Who was the authoritarian in your home?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I got the idea for this post when this thread was hijacked into a discussion of spanking children. It got me thinking back to my childhood and how I was disciplined with force when I did something stupid. My parents actually used force sparingly, supplementing it with all the other things that entail good parenting, which I figure is how I’ll probably handle my children.

Anyway, to the point of my question, when I reflect on the times I was spanked I realize my mother was the one to deal out the smacks on virtually every occasion. I recall the one time I really ticked off my dad outside our house and he let loose a wild kick that I think missed (its a little fuzzy), so I don’t really count that.

How was it in other folks’ homes? Was one parent (or guardian) the main authoritarian? Or did your parents share the responsibility?

2

Generally speaking, my mom was the authoritarian. 90% of the time, if I’d messed up, it was my mom who would deliver the tongue lashing. I could get away with a lot more stuff with my dad than I could with my mom.

On the other hand, that 10% of the time when it was my dad who got pissed at me… that was when I knew I’d really screwed up. I know I got spanked several times when I was little, but I only remember one time, because it was the angriest I have ever seen my father. He dished out that spanking. I don’t even remember which of them dished out the others.

Oh, and I also remember what I did to get my dad pissed at me: I purposefully damaged several of my parent’s books. Expensive, coffee-table-type books. If there’s any one childhood event that has shaped who I grew up to be, that was it. To this day, irrational as it is, the idea of someone burning a mass-market paperback gets me more outraged than someone working over the statue of David with a ballpeen hammer.

For that matter, looking back on it, I think my dad went easy on me. I’d have crippled my ass, if I were him.

3

It depended upon the circumstances and the degree of the naughtiness. For minor, day-to-day mischief, it was my mother who usually administered a slap. For more serious infractions, it would be my father.

4

My Dad was the heavily involved parent, both the heavy authoritarian and the nurturant one who’d hold you and listen to you and be supportive. My Mom wasn’t totally uninterested but I think he was so intensely interested he just kind of drove her to the margins after early toddlerhood and took over the child-rearing stuff.

His style was all velvet-gloved iron hand; he’d have you doing things his way cheerfully and voluntarily, convinced by his ideology that there was a Reason he wanted this behavior. And he didn’t merely want obedient behavior anyhow, he wanted kids who were fervent True Believers, because of all those myriad situations where he hadn’t spelled out right and wrong and where, therefore, we’d have to figure it out on our own.

He was too heavy-handed ideologically. Not enough real room for the possibility of a dissenting viewpoint, for the possibility that he might be wrong about something. And he was too heavy on the physical side, when he resorted to it. I was spanked with a belt several times, with a type of southern weed called “tea leaves” that were like totally organic whips against the legs, and once or twice I was actually kicked in the butt.

Breaking loose and becoming my own person was somewhat difficult, but mostly intellectually so — once I was doing my own thinking I was doing my own thing and was way too stubborn to schmooze or sweet-talk. And he’s lucky I didn’t go all Lizzie Borden on his ass back when I was 11 or so.

Oddly enough, my Mom would have said “no” to more things when I was between 10 and 20, and she was more ready to simply wash her hands of me and say “Child Failure on Aisle 11, please dispose of” during the complicated years 15-25. So there were moments when she seemed coldly villainous to me, although in later years I had more respect for her for being sufficiently at ease with the awareness that gender roles aside, she wasn’t all that invested in the whole parenthood thing — we started getting along much better later on as essentially friends, almost bracketing off the historical fact that she was Mommy when I was a little kid.

He, in turn, has softened and mellowed over the years, is less absolutely sure of himself (still plays the part but it’s like a self-conscous caricature of himself as Designated Willful Geezer if you know what I mean). And I forgive him a lot of the heavy-handedness, having survived it, ascribing it to his fervent desire to do parenthood well and caring so intensely how we turned out.

5

Definitely my dad. My brother and I were scared shitless of him throughout our childhood. He didn’t beat us (although he pushed us around once in a great while); but he would go from 0 to screaming bloody murder in an instant. We never knew what would piss him off next.

My mom never got like that. She raised her voice sometimes, but it was never as scary. She scolded, she didn’t holler. She was also much better at nurturing. My dad tried to be involved, but after enough screamings-at, we pretty much emotionally shut ourselves off from him as much as possible.

I was never very close with him even after I moved out, although our relationship was more cordial.

6

Mum. Dad was easier going, worked long hours so wasn’t home as much, rarely lost his temper, and I only recall him spanking me once in my whole childhood. Mum was the force to be reckoned with and the parent who made all the actual decisions - the “bad cop” to Dad’s “good cop”.

7

Yeah, cazzle, that sounds exactly the same as my situation growing up. My dad was just at work more often than not when I was doing something stupid like hitting my sister and my mom was the one who had to respond. Plus, my dad just didn’t get worked up about anything like my mom did.

8

My mom. My father never spanked us, but I remember being more upset when I had disappointed him. If he sent me to my room to think about things, I really did spend that time thinking about what I had done. There was never a specific time set, but I always ended up thinking things over and then coming out to apologize. He was very even tempered and I can’t recall a time of being punished by him (“I’m very disappointed and this is why…”), that I didn’t feel it was deserved.

9

My mom, as dad died when I was young.

She could level an apartment building with The Look. It would freeze me in my tracks.

She had a lot of practice on my four older brothers, so by the time I came along, it was perfected.
She tried to give me The Look not so long ago.

It was rather comical.

10

When I lived with my parents it was my dad who was chief authoritarian. Now since I live alone it is my microwave :wink:

11

Definitely my dad. My mom traveled all the time because of her job, so my dad had to deal with the day-to-day child rearing issues. In a way, he was like a single parent raising 2 kids with a full-time job. It’s not that we didn’t listen to our mother, we just didn’t take her as seriously as our father because she was rarely around.

12

My mom, definitely, because in our house, there wasn’t any room for any opinion other than hers! This was difficult, because she changed the rules, seemingly, on a whim. She never spanked, but the verbal abuse was bad enough that sometimes you just about wished she would hit you and be done with it!

Slight hijack: Hey, Iris, I haven’t noticed your name before ('cuz you’re pretty new, I guess), but you’re in the MAD (Mid Atlantic Doper) area; there’s a DopeFest coming up next month, there’s a thread about it here. You should think about coming up.