gonna get to a thrashing.
He’s not arguing for the correct term. He’s arguing for the incorrect spelling of a term with a particular meaning.
Sisyphus, You should have left the issue alone.
Oh, go back to sailing your goddamned ship, Vandervecken! Give this a rest. Sail around the Cape, or something.
Its van der Decken to you sir. I’d comply with your previous request rather than sail around the Cape again.
Oops. Sorry. You are the OP. I apologize for the scorn in my previous post.
“I’m the only man who’s ever jumped ship, from Van Der Vecken’s crew”
Hey, what can I say…? Sailing on your ship was utter hell!
I can’t bring myself to watch that video, but according to descriptions, I’m pretty sure the answer is yes. My mom hurt her hand if she used it on us, so her weapon of choice was a wooden spoon until she broke so many on me, then she switched to a wooden boar-bristle hairbrush which was sturdier. She kept hitting steadily until you complied to her screaming to hold still and take it, which meant that trying to escape resulted in getting hit on bony areas like your spine, pelvis, hands, etc. It stung and often left bruises. Being hit with a block of wood and occasionally being punctured by boar bristles is different than being whipped, though - whipping raises welts and can give worse bruising.
The physical pain wasn’t the bad part of being hit like that, it was the fear and how relentless she was even if you were crying and begging. The *screaming *and the level of insane rage - you were never sure how far she’d go or how long it was going to take. Luckily, with my mom, she never went far enough seriously injure us. But every time it happened it was terrifying. Watching her do it to my sisters was many times worse than having it done to me.
She also flailed me with a wire hanger once, just like in Mommy Dearest. That scene was a fun surprise when I saw the movie…