Which word did you not understand? Anecdotal?
Born in 1957, I got plenty of whuppins (good term). On my butt only, with hands, a board, or a belt.
As a small child, it was just a mild spanking, and in general, that did the job and didn’t need to be repeated.
But it became a regular thing for repeated behavior (behavior I admit was bad). The punishment didn’t have any effect, but I knew why I was getting it and didn’t blame anyone but myself. It did no good, but didn’t do any harm either. My folks started to apologize for it not long ago but I cut them off and said they had no business apologizing for doing their very best to be good parents, and let them know that while it did little good, it did no harm at all. Not to me, anyway.
BTW, neither my brother or sister got whuppins. My brother was no angel, but didn’t have repetitive issues like I did. Well, he may have got whupped once or twice but I don’t recall it and I’m sure it wasn’t an issue with him.
I had to hit my son once, that I recall. It was at age 5 and he refused to cooperate with me getting him dressed for school. I tried a wide variety of approaches but none worked: he simply didn’t accept my authority in the matter, so I gave him a nice whack on the butt to establish it, and never needed to do it again.
Not that we never had issues, but he never defied me right to my face, and I knew the lack of benefit of corporal punishment for repetitive bad behavior, so I didn’t even consider it for that kind of thing.
I think the current “wisdom” on spankings is an overreaction. I also think that anyone who relies on it as a matter of habit isn’t being effective and might very well be causing more harm than good, especially for very young children. The general idea of avoiding it is a good one, but tossing a parent in jail for giving a kid a well-deserved smack in the grocery store is ridiculous.
The only interpretation that makes sense to me is that he’s saying his own experience (not being spanked) is merely anecdotal, rather than commenting on someone else’s post (which was my first interpretation too but it didn’t quite make sense).
Following up on my post…
My father never explicitly apologized to me. He just never hit me again. We moved shortly after that last time I described, and I never got hit in the new house. I suppose it helped me to compartmentalize my bad experiences and leave them behind at the old house.
He was a flawed man with a bad temper and made mistakes. As I said, I don’t know why, but I always made him mad. Sometimes I deserved some sort of or minor correction, but often I was labelled belligerent for merely having the wrong look in my eyes or not pursuing a chore or task enthusiastically enough. My childhood personality just brought out the worst in him. It was like he had a chip on his shoulder toward me. Besides getting suspended from that class the one time, I was never in any serious trouble. I really was not a difficult kid at all.
He must’ve scared himself that last time. I’ve never asked if he got counselling or just learned to control himself through force of will. The latter is more likely in my mind. This was small town New Brunswick in the 80s after all, though perhaps his employer had someone… they were pretty progressive for the time. I do suspect it was all him though. He had and has amazing willpower, focus and determination when he sets his mind to something. Perhaps he went to bed that night and decided to be a better father. Maybe my mom laid down the law in terms of threatening to leave. I don’t know.
It’s a subject that doesn’t come up much at all in the family. There have been a few veiled references and comments over the years, but it’s generally avoided. My mom told me that he struggles with the memories and his guilt gets worse year by year. She said that he said he’s surprised I even talk to him. (He’s 70 now). I remember one time he said that he was pleased with the man I grew up to be, but he had no right to feel any personal pride about it.
I know he has trouble looking at pictures of me as a kid if it’s a photo taken during the worst part of my childhood. He always gets a far away look in his eyes and sometimes tears up a bit. I forgave him in my heart a long time ago, but I’m not sure he forgives himself. If he ever needs a deathbed absolution, I will give it to him. Of the two of us, he carries the worse scars.
For the record, I support judicious corporal punishment myself and strict rules for kids, but what I experienced in my upbringing went way beyond that.
I’d like to add to my post above that my parents never hit in anger. My dad definitely hated meting out the punishment. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. It never came anywhere near what I considered abuse. My heart cries out for folks above who were clearly abused. I’m sure the emotional component is the worst part.
For parents that are on the fence, here’s my advice:
It doesn’t do ANY good for repetitive behavior. That is, if a spanking doesn’t work the first time or two for a given issue, it’s not working.
I don’t recommend it for anything other than establishing “I’m the boss here”, which shouldn’t be necessary more than once or twice. If it is, then there’s a bigger problem to address that whuppins won’t fix.
Time-outs are remarkably effective, at a remarkably wide age range, for whenever the behavior currently being displayed is unacceptable. It takes the immediate direct conflict out of the situation for a while and gives the child (and you!) a chance to cool off. It’s not punishment per se; it’s removing the behavior from the situation.
Comedians joke about how time-outs must be FUN for kids these days, with a room full of interactive gadgets. Frankly, I don’t think that’s an issue. As I said above, it’s more about removing the bad behavior from the situation than punishment, and kids don’t like to be forced to be alone for very long (even though many are happy to play alone for hours on end voluntarily). My son had toys he enjoyed, and would play with them during a time-out, but they were effective anyway (and I’ve seen it work for other kids as well.)
I don’t remember using it past age 11 or so, not because of a policy change, but because the issues that caused strife weren’t “time-out” types of issues. Mostly, the issues past that age were things that weren’t happening right there in front of us.
Regarding habitual behavioral issues, I can’t help you, other than do your best to have kids face the reality (actual consequences) of their behavior (which isn’t easy). Resist the urge to take away things the kid likes. Doing that led to our son (a) stopping getting interested in new things and (b) not telling us when he did, and without fixing any problems. Lots of things are worth trying, but when something doesn’t work after a few tries, continuing only causes other problems.
I think I was spanked a couple of times, but never beaten or abused. No switches or belts or anything like that.
It didn’t make much of an impression on me or I probably would have remembered better.
I didn’t spank my kids - not out of any philosophical objections, it just never seemed to be the right occasion.
Regards,
Shodan
Thanks for sharing your story.
Here’s a suggestion: don’t wait for his deathbed. When the right kind of moment comes up, tell him you respect him for changing, and that you love and respect him (or whatever positive message best describes your feelings.) He may take the opportunity to apologize, and if he does I’m sure you’d respond perfectly. Or he may not.
Also, see if you can take some responsibility for what happened. I’m NOT saying you deserved it. But if you can (and doubt it would be easy), and can express that to your dad, it might help both of you.
You didn’t ask for advice, so please forgive my armchair psychotherapy. I should really rewrite this in the first person, since I find that this approach helps me. Ah well. What I mean to say is, I find that the best way to give someone the space to open up and give me an apology is to apologize for my own part in it. Of course, it only works if it’s the truth, and it takes some serious self-examination to admit my own responsibility. I have to give up on being the totally innocent party. It’s notable how rarely it turns out that I am a totally innocent third party.
That’s the ideal situation! Good for you and your kids.
The threat of getting a whuppin was worse than the whuppin itself. The fear of doing wrong screwed me up for a long time. I was never afraid of disappointing myself or my parents. I was just afraid of making them angry.
And the thing is, it was a rational fear but not really. Because as I said upthread, I was only whupped a few times. It wasn’t like whuppins were a daily occurrence, and it wasn’t like I was always in trouble. But I was still always afraid of doing something wrong. Even when my parents would be just get a little angry, the fear of violence was there.
Spankings yes.
Also knocked into walls. Regularly Picked up and shaken. Arms dislocated. Through the glass window once. The list is depressing, so I’ll stop there. Dad had a temper. It didn’t stop until I got big enough to finally start fighting back. Age 10 or so.
And no, no one ever seemed to question those bruises on my arms.
To this day, nearly 40 years later, screaming men can make my brain just short out.
With our own kids, no spanking.
I’m certainly prepared to forgive him to his face so to speak any time it makes sense to bring it up. If it were more of an elephant in the room, it might be more natural to strive to find a time, but I see him so seldom and the whole experience is buried pretty deep. As I said, I’ve only told the things above to perhaps 3 people in close to 30 years.
However, I’m not prepared to take any ownership or responsibility for getting beatings. I agree with you on principle about apologizing for one’s own part in a disagreement and subscribe to this philosophy in my own life, but this is quite different.
I don’t want to burden anyone with any more pathetic details, but believe me, I have literally dozens of anecdotes I could describe. You would struggle when faced with the specific details to imagine apologizing for being at the receiving end of them.
I was spanked (hand swat on butt) occasionally, don’t remember any specific instances. Never happened after I was 10 or so. Although, once my dad “helped” me upstairs after I kicked my sister I the shins with my cowboy boots.
I got butt whuppins periodically, at a much higher rate than any of my siblings. My mom agrees that I got more than my three siblings combined, mostly because I had a need to see just how far I could push things. They stung, but we’re never hard enough to leave a mark or hurt more than a minute after they were administered. Mom usually used a switch, and occasionally used a belt. The one or two times I got one from my dad he cupped his hands so that it made a thunderous sound but didn’t hurt at all. My parents were of the “I’ll give you something to cry about” school of thinking, although I don’t think they ever gave me a whuppin’ for crying. That statement always struck me as monumentally stupid, and I never used it with our kids. I tried the pop on the butt to get their attention a couple of times, but we decided it didn’t work as a form of punishment.
Spanked a few times- for the most part I can specifically remember why and it was usually involving lying or fighting with my younger sister (we spent ages 6-15 or so trying to kill each other regularly). With a hand and the “this hurts me more than you” speech. Also, occasional slaps (rarely in the face but that did happen) for “back talk”. I was generally a good kid (my sister was the instigator of most of our fights- she had personal space issues 
) and not much trouble. I do remember one time when all three of us girls were fighting and being shitty to each other and my dad made us all get on our knees and lean against a bed preparing for a belt spanking but we wailed bloody murder so much that the actual physical discipline never happened and we got grounded instead.
My dad had a temper and would get pretty angry at kids being kids- especially if we were messy- but it was more verbal/yelling than anything else. I think because he was generally a quiet man, it was unsettling and hurt more than any spankings ever did but I certainly feel very lucky in both of my parents that did the best they could with a big family and a marriage that wasn’t holding up.
I was physically punished. My mom hit me out of anger, and frustration. She was overworked, and raising three kids with a man straight out of the 50s (this was in the 70s/80s. He expected clean kids, clean house, clean everything from a woman working full time, attending university and with three kids.
I was a soft, sensitive kid, my younger brother a boisterous one. He had it worse. There was no bleeding, or broken bones, but the scars still remain to this very day, and made it really hard for me to reconcile that with the loving mom I had. I did learn one lesson: I would never hit any child of my own.
My daughter is 9 years old, and everything I would have wanted in a kid of mine. I can say with certainty that neither my husband nor us have ever raised a hand, or threaten violence on her. If you can’t control a discipline a small child without resorting to violence – of any level – perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
FTR, in the second paragraph I mean emotional scars. There was never any serious or lasting physical damage, but I felt abused and humiliated regardles.
Please ignore the many typos and mispellings. I hate typing on a phone.
I got threatened with having my mouth washed out with soap for using bad words, and one of the worst words of all, up there with the f-word, was shmuck, which is why it amazes me that gentiles don’t know what a bad word this is, and toss it around like it means “jerk,” or even “loser.” I think maybe some people confuse it with “shnook,” or “shmo.” But it really is a bad word, a very bad word, if you speak Yiddish. It’s also not something you call someone who is a loser or a nebbish. A guy who brings Rohypnol to a party is a shmuck. A guy who keys your car because you were driving the speed limit, and it kept him from exceeding it when he was running late is a shmuck. White people who loudly and repeatedly ask “Why is it OK for black people to say [the n-word], and not for me to say it?” are shmucks.
But that’s not the point. The point is that I did get my mouth washed out with soap once, and it wasn’t for any particular word. It was for saying something mean to another child, which I’m really ashamed of now, and I think I deserved what I got (albeit, I regretted what I said almost as soon as I said it). What my mother did was wring a washcloth out, and put a tiny bit of soap on it, and then wiped out my mouth. Then she told me to rinse and spit. I think it would have been pretty effective even if I hadn’t already been pretty regretful.
Born in the 60s.
I got “The Belt” a lot.
Occasionally slapped, or spanked.
I’m somewhat surprised at the number of people here who were badly beaten. I guess I’m older than most repliers, born in '49, so most of my spankings were in the '50s or very early 60s. And I was spanked reasonably often. It was almost always Mom’s bare hand or a ruler on my bare bottom. It hurt, but I never considered it close to abuse. The pain would be gone in an hour I’d say. Oh I might be a little tender sitting after. I guess.
All the kids I knew and played with were spanked about the same judging from the times I saw or when we compared notes. Spankings were to be avoided, but they were certainly not scarring either physically or emotionally. I had thought that was true in a majority of the cases, but it doesn’t look that way from reading these.
Perhaps when spanking began to fall out of favor, those who were more apt to beat continued and others stopped so that the average spanking experience got worse.
Born in 1962 and yes I was spanked. One time my dad got out his belt and smacked me and my younger brother a few times on the bare but. It was hard enough to leave the outline of the belt, complete with the markings and stitches. I mentioned in a thread a long time ago that that made me try to run away from home. The punishment for what we had done was in no way proportionate to our crime, which was riding our bikes down a busy street. It took me a long time to come to terms with that belting.
I was 7 and my brother was 5.