S/o were you spanked

southernbubby

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:40 pm

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:44 pm

I was the first amohter. Also, when I was a child, (I'm not that old but still) abuse was much less in style. What my father did to me bordered on abuse, but I knew he loved me so I never really felt abused until I was almost college aged and there was much more talk. The spanking and screaming surely had emotional ramifications, but I didn't see (the spanking) when I was a kid, as abnormal.

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:45 pm

[quote="southernbubby"]All children were spanked when I was growing up and schools used paddling as a method of discipline. Parents who did not spank their children were considered negligent. My parents spanked us because they thought that it made them good parents. I remember once getting whacked on the head with a rolled up newspaper for misbehaving. I ran away from my mother as she was whacking me with the newspaper and I slipped and cut my eye on the chair. My mother ran with me to the doctor. The doctor told my mother not to feel guilty; she had acted appropriately by whacking me on the head with the newspaper. Today, a doctor would report a parent for that but in those days, a parent was doing their duty. My parents were not cruel child beaters but if we kids hit each other, it wasn't long before our parents came to give a few whacks to us. We did not view it as abuse and we did not view it as abnormal. It was part of being a child./quote]
I hear you. I don't consider all of the belt spankings I received as a child to be abusive. the need to control and use the punishments as control was abusive and when it escalated to becoming an occurrence for things like going to the bathroom in the middle of the night it was definitely abusive, but there were select incidents where I remember being spanked and the parent was not out of control and I just got a few good whips and it was over no big deal. there are better techniques though so the abuse I received was emotional and verbal and escalated into physical abuse with random bouts of non abusive spankings which were abusive because it was coming from a abusive parent. oh goshhhh im not making any sense.

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:45 pm

amother wrote:

I posted my story in the other thread. Not going to do a repeat. But I will repeat 2 things. #1: I still don't have a great relationship w/ my father that spanked me #2: verbal abuse may be worse than spanking. The screaming and intimidating got to me MUCH more than the physical spanking.

Oh the shouting was the worst for sure.

I remember hiding in my room slamming my door trying to get away.

It never worked

southernbubby

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:47 pm

amother wrote:

I guess that in most families, it didn't usually cross over into abuse. I did know kids whose parents used objects to spank them with and even those kids accepted it as normal discipline and never realized that today, it would clearly be considered abuse.

southernbubby

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:49 pm

[quote="amother"]

southernbubby wrote:

All children were spanked when I was growing up and schools used paddling as a method of discipline. Parents who did not spank their children were considered negligent. My parents spanked us because they thought that it made them good parents. I remember once getting whacked on the head with a rolled up newspaper for misbehaving. I ran away from my mother as she was whacking me with the newspaper and I slipped and cut my eye on the chair. My mother ran with me to the doctor. The doctor told my mother not to feel guilty; she had acted appropriately by whacking me on the head with the newspaper. Today, a doctor would report a parent for that but in those days, a parent was doing their duty. My parents were not cruel child beaters but if we kids hit each other, it wasn't long before our parents came to give a few whacks to us. We did not view it as abuse and we did not view it as abnormal. It was part of being a child./quote]
I hear you. I don't consider all of the belt spankings I received as a child to be abusive. the need to control and use the punishments as control was abusive and when it escalated to becoming an occurrence for things like going to the bathroom in the middle of the night it was definitely abusive, but there were select incidents where I remember being spanked and the parent was not out of control and I just got a few good whips and it was over no big deal. there are better techniques though so the abuse I received was emotional and verbal and escalated into physical abuse with random bouts of non abusive spankings which were abusive because it was coming from a abusive parent. oh goshhhh im not making any sense.

No, it makes sense what you were saying. If a parent came to a sleeping child in the middle of the night and uncovered the child and started whipping him with a belt, it would be considered abuse even then. Emotional and verbal abuse were just beginning to make headlines when I was a child.

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 2:53 pm

quote="southernbubby"]No, it makes sense what you were saying. If a parent came to a sleeping child in the middle of the night and uncovered the child and started whipping him with a belt, it would be considered abuse even then. Emotional and verbal abuse were just beginning to make headlines when I was a child./quote]
and that's what I'm saying. btw by going to the bathroom in the middle of the night I dont mean wetting the bed I mean getting out of bed and using the bathroom which makes noise

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 3:37 pm

My father would belt us as punishment when we were little.
Usually it was done calmly and accompanied by an explanation of what we did wrong and why we deserved to be hit. Still, it was humiliating.
On rarer occasions the belting occurred when he flew into a rage - like when we made noise on Shabbos afternoon and woke him up from his nap. My mother would beg him to stop but he would be in a fury. That was scary.
We knew our father loved us very much and otherwise he was a good, involved and caring parent but there was always this knowledge and fear that he could get out of control.
I have never lifted a hand against any of my children and never will but then I am a very different sort of parent than my father was.
BTW, looking back he says that he regrets very much having been such a strict parent.

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 4:22 pm

amother wrote:

I'm the first amother. I think my experience was pretty similar. My father was usually pretty in control when he spanked. A few times he slipped. But, never like amother #2s father for waking up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, more for being super annoying and provoking him. He was often a good and involved parent and I felt his love. But, he was depressed and had some bad behaviors and he often swinged from being very fun and loving to scary. The yelling was always out of control. (If I were to call myself abused, I think it was mainly emotional. But part of the emotional was fear of physical even if it rarely happened.)

He did regret it and starting taking medicine and a few of my siblings only got a nice father who is much more under control. I know he is sad about how he damaged our relationship.

amother

Wed, Feb 11 2015, 4:25 pm

amother wrote:

We could be siblings except my mother goaded my father to hit us for whatever infractions we might have done. my father went for counselling and learned to stand up to her, and after that he never hit anymore. It was too late for some of us though...but better late than never. I do know that he loves us and has many regrets. He did not generally scream or otherwise abuse us verbally.

My mother hit, spanked, and verbally abused. The verbal abuse was the worst.

I don't hit, but I do discipline in other ways (time out, withholding privileges, etc...)

DH and his siblings were abused physically and verbally by his father. His father was also a verbally abusive and controlling spouse. DH will never lift a hand against any of our children, and he has a very hard time with any sort of discipline, because of his childhood. Though I'm glad he doesn't hit, I do wish he'd not leave all the disciplining to me. It's a problem of another sort, though he has made some small strides.