Were you subject to spankings/beatings as a child?

In My Humble Opinion
81

I never understood this statement either. Your child is already obviously upset and crying about something, why on earth would you want to make them hurt worse?

I don’t remember any spankings past age 9 or so. I am an only child and was very well behaved for the most part. I think the threat of a spanking with the fly swatter, belt or paint stir stick was enough because I don’t remember actually being hit with any of those. If I was it was a few swats on the bare bottom and certainly not as a beating.

I have a very faint memory of being spanked when I was about 3, once for acting up in KMart (my dad took me out to the car, in his words “spanked the bejesus out of you and never had a problem taking you anywhere ever again”) and once at my grandparents house when my older cousins were misbehaving and egging me on to misbehave too. Apparently my mom took me into the bathroom and spanked me. She says that her sisters-in-law glared at her when we came out but she just said “Juicy is not allowed to behave like that.”

The only spanking I actually remember was I think my last one because I was older, maybe 9. I’d been told repeatedly not to put food garbage into the livingroom garbage bin because it would attract bugs and sure enough I was too lazy to walk to the kitchen bin so I put a banana peel or apple core or whatever into the livingroom bin. My mom spanked me on my bare butt - hard - with something, a hairbrush maybe, and the pain and humiliation stuck with me and I never did that again.

I love my parents more than life itself and I look back on any spankings I received as a child as simply how discipline was handled in the 70’s & early 80’s. Absolutely no hard feelings.

82

No. However our mother “spanked” my (four years) older sister with whatever was in her hand: wooden spoon, curtain rod just about anything. My mothers brutalization of my sister taught me a valuable lesson: agree with who ever has power until you are stronger or able to get away from them.

83

Born in '86.

I was slapped when I was disrespectful.

I had my mouth washed out with soap when I swore (or disrespectful near the bathroom)

Spanked with a hand on occasions that deserved it, and then the threat of spanking when I was doing things wrong.

Never was hit with anything other than a hand.

I never ever ever considered anything I was given as abuse, I deserved it each and every time, and it made me a better person for it.

84

Not as a regular thing. Born in '68, Bros are '74 and '76 vintages.

I believe I got spanked twice, both times for Willful Defiance of Authority; one of my brothers, never (he always managed to hurt himself so badly doing whatever he’d been told not to, there wouldn’t have been any point to it anyway). The other brother got his face crossed once, but it was an instinctive response: the news of “someone is trying to dump a table and a pot of boiling soup on me” reached Dad’s spine before the part about “someone is my 3yo child” got to his brain.

There was always the threat of Mom’s wooden slippers, though. Those seem to have featured prominently in the childhood of much of my cohort, but usually as a threat. The threat was quite scary enough.

Mental and emotional abuse, as much as you want. Sexual assaults on my brothers as children and on me as a teenager, by our maternal grandfather (Dad didn’t know about it, Mom threatened with kicking me out of the house if Dad found out). But physical beatings, only in those very rare instances.

The brother who never got hit got to spanking his son. Mom fell on him like a ton of bricks, then got up and fell some more. If looks had been daggers, he would have been confetti.

85

My dad was a violent man. I’ve seen him beat the shit out of my mom, one of my sisters and my brother. I never got hit that much, nor did my other sister. Still, he was an oppressive and unpredictable force in our house. I haven’t seen him since my mom’s funeral and I expect that the next time I do see him, he’ll be laid out in a coffin.

86

Fuck that. No way should he take any guilt or responsibility. He was a child. He bears no blame at all. That may be the stupidest advice ever given in the history of ever.

87

Born in '80. Spanked lightly-moderately for forgetting chores like taking the garbage out, or for doing chores poorly, but not very often. That was about it.

88

Spanking yes, beating no. It was never about violence and wasn’t done in the heat of the moment.

89

I’m torn between responding to this and not responding to it, as it is absolutely not my business and only you can know what’s best for you in a situation like this. But I want to go ahead and urge that this should not wait for the deathbed. He needs to hear it from you now (and you need to know he heard it).

90

I was spanked fairly regularly when I was younger. They were controlled, disciplined spankings, almost never expressions of anger. But I wouldn’t say I learned anything from them other than that sometimes otherwise perfectly rational and loving people do crazy shit.

When I was 18, I called my dad a “stupid, fat man” and he slapped me hard enough to knock me down, but we were close enough to being able to talk “man to man” at that point that I don’t hold it against him. We both wept afterwards.

91

Born in 63 and was “paddled” by my mother with one of those stupid “ball on a flimsy rubber band” paddles that would break off after about 10 minutes. Sometimes she would use her hand. My dad only used his hand. Some were bare butt, others were clothed. They never used a belt or anything worse. ETA, after the last spanking my mother ever gave me (I was probably 12), I told her that she had lost her touch. Words that I regret to this day. Unfortunately, my dad hadn’t lost is.

I could probably count the number of times that I spanked my children on one hand. I never used any sort of instrument.

92

That’s one thing I really don’t understand about corporal punishment. A quick slap with the hand to correct inappropriate behaviour is one thing, using a weapon on a child is another.

How parents thought (and some still think) that it’s okay to hit a child repeatedly with an object or hard enough to leave bruises is beyond me.

**^This. **

One time when I was about 11 I was supposed to be in bed but I guess I wasn’t tired or something and I was screwing around. I went into the livingroom where my parents were and my dad picked me up, carried me back to my room and angrily threw me on the bed while yelling at me to stay there. I was in shock because he had never, EVER laid an angry hand on me in my life. I think my mom was in shock too because this was so out of character for him. I realize now as a grown-up that my parents were beginning the descent into divorce at that time and they were likely having an argument that I walked into and my dad took out his frustration on me. IIRC he humbly and sincerely apologized later.

93

My mother hated me. She beat me for any or no reason. I was once beaten with a belt on my mouth because I threw up. Her favorite “punishment” was to stomp on my feet. When I burned my foot, the emergency room doctor saw my foot and called in a podiatrist, who took one look at my feet and said in a shocked voice “How do you walk on those things?”

94

I got spanked maybe a couple of times, with the flat of the hand. I don’t think I was spanked for good reasons (at least one of them was because I was crying and couldn’t stop – which even at the time, as a small child, I was all, “umm… now I’m just crying harder… this makes no sense??”) but I don’t now as an adult object to the actual spanking part. I objected a lot more to the yelling and emotional manipulation and inability to get at the root of the problem. (“How dare you embarrass me like that?!” Um, you really think I started crying at the mall because I wanted to embarrass you? You never noticed that I started crying every single time we went half an hour over my dinnertime without my getting food, and maybe I had blood sugar issues??) (Gosh, I feel like I should append something here where my parents are really fine people, and I don’t really hold a grudge against them now that I’m an adult. But I can’t deny they were a little oblivious, and my mom I think in particular had a hard time with being a SAHM and probably should have had at least a part-time job to get away from us, but it Wasn’t Done in any of the cultures we were part of.)

I don’t spank my child, because a) I think that if I did, given my parental history, it would be because I was angry and not because I made a rational decision that it would be a good discipline method, and that doesn’t sit well with me, and b) my kid isn’t the sort who would benefit from it anyway – she does a lot better with explanations and consequences. I could totally imagine that with a different sort of kid, rare spanking to snap them out of the behavior, like RivkahChayah describes, might be effective.

95

Born in '61, youngest of 5. I remember my mouth being washed out with soap once, and being slapped once. I was a very easy child. The punishment I remember most was not coming home right after school (I stayed to clap erasers). My mother was frantic, and my father said, “Don’t you ever cause your mother to be this upset again!” I wasn’t in trouble for being late, but for worrying my parents. My oldest sibling, the only boy, probably got punished much more than me, but he wasn’t nearly as easy to parent. I never felt anything but loved.

StG

96

I don’t know what was up with my son when he hit the dog. Maybe he was possessed. It was really un-typical behavior for him, and he got an un-typical parental reaction. I was the one who spanked him in the car on the highway when I had to pull over. He was not quite three, and I think somehow climbing into the front seat (we were on a road trip, and it was just the two of us) was becoming a game, and he just didn’t get that it couldn’t be that way, and there wasn’t time to do anything else. I had to “snap” him out of the idea it was a game. He cried a little, I think because I scared him, and I felt awful. I comforted him, and then buckled him back in, and he didn’t do it again.

Anyway, he’s old enough that we probably won’t ever spank him again. It’s been years since the second one.

We also used shock collars with our dogs, but in a very limited way, and only after they had done something really dangerous. One of our dogs ran into the street and actually got hit by a car, but recovered. You would think that would cure her of running toward the street, but I think she didn’t have any memory of it. So we got a shock collar, and it cured of running toward the street in two afternoon sessions. Then we put it away. The other dog chased a kid on a skateboard, and took off so suddenly that she pulled her leash out of my hand. She was part Pit Bull, so I knew she had to be better-trained than most dogs. We got a shock collar, and went to the parking garage where the kids did a lot of skating. She practiced sit-staying while they skated around her. One week, every day for about 20 minutes, and treats if she could hold a stay for five minutes, collar if she got up. Problem solved.

My point with that story was just that in my judgment, in those two situations, there wasn’t time for the kind of long-term training, because during that time something bad could happen, and natural consequences couldn’t be used as a discouragement. Sometimes it’s that way with kids, too, especially when they aren’t very verbal yet. It’s not a question of “might makes right”; it’s a question of, yes, philosophically you might be opposed to violence, but you would hit another person if your child were in immediate danger, and sometimes, in your judgment, your child’s long-term safety and well-being requires a short-term smack.

It’s a very different thing from taking frustrations out on a child-- which frankly, I don’t think would make me feel better anyway. I don’t even feel better when I’ve punched a pillow, because I feel like I lost something. If I can just wait half a minute, I won’t be angry anymore, and that’s true whether I punch something or not.

97

It was the 50s. I got swatted a couple times by my parents, but that was it.

My brother is about thirteen months older than I. We had some real knock down fights.

98

Yup. Hands, switches (which I was required to cut), and belts.

All under the guise of “spare the rod, spoil the child”

I did swat my two sons on rare occasions, but they didn’t spoil…

I was a child of the 40’s/50’s, and my parents were fundamental Christians, so this was the norm for them.
My children were early 70’s to mid 60’s kids, and I simply didn’t want to visit them with my past…

99

Right – when a kid is too young to really understand explanations and natural consequences don’t really apply, whereas a quick spanking will emphasize that this is an Especially Bad Idea, as temporary reinforcement until the kid gets old enough to understand why.

It still wouldn’t have worked with my particular kid because of the way she’s wired (plus which she took verbal instructions/explanations earlier than a lot of kids, which was nice!), but I definitely know kids (generally less verbal at a young age) where I think it would make sense.

I guess i"m just saying that I agree with everything you’ve written :slight_smile:

100

My daughter is almost six, and I’ve never spanked her. My son is almost four and I spanked him once because the other methods which normally work just were not. One slap on his bottom and I think it was the shock more than anything.

For me, clear, straightforward and age-appropriate rules and timeouts solve 99.9% of the problems. My kids have pretty easy going temperaments so there’s not as much frustration dealing with them.

The best thing about timeouts is that it lets me calm down. I decided early on that I’d never hit my kids in anger and that seems to work out best for everyone.