TW:Did your parents spank you (or other physical discipline)

[sonrisa]

Just thinking about the changes in parenting norms.

[penguingrrl]

My mom threatened to once or twice, but never actually spanked us. She never would have allowed anyone else to.

[TR]

I think my mom spanked me once. MAYBE twice. But it was not a regular form of punishment. No corporal punishment was.

[sweetchix]

I only remember ever being spanked once by my dad, pants on. I don’t even remember what I did.

My mom hit me several times once after she caught me hitting my sister. She “wanted me to know what it felt like”.

[eb777888]

I don't recall my dad ever spanking me or using any kind of punishment that was physical. My step dad would spank us and my mom would slap us across the face, which is just so horrible. We never spanked David, we are much more about gentle parenting.

[Deleted]

My Mom use to hit us with a wooden spoon. We knew we were in trouble when we heard the drawer open. My Dad hit pretty hard so I tried to behave a little more when he was around.

[wanderlustmom]

My dad spanked me once, it wasn't abusive but I still remember how scared I was. He was the type that just had to look at you to back down. We didn't have a close relationship growing up and still don't. He didn't come to many events of mine as a kid and I always felt ignored by him. He wasn't critical just an emotional cowboy, very distant. I think now he may be on the spectrum and never got help for it. He was also raised in a physically abusive household. Both of his parents physically abused him. He didn't do well with marriages or parenting any of his four kids.

My mom never spanked us. She and I were close but in high school she was an ugly fighter and would say mean things to me when she was mad. She would come back and apologize but it hurt. I give her a lot of credit now, she was a single mom parenting all on her own (except the finances, the only way my dad was a good dad, even in the divorce he still provided fairly). Sorry I got way in the weeds of extraneous details.

I spanked our kids once or twice when they were little and never again. My DH (who had a better childhood) was anti spanking. He was right. I'm glad I stopped

[Captain Catnip]

Yes, but just what was culturally/socially normal at the time. My grandparents were "allowed" but think that only happened once to my sister when we were visiting on our own for a week.

They never allowed the school to do it and I remember wondering who did; I also remember in 3rd grade seeing a friend in the library through the window being spanked with a ruler. So.. I guess his parents signed yes.

[Patsy Baloney]

Oh.

Yeah, I grew up in a hitting household.

[mala]

"Rarely" i have vague memoroes of my dad spanking us when we were really little, like before 6. I think my mom probably pitched an absolute fit and thats why he stopped.

As an adult I would not call him abusive, the best word I can think of is "bully". I wont leave my kids with him without myself, husband or my mother. My husband tolerates him for my sake but every now and then husband says something that makes me realize how much he dislikes my father. Several of my friends have expressed their distaste and I no longer mix my social circles between friends and my parents.

[icedcoffee]

Yes—I can only remember once but I’m sure it happened more. It was my mom. With a wooden spoon I think. On the butt. I won’t do it to my kids, but I don’t think it affected me in any way. They were good and loving parents.

[mofongo]

My mom would spank me with a wood spoon, but I was an asshole who would be like, “do it again”.

My dad never did, he was the BEST disciplinarian. He could just look at me and I knew to stop, and if he said no to something, there was no bargaining, and he always had a good reason.

[zaneyzoo]

We got spanked by hand, spoon, fly swatter, belt
My grandpa had a wooden board and he would spank us, then write our name on the board or add a tally mark
Spanking was the go to/norm for discipline

[starburst604]

Yes my mom did and it terrified me. We do not spank or physically discipline in any way. Whenever people try to defend spanking kids in this day and age, I lose my mind.

[chickadee77]

My brother (the oldest) got it the worst. My sister and I would get a crack across the face if we had a "smart mouth." We did usually get an apology and explanation afterward - my mom always said it was the only way she was taught/told to parent, and she was actively reading parenting books to try to do better.

My dad never spanked or hit us girls.

We had a lot of friends that got beat pretty bad, so I would guess we were on the rarely/normal end of the spectrum.

[bunnies]

All the time. I had to pull down my pants and get spanked by my Dad's leather belt. I guess it was more a whipping?

[sju]

It was my mom and in one or two occasions, my sister, who is 9 yrs older. I don’t remember my dad spanking me. He would just give me a look.

[underwaterrhymes]

Whew. Checked a bunch of boxes.

My parents were emotionally abusive and my father would pull down our pants to spank us repeatedly. While he only ever used his hand, he terrified us.

We have never and will never hit our kids.

[7costanza]

I can’t remember ever being spanked in a conscious decision kind of way, but definitely my dad would spank or handle me quite roughly in heated moments. He was a pretty shitty parent all around.

[sdlaura]

I found the book "Nurture Shock" pretty fascinating - it was like the Freakonomics of parenting stuff, where the authors challenged conventional wisdom by pulling together available studies on various topics.

Their takeaway was that when spanking is used as just a normal punishment in the spectrum of potential punishments (like if you lie you get grounded, if you steal you get spanked....or whatever - this is just an example I'm making up), then it's not something found to be detrimental to the kids years later. But the way many parents who do spank use spanking - only when the kid does something really terrible and it's a super heated moment- then teaches the kid that it's OK to use physical violence if you're really really mad or really really scared. Then that ends up being detrimental psychologically.

Anyway, we don't spank or use physical punishments (beyond like maybe picking the kid up and putting him in his room to cool down). But I found the takeaway based on "spanking research" to be interesting. I had a happy childhood and my Dad did spank my sister and me sometimes when we were little, while clothed and not super hard - like the survey said, it seemed normal at the time. My dad was physically abused as a child and I think was careful to not be like his parents.

[mpm]

No, never. I don’t even think my grandparents spanked my mom. Maybe my dad’s parents did? I was born in the early 80s and this has never been presented to me as acceptable.

[lilac05]

Yes. My mom could somehow separate emotions from it and never spanked us out of anger. I think she is what the “experts” (James Dobson, ugh) of the day recommended…calm and controlled and never in anger. (She was a teacher, so I often wonder if that had something to do with it. She was a pro at staying calm in chaos.) I think she only spanked me a few times…maybe never?, but in general, I was a good kid. My dad, on the other hand, spanked me when he was mad because I wouldn’t/couldn’t fall asleep at night. (Makes perfect sense…make me cry harder when I’m already upset because I can’t sleep.) He was not at all calm, and my mom said she cried when it happened because she knew it wasn’t right/helping.

We do not spank our kids, nor do I think it’s a good idea for anyone to do so now. When we know better, we do better. We have so many more tools and resources than our parents did.

[AJL]

A couple of taps on the bottom when I was little (literally just a couple of times). Then when I was 15, my mom lost her temper when we were in the middle of verbal fight and she back handed me across the face with her rings. I got a bloody nose. I think we were both completely shocked that she did it and then cried together for an hour.

Mostly I was grounded and treated to exceptionally long lectures.

[cmeon]

I was hit. I was smacked. I was decked. I wasn't spanked (at least that I remember- because my memory of that time is shot to hell).

I could never raise a hand to a child, ever ever EVER. I feel enormous guilt for raising my VOICE (very rarely) with my kids. And you know what? They're fabulous people. You don't have to break people to shape people.

[SwimDeep]

So... it was culturally normal. In the tiny fundamentalist culture that I grew up in I guess.

We were spanked with wooden and plastic spoons, belts, those thin dowel rods you can get at hardware stores. Also pinched on the ear or nape of the neck. Smacked upside the head. It sounds bad writing it out, but it was our normal. Also lots of yelling, threats, and emotional manipulation.

And then I became a disciplinarian to my siblings. Which added a whole other level of fucked up. And every time I've tried to apologize (now that we're all adults) they look at me like I'm making a big deal out of nothing. So maybe there's some truth to the "hurting me more than you" bullshit. Because I'm still very much fucked up over it and it's reason #1 why I don't want to procreate.

ETA: Did anyone have to ask not to have a birthday spanking? I was the first in my family to speak up and say I didn't want one. It feels so weird that they ever even happened. Like, seriously. WTF

[pandorica]

No, never.
My brother is 8 years older, I'm not sure if he ever was when younger.
I can't imagine ever doing it to my kids, and honestly can't figure out how it has ever been thought of as OK. It seems like it would be terrifying for a kid!

[ksun]

All the time. Especially across the face which was fun. And then there was the verbal abuse.

[joy]

Reading some of these comments is breaking my heart.

[Roc A Bee]

The threat of a spanking occurred much more often than an actual spank. I can’t really remember ever being spanked, but I can remember the threat!

[BlondeSpiders]

I don't remember being spanked on the butt much, if ever. But my mom was quick with a slap to the face, and that happened a lot. I was a super smart-assed kid. Not saying I deserved that, but it didn't come out of nowhere. In my mom's more sharing moments, she confided that her father did the same to her; smart mouth, and a lightning fast face slap. And yet she never saw the connection. And now that her memory is going, she denies this ever happened; how convenient for her.

#1 on my giant list of reasons not to have kids. The abuse stops with me.

ETA my father never laid a hand on me. Ironic that he was the drunk!