I don’t really remember. obviously it had a big effect on me.
When I went to grade school (early 80’s) kids were still paddled for disrupting class, after they had been given a warning. I never got paddled at school though. I was a very quiet kid most of the time.
At home, my sister and I were spanked for deliberate misbehavior. If we spilled/broke something because we weren’t paying attention to what we were doing, we got scolded but not spanked. If we lied, or deliberately did something that we knew was against the rules, we got spanked on the butt/thighs with a wooden spoon. Stung like crazy, but never hard enough to leave bruises or anything.
I remember one time, I was maybe 8 or so? I was doing something noisy (can’t remember what exactly), and I was doing it deliberately to be obnoxious. I think I was annoyed at mom telling me “no” to something I wanted to do. Mom asked me several times to stop. I would stop for a few minutes, then start up again. Finally she said “If you don’t stop, I’m going to slap you silly.” Again, I stopped for a few minutes, then started up again. She tapped the side of my face with the flat of her hand. Really, she barely made contact at all. If I’d had my eyes closed, I may not have even felt it. But it shocked the crap out of me that she actually “slapped” me. I was stunned. I straightened up immediately.
Hand, belt and switch by my parents. It didn’t happen often but disobeying and a smart mouth were the main ones.
In first grade I was “spanked” by the principal. I put spanked in quotes because it left me bruised. I was homeschooled after that.
I got whupped for gagging at the dinner table when I was around six or seven. Yup, you heard right! I had an involuntary visceral reaction to whatever vegetable we were being forced to choke down, and I was immediately taken upstairs. I have a fantastic memory for childhood happenings, but I don’t remember what happened after my father and I entered his bedroom. But it must have been pretty serious because all my siblings do remember.
A couple of times, I remember my mother raining down on us with the belt for not picking up our bedroom fast enough. It wasn’t like we weren’t doing it. We just weren’t doing it with zest. But in retrospect, those incidents are more humorous than painful.
And then there was the time my sister got smacked so hard that her nose exploded all over the kitchen floor. I was the one who should have gotten punished, because I was the one who was being a dumbass at the dinner table. But she was the one who had caught my father’s attention. To this day he still denies it happened, but the memory of it still makes me sick.
I love my parents and I know they were doing their best, however idiotic it was.
Wow, a great question that brings back some repressed memories. My mother never laid a hand on any of us kids, never. Her scoldings were bad enough. My father got whatever was handy, belt or switch, and laid into us when we did something bad. The offense? You know, I can’t really remember many of them. I do recall one time we kids were all still chatting away while in bed way past our curfew (lights out, go to sleep). That resulted in a whipping. My father would hit the boys mainly and spared the girls. One time he asked me (the eldest) to do an errand and I replied OK, but in that snappish, irritated tone that teenagers use. Out came the switch. Ah, the switch. We kids would hide it so that it would not be found at punishment time, but either it would be found or it would be quickly replaced. Funny thing was that my father really mellowed as he aged and the whippings tapered off. My youngest sibling never had even a spanking. The rest of us took it all. As I write this I can still recall the strong resentment that welled inside me after the whippings, but all that hatred dissipated in time, particularly after I became a parent myself. My father became a very gentle old man the last few decades of his life and was a doting grandfather.
I’m not nostalgic about getting spanked. It hurt.
Only we didn’t call it spanking. We called it whipping, or whupping. I’d get beat with a belt on the front of my thighs while sitting on the bed, always fully clothed.
What for? Most frequently for wetting the bed. The one time I can recall that wsn’t for bedwetting was for stealing some candy my brother was selling for school.
a) in Junior High School, for refusing to get off the line at the drinking fountain when the bell rang (I’d been waiting in line for over 5 minutes);
b) also in Junior High, for calling a girl a “bitch”.
I did not weigh cost-benefit. I did not see anything wrong with my actions. I saw a great deal wrong with anything short of completely even-handed treatment for everyone. Everyone meant “adults kids teachers, everyone”.
c) got it at home a few times. I was not happy about that either. I figured “I know where you live” and if pushed far enough often enough there just might be some retaliation coming. Yes indeed there might be some headline news to read about one of these days. (I got over it)
That didn’t happen. I can’t recall any time where my folks thought I’d been insufficiently punished for wrongdoings at school.
I wasn’t a little Dennis the Menace type. More of a little Abbie Hoffman type. Picture me in 6th grade circulating a petition among the other kids to issue a formal complaint with the principal against a certain teacher. And back talk. I got into trouble for talking back to adults. Heck, that dates back to 1st grade. “Excuse me, this is our teacher’s classroom, Miss Adamson’s room, and you aren’t supposed to be in here when she’s away”
Did he have that sign on the fridge too? It’s a big favorite with parents who think along those lines.
Queen Tonya:
Well, that makes sense. But then TBG
reminds me that no matter what form punishment takes, it can never be 100% guaranteed to be applied fairly and evenly. I’d hate to think of parents never giving the benefit of the doubt. Especially back in the day when classrooms were overcrowded and many teachers had that job because it was the only one they could get. I wouldn’t expect perfect judgment from them, and as such, I’d be open to the possibility that perhaps the kid really didn’t do it.
My siblings and I were spanked, sometimes with a broad leather belt, sometimes with an open hand, always on the bottom. Never capriciously, though, and only in cases of lying to my parents in response to direct questioning or egregious misbehavior. Time out, in a corner or some such, was more common though, and, in my easily-bored mind, worse.
At school, corporal punishment was supposedly used, but I was a good kid, or at least good enough that the teachers usually looked the other way when I did wrong, so I never encountered it personally.
A quick three swats on the bottom happened for something like smartmouth backtalk or taking something that wasn’t ours.
I have a fairly vivid memory of my dad spanking my sister and suspect it might have been for her mean treatment of me…(she might have hit me. Way to reinforce your message, Pop. Do swat NOT swat hit swat your sister!)
I remember two serious spankings from my mom, adminsistered with an orange plastic hairbrush. One of them was deserved and one was not. First the not, and in the interest of full disclosure it would have been deserved if I’d actually done what she thought I had. Mom had baked cookies and left them on cooling racks on the kitchen island. When she returned half the cookies were gone. She called me in, asking “how could you eat all those cookies?” I said I didn’t. We went back and forth until the spanking was announced. She was SURE I was lying to her, and (as she told me later) was absolutely horrified at how convincing I was at it. The spanking wasn’t for eating cookies it was for the lying…except I hadn’t eaten the cookies. The dog ate the cookies. My mom (again, telling me later) dismissed the notion as ridiculous because the dog couldn’t possibly reach up there. She spanked me…and about a week later the dog snatched a big hunk of meat off the same counter. Mom did apologize, but the damage was already done.
The other time I played with matches in the house - in my closet. When she came home from work and smelled burning she asked if I’d been playing with matches and I said no. She started acting the way someone should when it seems possible her house is burning down…and I fessed up. Then my mom said throught the clechedest clenched teeth before or since “Wait here. I’m getting the brush.”
His father and I decided before he was born that we would not spank our son and we haven’t, but one thing that I contend is that the awareness that I could be spanked made me a lot more cautious about my behavior than my son is. He’s very mouthy.
I was only paddled twice, and both were spontaneous. When I was three or so I ran out into the street and my babysitter gave me a couple swats on the ass as she was hauling me back in a panic.
When I was five or six I wanted to go across the street to play with the little neighbor girl. My mom said no. I whined and asked why, argued and generally drug it out to the point that I got on her last nerve. When she said something like, “Because I said so,” I said, “Well, SHIT!”. That got me one swat and a brief timeout.
My parents always kept the threat of spanking as an option, and I knew they were willing to do it if I went too far out of line. There were no set infractions that would have gotten me a spanking, but the general degree was pretty much always clear as I recall.
The worst was when I’d get the, “I’m very disappointed, son,” talks from my dad. Even those were rare, since I was a pretty good kid for the most part. That said, by the time those ten minute, “I’m disappointed. Let’s talk about what you did, what was wrong with it and what to do in the future,” talks, in which he talked to me like a human being instead of a kid and made certain I knew just why he was feeling I’d let him down, were over, I wished to hell he’d have just slugged me one.
Lying, swearing hitting my sister or extreme trouble at school was a sure offense that got me spanked at home. Any spanking at school…before 1980…l also was spanked at home. Spankings at age 10 to early teens was belt on underwear or bare bum. Before would have been over lap/hand. School was usually wooden ruler to hands in office. A strap was visible there and could be used on hands(or very rare bottom) for bad cases. Got it once.
Just as kids, say 5-10, maybe 12. Nothing remotely brutal, but mostly a spontaneous/reactive slap in the face for impertinence, or perceived impertinence.
My mother would go off and beat us for most any reason like waking her up for instance. For some reason it didn’t seem very traumatic it became so routine. I don’t remember any fear or trauma attached to it. My father would beat us rarely but seriously., mostly for my brothers and I fighting among ourselves and not stopping when he said stop but on occasion for not doing yard work chores. Talking back was never an issue we simply didn’t go there. He mainly used a belt or hose on the lower body and left large welts. I never held a grudge over it.
In my case there were two things:
physical punishment, which I only remember happening once, from Dad, and I don’t remember exactly what did I do again that I’d just been repeatedly told to stop, but I’ve never believed I wasn’t purposefully earning it. Got placed on his knee and half a dozen slaps on the ass.
And Mom’s physical abuse. This was never presented as punishment, but it was also not anything that would officially have been called “hitting”. Pinches which “didn’t hurt (so stop complaining”, said her), coming down the hallway “like a frigate in full sail” and you better get out of her way or you’ll get pushed against whatever is there, then berated for being in the way… It’s bad when one of the improvement points of your relationship with your progenitrix involves the day when, already an adult, you raised your t-shirt, rolled up your sleeve and said “if those don’t hurt, how come I’ve got bruises exactly in the places where you pinched me yesterday? Do I need to pull down my trousers and show you the two on my thigh?” To her credit she hasn’t pinched me again, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand the mindset of “I’m in a bad mood, therefore I will attack my child”.
It is true that as a child I was clumsy. But half of my bruises came from my mother, not from slipping on the wobbly tile.
I could go on and on about my father’s legendary fits of rage. But the one I remember most happened when I was 6.
My aunt, uncle and cousins were over one evening. As they were leaving they mentioned that they were going to a small amusement park nearby. They ask me if I wanted to join them. Of course I did. My father said no, so I started to cry. He hit me, which made me cry more. He hit me harder, which made me cry more. Before I knew it, he was beating the shit out of me, holding me up by my shirt and punching me with his other fist. I remember screaming so continuously that I couldn’t catch my breath. I finally passed out. I later learned that my mother and aunt tried to get him to stop, but couldn’t.
That night I decided to run away from home; I had to get away from that monster. I went to bed with all my clothes on, and listened to hear when everyone else went to bed, so I could sneak out. I wound up falling asleep myself.
I got spanked periodically as a kid in the Seventies–usually with an open hand, occasionally with a belt, always on the butt. One time my mom hit me with a paddle and I put my arm in the way to try to block it and got a welt. She felt so guilty about it that she never hit me with the paddle again.
I can’t ever remember getting hit without a reason. My parents weren’t abusive, just typical Seventies parents who had their kid somewhat late in life. I don’t really resent them for it. The only thing I hated was when I’d cry about something and they’d tell me to cut it out or they’d give me something to cry about. That really pissed me off, because clearly I already had something to cry about.
Once in grade-school for speaking in a foreign language during recess; the teacher assumed it was a dirty word. A couple times in high-school mostly for goofing off in gym class. None really mattered to me.
At home mother would hit me now and then, pretty well a couple times. Did I think I deserved it? That we could debate. Some of the time it was no doubt but there were enough cases to her that warranted it. Dad hit me once; just once. He had mastered the look and tone that hurt far worse than the one time he did spank me. Gramma (who lived with us and really did a lot of the raising) was also more a tone than a slap. The couple times I remember a slight swat was more in the sense of “hurry along and think about what you did/said” and that worked pretty well also.
I was spanked twice during my childhood.
Once was after I gave my sister a large marshmallow I’d hollowed out and filled with pepper. Boy did I deserve it. Once when I was in seventh grade I walked from the library to church, where my dad was at choir practice. I meant to save him the drive(it was about eight blocks) but it was after dark, and I hadn’t asked permission. When contact was made again and my dad called, my folks had been on the point of calling the police. He was mad, but I think he was also scared.
My folks relied on the surety of punishment, but dad was also good at clever reverse psychology. I’m told that when I was four, and first put in Sunday School, I started being disruptive. ME! Well, dad took me out and told me I didn’t have to go to Sunday School, in fact, he wouldn’t let me go. I’d never get to be in the Christmas program, and do the fun stuff the other kids did. I’m told after that I willingly went to class. Sneaky often works.
Spanked when very small–under five. At school, teachers whacked with pointers for back-talk, refusal to stop talking, shooting spit-wads. I was not whacked because the goal of my entire elementary school existence was to fly under the radar.
But the part of the OP that’s not getting addressed is punishment at home for getting in trouble at school. We weren’t spanked for it, but if any of us kids did something that got us sent to the principal’s office, we got grounded or faced some other form of punishment. The reason was clear: you broke a family rule, which was not to get in a fight, cheat, or whatever got us in trouble at school. Consequently, we rarely got in trouble at school.
I think this was a good thing. When one of my own kids got in trouble at school for skipping class, she got grounded at home, because I wanted to underscore that education is important , which was why not skipping school was a family rule. One of my students got in trouble for plagiarizing in another class (not mine). He got an F on the paper. His mother grounded him for the summer and made him do chores all day. He told me it really made him value integrity, and he respected his mom for it.