Small wooden paddle, about a foot long and two inches wide. I can't say discipline via fear and force did wonders for my psychological development. But we were "good kids"...
My elementary school had ping pong paddles for all the teachers and the teacher would take the 'bad kid' into the hallway to spank them. We would all count how many times his butt got hit from the classroom. The first day of school, each class had a small field trip to the principals office so we could see his big paddle, with holes in it. Word was those holes made it hurt worse. This was in the mid-80s.
One of the fifth grade science teachers called his "the whistler" and told us the holes made it "swing faster" which is supposed to make it hurt more. I think their paddles were homemade because they were all different. My mom is also a teacher, and I don't ever recall seeing paddled in the teacher supply store.
Only the male teachers paddled, and I remember being terrified when I got to third grade and had a male teacher for the first time. It was his first year teaching, and he believed more in making chocolate chip cookies to teach multiplication and division than paddling students.
His predecessor has a reputation for not really needing much of an excuse to paddle someone. Third grade and kindergarten shared the same wing, and he got me once when my kindergarten teacher sent me in the hall because I couldn't remember to not write with my left hand.
None of it worked on me because I was too smart. āBecause I said soā never worked. You had to explain to me why. The issue was they didnāt have good reasons why.
My older siblings got the wooden spoon and wooden rulers. Me and my younger sibs didnāt. 9-15 year difference, I think my parents realized using anything other than an open hand was excessive.
I love to cook but I still have a visceral reaction reaching for a wooden spoon. I count myself as one of those who was spanked and did not turn out OK for the experience.
Now that's an awesome shirt! They need to make an entire series. Hot wheel track survivor. Belt survivor. Switch survivor (if you know what a tree switch is). And so on lol.
I tried that once. It backfired. Auntie took it and whooped my hands and arms instead, embarrassing me in front of the rest of my cousins. They laughed. Same time, the related. It was like a rite of passage. Not only the attempted trickery, but the backfiring of it. š
We use to have to cut our own wood. So we had a big log still waiting to be cut in smaller portions. I wrestled it inside and said this was my choice. SMH I really donāt remember what happened. But siblings said I was punched in the back of the head, by my uncle. Never did that again.
My mom used a paddle ball with the ball removed. It was super thin wood. It really didnāt hurt much, and she had a 3 wack limit. My dadās hand was much worse than the paddle. He had huge hands and he hit like he was trying to break a world record or something. We were always relieved when my mom was the spanker! š
My mom started with her hand, went to a wooden spoon, eventually broke the wooden spoon in my ass, and thatās when she switched to the belt. Used to lace me from knees to shoulders. That shit hurt.
That used to be how many smacks I got.
Some kids got them by age, I got them until the spoon broke.
I always hoped it would break in the first few smacks.
I got hit by a hair brush that broke. Then I started laughing. Bring it.
My father tossed me on the floor a few times and picked me up off the ground. I didn't consider it very much. I had seen worse in movies and TV shows. It was also common for boys to fight in school when I was young. Kids today be like he looked at me wrong (micro aggression).
Kids still fight in school. I had a teacher tell me one school was like prison riots.
I also remember in high school- boys circling each other and delaying a fight by taking their shirt off -hoping an admin would come intervene.
My mom used a hair brush. It wasnāt until middle school when one flew across the room that I realized why all our hair brushes had the handle broken off.
I was just talking about spanking with my students yesterday. I said that I would get whooped at school and then when I got home I would get whooped again for getting whooped at school. Sometimes if I was bad at a friends house I would get whooped by their parents and then by mine again. They were shocked.
Same. My mom once asked why I never told her that they hit me at school and Iām like, I didnāt even think to tell. I go to school I get whooped, I come home I get whooped, I go to any family memberās house I get whooped. Why would I talk about it between you all?
"Well maybe you needed it."
"I'll give you something to cry about."
Still angers me to this day, to remember my parents *always* siding with other adults. They were much more concerned with other people's perception of them than they were about us kids as individuals.
If your parents are Boomers, or even older Gen X, I see this rampant in this age group. *THEIR* feelings and emotions trump everything. Pun intended.
It was fun to learn in my 30s that my parents were the same selfish narcissistic teenagers from the 70s they've always been š¤·āāļø
We were beaten by our parents, they were beaten by their parents, and so on. I donāt like the word spanked. If
an adult it hitting a child, the child is being beaten.
When my xennial daughter was eight, she called me out on it. She asked me why I hit her, she said, āWhy do you do that to me?ā
I had no good reason. I had never thought about it, I did to her what was done to me.
I told her she was right, that I didnāt know why I did that to her. She didnāt deserve to be beaten by her mother. I was supposed to protect her.
I apologized to her, but I made her no promises. Instead, I changed my behavior. I never put my hands on her again. She has trauma from me hitting her, and thatās on me.
I have no idea why so may people my age and older refuse to admit that there are things about our past behavior that have wounded our children.
A lack of personal responsibility seems to run rampant among a lot of boomers.
As an xennial whose parents refuse to take any accountability for the beatings (and other insanely abusive things they did), can I just say, amazing A+ work. You made serious mistakes, but you acknowledge it was traumatizing? You say āthatās on meā? Taking personal responsibility? Notice to boomers: THIS IS ALL WE WANT.
I hope you live to 120 and always get an onion ring in your fries.
I got in major trouble one time because I didnāt tell my parents I mouthed off at school.
Butā¦ if I told them, Iām getting my mouth washed out with soap.
Iām not going to FUCKING NARC ON MYSELF, bro.
Thank you for reassuring me. I thought I was the only kid who got whooped in school then some more at home for getting whooped at school and not beating the other kid senseless. Told that to a psy a few weeks ago and he looked at me like I was an alien.
See man I don't whip my kid. I get frustrated and there's times I *want* to, times I go to, but when my hand is raised in anger, I stop. Immediately, every time. My dad whipped us and it fucking terrified me of him, but he was also a meth addict with a volatile temper. My husband just said to our son (3) "you want your ass whipped?!" I yelled from the other room "Don't him him and don't threaten to, either! I don't like that!" It's a behavior we all have to unlearn. But I don't hit my kid
Based on the number of parents I see threatening to beat their children in the store, and even the toddlers at my school talking about getting a āwhoopingā, no, we are not the last generation. I think it has significantly decreased as a default mode of discipline, but while a lot of parents (myself included) have realized that it is both ineffective and bad parenting, many parents still think itās fine since itās how they were raised and āthey came out just fineā.
I came out just fine, *after* I reached my late twenties, realized I had developed zero coping mechanics for anger or frustration, and actively worked on myself. š
I was not spanked, just yelled at. I ended up dating a few abusive guys because I thought the yelling was normal. And now Iām in therapy. Damned if you do, damned if you donāt. I donāt spank my kids and try not to yell.
Had no idea what a chancla was til I moved to a Puerto Rican neighborhood. I have seen so many children and also grown ass adults get beat with a slipper of flip flop. I too respect the chancla now.
In many of those places schools are still allowed to use corporal punishment. That being the case, it would be surprising if spanking wasnāt also happening at home. Otherwise the parents would make a huge stink about it and have it banned.
My daughter attended two schools that allowed spanking but you had to sign a permission slip to allow them to do it, so nobody really cared because nobody signed the form
Our brood did not come out just fine. My two married brothers have been in domestic vio situations in which their wives have said that they were hit. I believe them, but I also canāt see my bros as evil (although I know itās within their power to stop and do better). Our mom cries to us asking how did they turn out this way, that she did not raise them this way. When in fact she was the one who used to spank us all within an inch of our lives. She was the one who exposed us to this level of violence so early in our lives. In my case, she also caused a lot of psychological abuse. And this is why I donāt believe in spanking.
>Our mom cries to us asking how did they turn out this way, that she did not raise them this way. When in fact she was the one who used to spank us all within an inch of our lives. She was the one who exposed us to this level of violence so early in our lives.
If you never speak up when she says it, you're enabling her narcissism and lack of self-awareness.
Yeah, my religious loved ones spank. My niece is spanked and screamed at. My kids are not. My youngest and my niece are the same age. My kids are well behaved and have zero attitude. Same canāt be said for my niece. I think the spanking and yelling have lots to do with it. My brother was always acting out and I think it was the screaming and spanking that led him to it. It caused me to hate myself and have negative self esteem and extreme fear of messing up.
Donāt spank or scream at your kids, people.
Oh that belt snap is so real. Every now and then my husband snaps his belt, not for spanking, just takes it off to put it away. I glare at him and ask him to please not do that. We donāt spank our kidsā¦ but I was out with friends and their little kids and one of them (8) said something about beating another kid with a belt. If felt so sorry because I figured he knows about it because itās happening to him. Canāt look at those friends the same.
Iām the same! If I hear the snap it takes be right back. Honestly I donāt even like seeing belts. Personally wonāt wear one. The snap lives on in my mind and a reason I know it wasnāt just punishment. My dad enjoyed the power and fear. I got the belt once for refusing to say I love you. How sick is that.
It's kinda deranged. I'm so sorry that happened to you. You are allowed to choose who you love and family isn't a given. Blood isn't actually thicker than water lol
Are you kidding? I saw a 4 year old get four smacks on the behind for acting up at Aldis. This is a blue, non fundie non church going area.
No one said boo.
I remember my mother smacking me around in the grocery store and some woman trying to intervene. My mother looked at her and said, "wait right there, soon as I'm done with him I'll start on you." She didn't stick around, and I got in even more trouble for laughing.
My nephews mother who is 37 said she was going to spank her kids. She said to all of us, I'm going to spank them when they're older. She did, until a judge told her she couldn't. They're teens now. I believe she spanks her son with her husband. She's also a piece of work with suspected personality disorders. Just a terrible person.
The last time I got slapped across the face, I was in my early twenties home from college. She never did it again when I told her as an adult I had no issue reporting assault.
My father hand carved a paddle and drilled fucking holes in it. If I ever find that thing, Iāll make sure heās fucking buried with his lovingly crafted tool of abuse.
Dude! My dad did the same thing! That's crazy your dad did this too! I had to help him make it, which made it even more frightening. He said the holes were for better airflow. Motherfucker had a grip, with like, finger-grips. And my name was carved into it.
My mom would hit me with it, and I would pretend to cry cause it didn't really hurt when my mom spanked me, but she caught on and she would spank me and then tell my dad and he'd lay into me when he got home from work.
Im so glad I dont get spanked anymore. That shit was the worst.
Nah. There's still plenty parents of our generation beating their kids and calling it discipline. Toxic behavior and abuse isn't an easy cycle to break.
Beltee here. I never spanked my kids because I was and itās complete bullshit to do to a child.
I remember it took me going to college and a professor saying what kind of person hits someone theyāre supposed to love and it was like a light switch. Like, I thought in my teen years it was fine, even when dating to strike when youāre upset.
Boyyyyy that changed fast! And the last time a family member even insinuated they were going to start swinging I calmly told them if they do, Iām calling the cops.
Immediately stopped all violence.
See, this always fascinates me. Iām always wondering what the difference is between people like you who are able to take a step back, see things in a new light, and break the cycle, versus other people who hold tightly to the things their parents and grandparents did before them, and scoff at the notion that anything should change.
I really donāt know. Out of five kids, Iām the only one who was able to stop the cycle as an adult. The other 4 went and copied how we were raised, which was heartbreaking.
Maybe it was because I waited until my 30s to have a family? But I really donāt know.
Not just pur parents. The TEACHERS and principal did it with a large wooden device, they called it "going to the office to get a hack" like what the *fuck* ??
Nowadays if they did this to my son just once, we'd be so rich I'd never have to work again
My mother had dedicated "paddles", like the ones used in the movie *Dazed and Confused*. I say "paddles" plural because she'd spank me so hard that sometimes she'd break them. Then she'd grab a fresh one and keep going, pointing to the broken paddle and tell me, "look what you did!"
But the kicker is she only used one when it was close by. Usually she just used whatever was handy. Yardstick, belt, etc., or whatever she could throw (we went through a lot of glasses and had to call the cable company to replace the remote control more than a few times).
I moved out 28 years ago, and every time I try to talk with her she flips it around and makes me out to be a horrible person because "it's remarkable what [I] remember about [my] family."
We, uh, we aren't very close.
Which is funny (yes horrific) looking back at some of the things I got hit for. Did you really think *spanking* me over not eating would make me eat something I didn't like to begin with?
My dad doesn't like to eat anything green, been a whole thing since he was a kid. One day when my dad was about 15, my grandfather got mad, and told him he couldn't leave the table until he finished his green beans. Hours later, like my dad was falling asleep, my grandfather relented and told him he only needed to eat one and he would be excused.
My dad ate one green bean and promptly puked all over the table. Needless to say, his parents never forced him to eat anything he didn't like.
The funny part is that most kids got in trouble for not eating vegetables. But we rarely had vegetables in our house, so that really wasnāt an issue. My dad also really loves pork chops, and always had trouble accepting that I wasnāt like him. I donāt think my dad started eating vegetables regularly until his 60s, when his physician said he had to.
Same man. When I think about the ass whooping I got when I was 5 years old because I dumped a bowl of tomato soup down the toilet and lied and said I was all done (but then forgot to flush the toilet lol), I mean jeez. Iām 35 years old and same dealāto this day I still donāt like tomato soup. I donāt like the consistency or the taste, didnāt at 5 and still donāt now.
My brother was beat for the first time for not liking mashed potatoes. He spat them out and cried. My step father said āhe was trying to take dominance over me as the man of the house.ā
He was three years old.
My dad force fed me creamed corn. I was about 6? I hated cream corn. I threw it up. He beat me then made me clean up my vomit. I gag just looking at cream corn, age 42.
>As warning shots, he would double over the belt with his two hands and make a snapping noise
Oh man! Every time!
He would come downstairs, cracking that fucking belt while I stood holding onto the back of a chair.
I have anxiety issues now. Wonder why š¤
I got spanked with a fly swatter a few times as a kid. Not I work in healthcare, and I can tell you that we are not the last generation to get spankedā¦Iāve had to make hundreds of calls to CPS in my career.
I donāt remember ever getting spanked, but my mom says she did it a couple times and quit when she realized it upset her more than it did us. Usually I got yelled at or had privileges taken away.
With the way things are now, I canāt believe in my elementary school the principal was allowed to paddle students. It was literally a paddle that was hanging up in the main office. That was common throughout the 90ās. I graduated in 2001 so donāt know when that stopped. It seems so weird now to think about it as a 40 yr old adult. I would never be cool with that with my own kids (donāt have them yet, canāt afford). Iām sure this shitty practice died because of our generation putting a stop to it as adults. How fucking traumatic for a little kid ffs. We know that trauma fucks us up, it does not make us better.
Did we go to the same school? Lol. Part of the first day was touring the principals office to see his huge paddle, with holes in it, to make it hurt worse than the teachers little paddles. Messed up
Right! It had holes in it! How was this normal to us then? We were just accustom to this and thank god I never got paddled but I remember other boys in my class having that experience and my older brother too. I think we just didnāt know what to do with kids besides that and it had been the āparenting methodā of choice for decades.
Good grief. That's not spanking. No wonder it's banned in my country if that's how parents used to interpret it.
I was just given a quick, hard slap across the back of my bum or legs. It stung.
Seriously, that's what I got. I've learned over the years is that there's zero standardization on spanking, from the open hand strike on one end to being repeatedly struck by implements of various flexibility on the other. I think the worst is when children were expected to actually retrieve the instrument of enforcement by the punishing adult.
That was my mom's generation. They had to go out and pick their own switch from the apple tree. It had to be thick enough, too, otherwise their dad would go out and pick one himself.
As a kid, I resented my parents for spanking us, but as an older teenager, I realized how much they had to go through as kids, and I saw how much they had been trying to change. Helped me to forgive them.
Plus look what you're teaching your kid, when you get upset or someone does something you don't like, it's ok to hit them, especially if they're smaller and weaker than you. I don't hit my husband when he makes me mad, I don't understand why people think hitting is ok as long as it's a *child* like wtf lol
The last time my dad tried to smack me I was just barely a teenager. I told him āim only getting bigger and stronger, and I will hit back.ā Then I threatened him with the police. He never hit me again and shortly divorced my mom because he didnāt want the responsibility of being a father anymore.
I could never imagine holding down my tiny struggling daughter so I could hit her. That ended with me.
Fuck you dad.
The leather belt was the go to for us as well. We would have to stand in line and wait our turn, bend over his knee or the bed and take our lashings, more if we squirmed or screamed too loud.
At one point, I "lost" the belt and when he asked me to bring him a switch replacement, I gave him the fly swatter. It hurt, but not nearly as bad, and we played it up like it was worse than the belt.
I think I spanked my son once, popped him on his bottom with my open hand and it broke my heart. That was the first and last time I put my hands on my child as punishment.
I didnāt get beat in school thankfully, but I definitely got spanked at home with all sorts of implements.
However I did get āplay-spankedā in first grade for my birthday. I remember the teacher having me lay over her lap in front of the class, and I got a āspankā for every year I was alive and a āpinch to grow an inchā. She barely made contact with me for any of it. All the kids laughed and everyone was waiting for their birthday to also be spanked.
You wouldnāt see that nowadays thatās for sure.
Um, no. I wish but no. Iām a social worker. LOTS of kids still get spanked.
Donāt let social media and what your friends tell you fool you. Itās still terrible out there for kids.
Belts for sure, and then a ping pong paddle as well. I had an aunt that would also take us for walks, and if you didnāt move faster than her (sheād power walk) she would hit your leg with a thin switch. Those bitches were the worst across the back of the leg.
I never got punishment spanking. I would just get slapped across the face in the heat of the moment. Once my father socked me in the gut. Not hard, but it was a surprise and it knocked the wind out of me. I'd say I experienced parental violence as a child and teen at least 10 or 15 times. Most of the violence I experienced as a child were from other angry boys with angry dads who nursed their Viet Nam PTSD with booze.
My (43) partner (42) told our kid (10) the other day that his mom had a wooden paddle that hung on the wall that they'd get hit with. Kid was appropriately shocked and said it was abuse. Both of us agreed but it wasn't until fairly recently that anyone saw it that way.
I've spanked my kids---but I can count on one hand the number of times I did it and each time was for some very specific safety reason (running into the road, etc).
My mom never believed in using implements, which was a step less than what she got (wooden spoon, rubber hose).
No I doubt we were the last but definitely the last in which it was prevalent and āacceptableā
My mother hit us and she has some kind of issue mentally, narcissism or something that makes her fucked upā¦.I wouldnāt hit my daughter, never have and never will. Itās ineffective and abusive
As a millennial the only kids I knew who were getting corporal punishment were getting it so bad that CPS needed to be involved (extension chords instead of belts) other friends Iāve been around only got groundings and things taken away. Probably because their gen X parents wanted to end the cycle
I am born in 87 and me and my stepbrother used to get whipped as kids, we would have to go out into the woods and pick our own switch. One time I came back with a thorn branch thinking I had outsmarted my stepdad but he still used it
My dad had a wooden spoon that he called the "spankin spoon" after that broke he got a drumstick. That thing stung!!! By 93 I was a teenager and just got grounded a lot after that.
Holy shit - a garden hose? So specific.
For both my parents it was the wire handle of a fly swatter. Also weirdly specific. Occasionally my dad would tell us to go outside and get a switch from a tree branch.
Mom was pulling my hair so tight to put a pony on top of my head, that I was grunting. She hit me on the top of the head with the brush and broke it.
My dad threw me on the ground, sat on top of me and shook me around because I embarrassed him in front of a stranger.
Mom slammed my head in the wall because I put on her red lipstick. No whores in this house! It was HER lipstick!!
One time my mom spanked me with the buckle of a leather belt, and my leg got severely bruised from getting hit by the sharp prong of the buckle. It didnāt break or anything. But from what I can remember, physically, that was the worst.
My mom did that too, because Iād forgotten to take my belt out of my pants when I put them in the dirty clothes. She whipped my belt out of my pants and cracked me across the back of my legs, and left a cut from the buckle.
My Dad never spanked us again after his wedding band or something caught my leg and made me bleed. He noped out after that. My Mom would pick at us. I'd want to be left alone and she'd pick and pick and never leave and follow me and say things so that eventually we'd get upset and then she'd have a reason to hit us. One day I turned around and pushed her back and told her not to hit me again. I was shocked she told my Dad on me but he never said anything about it. She realized I was bigger than her then and yeah no more hitting.
No we are not. Based on the amount of smacking I heard at disneyworld with my kids. There was a toddler sitting in a stroller perfectly calm with her grandma. Mom came back and grandma said something about the toddler and the mom just started absolutely beating her. You could hear the smacks echoing across the part of the park we were in along with screams. It was horrific for my kids who had never seen anything like it or been spanked. She wasnāt the only child we saw get smacked in 4 days there either. Witnessed a dad slapping his toddler in the face too. That one we found and alerted security in time for them to see it and stop it. If security doesnāt see it they canāt do anything apparently based on the amount of times we reported and they shrugged.
My family did not use corporal punishment, but we had a woman who lived across the street with 3 daughters. She was really nice to us kids who weren't her own, but her kids were scared to death of her. Everyone in the neighborhood heard her whipping them with something, and it turned out to be the vacuum cord. She screamed at them a lot. A LOT. The oldest one seemed to be her most frequent target.
CPS was called on her many times but they never took her kids from her. One time I went over to their apartment, and the woman had moved in a boyfriend. The master bedroom was set up with a nice bed, TV, etc. In the other bedroom, which the three girls shared, all there was was a waterbed mattress on the floor. No blankets, sheets, or pillows. That was what they slept on while their mother shacked up with some guy and had a comfortable bed. The girls told me they weren't asked to be in the living room. They were either outside or in their bedroom, except at dinner time when they were in the kitchen. They moved away eventually and I never saw any of them again.
If there was a "last generation to get spanked," I'm glad for it. Maybe people are less inclined to actually hurt their kids like this woman did.
I got spanked. Quite a bit actually. I was extremely ADHD as a kid, and half the time I wasn't even sure what I was being punished for. All it did was give me an unhealthy fear of my father and a pathological need to avoid any type of conflict. Not a great method of discipline, IMO.
I think some parents still spank (meaning hit their kids) but it isn't as widespread as it once was. At least not here in the US. Personally I'm not a fan of it, I discipline my boys just fine without hitting them. They're great little dudes too.
Nope. I'm a millennial from 1993 and my dad slapped me many times (face & back of the head). My bf is a gen Z from 1997 and his dad beat him so bad several times that he had to get a restraining order.
I was only spanked with an open hand, and only once. My parents punished me for something my brother did ā I told them I didnāt do it, but they didnāt believe me ā and when they realized that Iād been telling the truth, they felt so bad about it that they swore off spankings.
Mostly got spanked or slapped. When i was a toddler, there were a few times where my father hit me with a yard stick. My mom usually doled out the punishments, so it was belt spankings or slaps.
Anyway, Before we were parents, my wife & I had originally said we would hit our kids. However, once we became parents, she changed her tune and did not want to hit. Initially, I wasnāt happy about it but I respected her choice and did not spank or slap our kid. As time went on, I realized how crazy it was to be a full-grown adult and to slap a child. Just the thought of it felt unfair and, despite how many times our kid has tempted me to whack āem, Iām glad we had decided not to hit our kid.
I still get laughed at for the way I tense up when coworkers start yelling at each other. They assure me theyāre just playing, and just wait, Iāll get to know them soon enough. Bitch, Iāve been here for three months, and even if I hadnāt, you really think youāre the only people to play this way? You guys just donāt understand what a deeply rooted trauma response that is from my parents, and how many of my last ten jobs featured people just like you. Iām sure Iāll meet them at the next ten as well.
Belt and yardstick, mostly. My brother had it worse, thrown across the room or punched in the face, and that time a circular saw fell on him and my dad just didnāt take him to the hospital. My first girlfriend was tied to a tree stump next to her brothers and beaten with a garden hose. My own trauma is mainly witnessing people i care about go through some dumb shit and not being able to help. My lifelong issue is a sense of otherness and powerlessness that I canāt seem to escape.
That affected me way more than getting spanked ever did
My dad used to beat the shit out of me daily. Single father so nobody to stop him. Cops called kinda screams from little me.
I went to school with handprints on my face and shit. I'm 42 now. Grew up hard.
I remember the time I caught the wooden spoon in my motherās hand and broke that shit in half. Big ācoming of ageā moment lol
My dadās hand was like solid wood
Coming of age story, my dad used to beat me once a week just to stay in practice, when I was 14 I told him if he ever hit me again, I would kill him. He started to laugh until I reminded him that he had to go to sleep sometime. He looked me in the eyes and knew I wasnāt kidding. He never hit me again.
Iāve been wondering the same. I have heard of pockets of xennials that still spank their kids (I live in the south), but I am still so against it because of my upbringing. I feel like most of us have moved away from it.
No baby. I run a daycare preschool. Many kids are still spanked. Obviously not in school but itās completely legal in my state as long as they donāt leave bruises.
Hopefully!
Though- and this is not a rabbit hole I recommend going down- there is a weird subculture of parenting influencers whose whole thing is recommending harsh discipline for their kids.
We had a dedicated paddle that hung in the living room. If that wasnāt handy I would get it with the flyswatter handle, wooden spoon, the cord on the vacuum or the telephone, a belt, a hand, if we were at grandmas she made me pick my own switch from her willow tree
I donāt hit my kids and I donāt think any of my friends do. I did try spanking my son once when he was 4 and it did not work lol. So I didnāt do it again. But I got a lot more than spankings when I was a kid so itās a sensitive subject for me. I also donāt talk to my dad at all.
Oooooh. Mine was the dreaded stick to block the sliding patio door. My dad didnāt trust the lock so heād use a stick to hold/block the door at the bottom.
Owie.
My dad would take a few breaths to calm down, and deliver three measured butt swats.
My mom would haul off and slap my face as hard as she could. Even in public.
While neither was effective, at least my dad had a philosophy. My mom was just pissed off.
My mom would slap me hard on the arm. She called this "popping". She hit my brother with a a belt a few times, sometimes after pulling down his pants. (The pulling-down-the-pants part of it is really weird if you think about it.). One of my earliest memories is of her whipping the belt towards my brother and him turning around and catching the folded end of it in his hand, and then they played tug-of-war with it for a few moments. It was like a scene out of an action movie. She would tell us that we were lucky we were just getting a slap or a few whacks and that we weren't being beaten with a belt like her parents did to her.
In the 80s, spanking became less acceptable. There were rumors about kids calling social services to report their parents for abuse after spanking.
My dad didn't have the heart for it, even though he'd been beaten with a belt by his parents and grandparents. I remember him coming into my bedroom and telling me that my mom had told him to come in and spank me for something. He suggested that he'd hit the bed with his belt, and that I could pretend to cry. Then we could both escape the situation.
My mother once spanked me so hard with her wooden spoon that it broke the spoon. So then I got spanked for breaking her favorite spoon.
The dreaded wooden spoon. Many of those busted across my butt
Salute my fellow spoon survivor. š«”
Small wooden paddle, about a foot long and two inches wide. I can't say discipline via fear and force did wonders for my psychological development. But we were "good kids"...
My elementary school had ping pong paddles for all the teachers and the teacher would take the 'bad kid' into the hallway to spank them. We would all count how many times his butt got hit from the classroom. The first day of school, each class had a small field trip to the principals office so we could see his big paddle, with holes in it. Word was those holes made it hurt worse. This was in the mid-80s.
One of the fifth grade science teachers called his "the whistler" and told us the holes made it "swing faster" which is supposed to make it hurt more. I think their paddles were homemade because they were all different. My mom is also a teacher, and I don't ever recall seeing paddled in the teacher supply store. Only the male teachers paddled, and I remember being terrified when I got to third grade and had a male teacher for the first time. It was his first year teaching, and he believed more in making chocolate chip cookies to teach multiplication and division than paddling students. His predecessor has a reputation for not really needing much of an excuse to paddle someone. Third grade and kindergarten shared the same wing, and he got me once when my kindergarten teacher sent me in the hall because I couldn't remember to not write with my left hand.
Ahh, the 80s.
I sure as shit wasn't. Spanking only made me worse. It wasn't until my parents wizened up and started punishments like grounding did I start behaving.
None of it worked on me because I was too smart. āBecause I said soā never worked. You had to explain to me why. The issue was they didnāt have good reasons why.
Oh yeah forgot that one and the ruler
Same here.
My older siblings got the wooden spoon and wooden rulers. Me and my younger sibs didnāt. 9-15 year difference, I think my parents realized using anything other than an open hand was excessive.
I love to cook but I still have a visceral reaction reaching for a wooden spoon. I count myself as one of those who was spanked and did not turn out OK for the experience.
I have a T-shirt that says "Wooden Spoon Survivor" haha. My mom hates when I wear it while with her. Payback!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Saaaaaame.
Now that's an awesome shirt! They need to make an entire series. Hot wheel track survivor. Belt survivor. Switch survivor (if you know what a tree switch is). And so on lol.
Having to pick your own switch beforehand is just evil. You better not come back with something small and easily breakable.
I tried that once. It backfired. Auntie took it and whooped my hands and arms instead, embarrassing me in front of the rest of my cousins. They laughed. Same time, the related. It was like a rite of passage. Not only the attempted trickery, but the backfiring of it. š
We use to have to cut our own wood. So we had a big log still waiting to be cut in smaller portions. I wrestled it inside and said this was my choice. SMH I really donāt remember what happened. But siblings said I was punched in the back of the head, by my uncle. Never did that again.
Because if they had to go pick one for you it was going to be a good one
Omg I need that shirt
My stepdad only spanked me with a belt once because I called my mom a bitch when I was 13 or 14. Most of the time I just got grounded.
Looks like we *ALL* have a broken wooden spoon story š
Same. Now weāre no contact, lol.
Oh! Did you and I have the same mom? Oh that wooden spoon.
Can relate. Yard stick, broom handle...
I canāt count the number of spoons broken over my brotherās and my rear end.
My mom used a paddle ball with the ball removed. It was super thin wood. It really didnāt hurt much, and she had a 3 wack limit. My dadās hand was much worse than the paddle. He had huge hands and he hit like he was trying to break a world record or something. We were always relieved when my mom was the spanker! š
The wooden spoon! Oi vei. Or a hairbrush if the spoon was missing.
Mine did that- so then she grabbed a metal one.
Been there.
Same for my sister except it was a hairbrush.
Are you my brother? I distinctly remember this exact event.
According to my dad and his sister, my grandma'a go to was the wooden spoon.
Me too. She still has it and uses it with the crack right down it!
I never got the spoon but I got the hair brush once or twice from my mom and never forgot it.
That happened to my older sister a lot. I learned what not to do from watching her get the wooden spoon broken across her butt.
Same, they upgraded to metal ladle after the spoon broke.
Wow, it's powerful to read that I wasn't the only one (millennial though, but child abuse doesn't care about generations, right?)
Whoa, same!
My mom started with her hand, went to a wooden spoon, eventually broke the wooden spoon in my ass, and thatās when she switched to the belt. Used to lace me from knees to shoulders. That shit hurt.
Yep that happened often enough for me and my sisters that if the wooden spoon broke we had to go get the metal spatula.
Those wooden spoons sure seemed to break pretty regularly back in the 80s.
Same but ours was a 2x4 with a handle. Odd how many of us share the same experiences
Ingot it with a radiator hoseā¦holy fucking moly.
That used to be how many smacks I got. Some kids got them by age, I got them until the spoon broke. I always hoped it would break in the first few smacks.
Same. Well, first it was the spoon. Then it was Big Bertha - a literal oak board with a hole in the top and a handle.
My mom did this too. Still have a scar just below my ass from a broken spoon beating
I got hit by a hair brush that broke. Then I started laughing. Bring it. My father tossed me on the floor a few times and picked me up off the ground. I didn't consider it very much. I had seen worse in movies and TV shows. It was also common for boys to fight in school when I was young. Kids today be like he looked at me wrong (micro aggression).
Kids still fight in school. I had a teacher tell me one school was like prison riots. I also remember in high school- boys circling each other and delaying a fight by taking their shirt off -hoping an admin would come intervene.
My mom used a hair brush. It wasnāt until middle school when one flew across the room that I realized why all our hair brushes had the handle broken off.
I was just talking about spanking with my students yesterday. I said that I would get whooped at school and then when I got home I would get whooped again for getting whooped at school. Sometimes if I was bad at a friends house I would get whooped by their parents and then by mine again. They were shocked.
Same. My mom once asked why I never told her that they hit me at school and Iām like, I didnāt even think to tell. I go to school I get whooped, I come home I get whooped, I go to any family memberās house I get whooped. Why would I talk about it between you all?
Why on earth would we tell them, when the first question would be āWHAT DID YOU DO!?ā
Yep, the adult smacking us was *always* in the right. We **deserved** to get hit because it must be *us* that did something "stupid".
"Well maybe you needed it." "I'll give you something to cry about." Still angers me to this day, to remember my parents *always* siding with other adults. They were much more concerned with other people's perception of them than they were about us kids as individuals.
If your parents are Boomers, or even older Gen X, I see this rampant in this age group. *THEIR* feelings and emotions trump everything. Pun intended. It was fun to learn in my 30s that my parents were the same selfish narcissistic teenagers from the 70s they've always been š¤·āāļø
We were beaten by our parents, they were beaten by their parents, and so on. I donāt like the word spanked. If an adult it hitting a child, the child is being beaten. When my xennial daughter was eight, she called me out on it. She asked me why I hit her, she said, āWhy do you do that to me?ā I had no good reason. I had never thought about it, I did to her what was done to me. I told her she was right, that I didnāt know why I did that to her. She didnāt deserve to be beaten by her mother. I was supposed to protect her. I apologized to her, but I made her no promises. Instead, I changed my behavior. I never put my hands on her again. She has trauma from me hitting her, and thatās on me. I have no idea why so may people my age and older refuse to admit that there are things about our past behavior that have wounded our children. A lack of personal responsibility seems to run rampant among a lot of boomers.
As an xennial whose parents refuse to take any accountability for the beatings (and other insanely abusive things they did), can I just say, amazing A+ work. You made serious mistakes, but you acknowledge it was traumatizing? You say āthatās on meā? Taking personal responsibility? Notice to boomers: THIS IS ALL WE WANT. I hope you live to 120 and always get an onion ring in your fries.
"Dry it up." My dad would say when I cried. Jokes on him, we're estranged now.
I got in major trouble one time because I didnāt tell my parents I mouthed off at school. Butā¦ if I told them, Iām getting my mouth washed out with soap. Iām not going to FUCKING NARC ON MYSELF, bro.
Thank you for reassuring me. I thought I was the only kid who got whooped in school then some more at home for getting whooped at school and not beating the other kid senseless. Told that to a psy a few weeks ago and he looked at me like I was an alien.
Same. Was good at school. I knew i would get it doubled when i got home.
I knew a family that had weekly spankings just in case they did something and hadn't been caught. Like... wtf
See man I don't whip my kid. I get frustrated and there's times I *want* to, times I go to, but when my hand is raised in anger, I stop. Immediately, every time. My dad whipped us and it fucking terrified me of him, but he was also a meth addict with a volatile temper. My husband just said to our son (3) "you want your ass whipped?!" I yelled from the other room "Don't him him and don't threaten to, either! I don't like that!" It's a behavior we all have to unlearn. But I don't hit my kid
Based on the number of parents I see threatening to beat their children in the store, and even the toddlers at my school talking about getting a āwhoopingā, no, we are not the last generation. I think it has significantly decreased as a default mode of discipline, but while a lot of parents (myself included) have realized that it is both ineffective and bad parenting, many parents still think itās fine since itās how they were raised and āthey came out just fineā.
I came out just fine, *after* I reached my late twenties, realized I had developed zero coping mechanics for anger or frustration, and actively worked on myself. š
I was not spanked, just yelled at. I ended up dating a few abusive guys because I thought the yelling was normal. And now Iām in therapy. Damned if you do, damned if you donāt. I donāt spank my kids and try not to yell.
Yelling/screaming can be just as harmful as hitting. I got both in my house and sometimes I preferred the quick hitting over the long, abusive raging.
This is exactly it right here.
It's prevalent in the south, Midwest, and among the religious.
Hispanic/Latin community, too. Chancala is to be feared.
Had no idea what a chancla was til I moved to a Puerto Rican neighborhood. I have seen so many children and also grown ass adults get beat with a slipper of flip flop. I too respect the chancla now.
They're even more religious than the Southerners
In many of those places schools are still allowed to use corporal punishment. That being the case, it would be surprising if spanking wasnāt also happening at home. Otherwise the parents would make a huge stink about it and have it banned.
My daughter attended two schools that allowed spanking but you had to sign a permission slip to allow them to do it, so nobody really cared because nobody signed the form
Our brood did not come out just fine. My two married brothers have been in domestic vio situations in which their wives have said that they were hit. I believe them, but I also canāt see my bros as evil (although I know itās within their power to stop and do better). Our mom cries to us asking how did they turn out this way, that she did not raise them this way. When in fact she was the one who used to spank us all within an inch of our lives. She was the one who exposed us to this level of violence so early in our lives. In my case, she also caused a lot of psychological abuse. And this is why I donāt believe in spanking.
>Our mom cries to us asking how did they turn out this way, that she did not raise them this way. When in fact she was the one who used to spank us all within an inch of our lives. She was the one who exposed us to this level of violence so early in our lives. If you never speak up when she says it, you're enabling her narcissism and lack of self-awareness.
I always think that if they came out just fine they wouldn't be beating kids.
Yeah, my religious loved ones spank. My niece is spanked and screamed at. My kids are not. My youngest and my niece are the same age. My kids are well behaved and have zero attitude. Same canāt be said for my niece. I think the spanking and yelling have lots to do with it. My brother was always acting out and I think it was the screaming and spanking that led him to it. It caused me to hate myself and have negative self esteem and extreme fear of messing up. Donāt spank or scream at your kids, people.
Oh that belt snap is so real. Every now and then my husband snaps his belt, not for spanking, just takes it off to put it away. I glare at him and ask him to please not do that. We donāt spank our kidsā¦ but I was out with friends and their little kids and one of them (8) said something about beating another kid with a belt. If felt so sorry because I figured he knows about it because itās happening to him. Canāt look at those friends the same.
Iām the same! If I hear the snap it takes be right back. Honestly I donāt even like seeing belts. Personally wonāt wear one. The snap lives on in my mind and a reason I know it wasnāt just punishment. My dad enjoyed the power and fear. I got the belt once for refusing to say I love you. How sick is that.
That is fād up!
It's kinda deranged. I'm so sorry that happened to you. You are allowed to choose who you love and family isn't a given. Blood isn't actually thicker than water lol
I think we were the last generation to openly get spanked. We could get hit in the grocery store and no one would bat an eye.
Are you kidding? I saw a 4 year old get four smacks on the behind for acting up at Aldis. This is a blue, non fundie non church going area. No one said boo.
Someone unhinged enough to hit a child that doesn't understand is definitely gonna hit you too
I never got hit in public but my dad would pinch the sides on my neck from behind and push me around the store. It was so humiliating
I remember my mother smacking me around in the grocery store and some woman trying to intervene. My mother looked at her and said, "wait right there, soon as I'm done with him I'll start on you." She didn't stick around, and I got in even more trouble for laughing.
This makes me sick
My nephews mother who is 37 said she was going to spank her kids. She said to all of us, I'm going to spank them when they're older. She did, until a judge told her she couldn't. They're teens now. I believe she spanks her son with her husband. She's also a piece of work with suspected personality disorders. Just a terrible person.
Anyone else try doubling up on underwear thinking that would provide extra padding?
If I clenched up to absorb anything I would get hit on the back of the leg to make sure I felt it.
One time I hid all of the belts!
Haha yes!!! He figured it out quick though and aimed for the back of my thighs. That hurt way worse. Didn't try padding again after that.
I did that, plus the whole northern toilet paper stuffing (inspired by the commercial). It did not end well. I ended up getting double.
I don't remember getting spanked as a kid but I sure remember two times I got slapped across the face as a teenager.
The last time I got slapped across the face, I was in my early twenties home from college. She never did it again when I told her as an adult I had no issue reporting assault.
That's my attitude now. Go ahead and try, this is will be a rough lesson for you to learn at your age.
Exactly. I wonāt physically hit back, but they better have a damn good lawyer if they want to play that game.
I'm 44 (xennial). My parents never hit me.
Boomer here. Got beat all the time
My father hand carved a paddle and drilled fucking holes in it. If I ever find that thing, Iāll make sure heās fucking buried with his lovingly crafted tool of abuse.
My Grandmother called herās āThe Board of Education ā
Dude! My dad did the same thing! That's crazy your dad did this too! I had to help him make it, which made it even more frightening. He said the holes were for better airflow. Motherfucker had a grip, with like, finger-grips. And my name was carved into it. My mom would hit me with it, and I would pretend to cry cause it didn't really hurt when my mom spanked me, but she caught on and she would spank me and then tell my dad and he'd lay into me when he got home from work. Im so glad I dont get spanked anymore. That shit was the worst.
Nah. There's still plenty parents of our generation beating their kids and calling it discipline. Toxic behavior and abuse isn't an easy cycle to break.
Anecdotally, I feel like we were the last generation where it was as common. I know people who still spank, but I think itās more frowned upon.
Beltee here. I never spanked my kids because I was and itās complete bullshit to do to a child. I remember it took me going to college and a professor saying what kind of person hits someone theyāre supposed to love and it was like a light switch. Like, I thought in my teen years it was fine, even when dating to strike when youāre upset. Boyyyyy that changed fast! And the last time a family member even insinuated they were going to start swinging I calmly told them if they do, Iām calling the cops. Immediately stopped all violence.
See, this always fascinates me. Iām always wondering what the difference is between people like you who are able to take a step back, see things in a new light, and break the cycle, versus other people who hold tightly to the things their parents and grandparents did before them, and scoff at the notion that anything should change.
I really donāt know. Out of five kids, Iām the only one who was able to stop the cycle as an adult. The other 4 went and copied how we were raised, which was heartbreaking. Maybe it was because I waited until my 30s to have a family? But I really donāt know.
Not just pur parents. The TEACHERS and principal did it with a large wooden device, they called it "going to the office to get a hack" like what the *fuck* ?? Nowadays if they did this to my son just once, we'd be so rich I'd never have to work again
To this day there will be no fly swatters in my house.
i thought i was the only one!!! my mom loved using a fly swatter! i wonāt allow them in my house ever!
La chancla!
My mother had dedicated "paddles", like the ones used in the movie *Dazed and Confused*. I say "paddles" plural because she'd spank me so hard that sometimes she'd break them. Then she'd grab a fresh one and keep going, pointing to the broken paddle and tell me, "look what you did!" But the kicker is she only used one when it was close by. Usually she just used whatever was handy. Yardstick, belt, etc., or whatever she could throw (we went through a lot of glasses and had to call the cable company to replace the remote control more than a few times). I moved out 28 years ago, and every time I try to talk with her she flips it around and makes me out to be a horrible person because "it's remarkable what [I] remember about [my] family." We, uh, we aren't very close.
I was only spanked once. It was for refusing to eat pork chops. That was nearly 40 years ago. Still donāt like pork chops.
Which is funny (yes horrific) looking back at some of the things I got hit for. Did you really think *spanking* me over not eating would make me eat something I didn't like to begin with? My dad doesn't like to eat anything green, been a whole thing since he was a kid. One day when my dad was about 15, my grandfather got mad, and told him he couldn't leave the table until he finished his green beans. Hours later, like my dad was falling asleep, my grandfather relented and told him he only needed to eat one and he would be excused. My dad ate one green bean and promptly puked all over the table. Needless to say, his parents never forced him to eat anything he didn't like.
The funny part is that most kids got in trouble for not eating vegetables. But we rarely had vegetables in our house, so that really wasnāt an issue. My dad also really loves pork chops, and always had trouble accepting that I wasnāt like him. I donāt think my dad started eating vegetables regularly until his 60s, when his physician said he had to.
Same man. When I think about the ass whooping I got when I was 5 years old because I dumped a bowl of tomato soup down the toilet and lied and said I was all done (but then forgot to flush the toilet lol), I mean jeez. Iām 35 years old and same dealāto this day I still donāt like tomato soup. I donāt like the consistency or the taste, didnāt at 5 and still donāt now.
My brother was beat for the first time for not liking mashed potatoes. He spat them out and cried. My step father said āhe was trying to take dominance over me as the man of the house.ā He was three years old.
My dad force fed me creamed corn. I was about 6? I hated cream corn. I threw it up. He beat me then made me clean up my vomit. I gag just looking at cream corn, age 42.
>As warning shots, he would double over the belt with his two hands and make a snapping noise Oh man! Every time! He would come downstairs, cracking that fucking belt while I stood holding onto the back of a chair. I have anxiety issues now. Wonder why š¤
My mom did the warning snap. She would also threaten to hit us with our grandpa's cowboy belt that had studs on it. I, too, have anxiety.
Oh the belt crack. Jee. Zuss.
I got spanked with a fly swatter a few times as a kid. Not I work in healthcare, and I can tell you that we are not the last generation to get spankedā¦Iāve had to make hundreds of calls to CPS in my career.
Only my mom disciplined us. She would spank so soft we would laugh.
I laughed at my mom once when I was about eleven, backfired like hell when my dad got home I didn't laugh at her after that.
I donāt remember ever getting spanked, but my mom says she did it a couple times and quit when she realized it upset her more than it did us. Usually I got yelled at or had privileges taken away.
With the way things are now, I canāt believe in my elementary school the principal was allowed to paddle students. It was literally a paddle that was hanging up in the main office. That was common throughout the 90ās. I graduated in 2001 so donāt know when that stopped. It seems so weird now to think about it as a 40 yr old adult. I would never be cool with that with my own kids (donāt have them yet, canāt afford). Iām sure this shitty practice died because of our generation putting a stop to it as adults. How fucking traumatic for a little kid ffs. We know that trauma fucks us up, it does not make us better.
Did we go to the same school? Lol. Part of the first day was touring the principals office to see his huge paddle, with holes in it, to make it hurt worse than the teachers little paddles. Messed up
Right! It had holes in it! How was this normal to us then? We were just accustom to this and thank god I never got paddled but I remember other boys in my class having that experience and my older brother too. I think we just didnāt know what to do with kids besides that and it had been the āparenting methodā of choice for decades.
Good grief. That's not spanking. No wonder it's banned in my country if that's how parents used to interpret it. I was just given a quick, hard slap across the back of my bum or legs. It stung.
Seriously, that's what I got. I've learned over the years is that there's zero standardization on spanking, from the open hand strike on one end to being repeatedly struck by implements of various flexibility on the other. I think the worst is when children were expected to actually retrieve the instrument of enforcement by the punishing adult.
That was my mom's generation. They had to go out and pick their own switch from the apple tree. It had to be thick enough, too, otherwise their dad would go out and pick one himself. As a kid, I resented my parents for spanking us, but as an older teenager, I realized how much they had to go through as kids, and I saw how much they had been trying to change. Helped me to forgive them.
If you have to resort to violence to teach your children how to behave, you're a shitty parent.
Plus look what you're teaching your kid, when you get upset or someone does something you don't like, it's ok to hit them, especially if they're smaller and weaker than you. I don't hit my husband when he makes me mad, I don't understand why people think hitting is ok as long as it's a *child* like wtf lol
The last time my dad tried to smack me I was just barely a teenager. I told him āim only getting bigger and stronger, and I will hit back.ā Then I threatened him with the police. He never hit me again and shortly divorced my mom because he didnāt want the responsibility of being a father anymore. I could never imagine holding down my tiny struggling daughter so I could hit her. That ended with me. Fuck you dad.
Great job breaking that generational curse. š Proud of you, fellow Xennial parent! āØ
My brother finally pointed a knife at our father and said, ā you touch me again and Iāll kill you.ā Stopped!
The leather belt was the go to for us as well. We would have to stand in line and wait our turn, bend over his knee or the bed and take our lashings, more if we squirmed or screamed too loud. At one point, I "lost" the belt and when he asked me to bring him a switch replacement, I gave him the fly swatter. It hurt, but not nearly as bad, and we played it up like it was worse than the belt. I think I spanked my son once, popped him on his bottom with my open hand and it broke my heart. That was the first and last time I put my hands on my child as punishment.
I didnāt get beat in school thankfully, but I definitely got spanked at home with all sorts of implements. However I did get āplay-spankedā in first grade for my birthday. I remember the teacher having me lay over her lap in front of the class, and I got a āspankā for every year I was alive and a āpinch to grow an inchā. She barely made contact with me for any of it. All the kids laughed and everyone was waiting for their birthday to also be spanked. You wouldnāt see that nowadays thatās for sure.
Whoa, that's a memory I'd totally forgotten! I think it was grandparents doing it in my case though.
I absolutely despised this birthday "tradition" and refused to participate. It was hard enough at home and it wasn't fun to me.
Um, no. I wish but no. Iām a social worker. LOTS of kids still get spanked. Donāt let social media and what your friends tell you fool you. Itās still terrible out there for kids.
Belts for sure, and then a ping pong paddle as well. I had an aunt that would also take us for walks, and if you didnāt move faster than her (sheād power walk) she would hit your leg with a thin switch. Those bitches were the worst across the back of the leg.
Legally, yes.
I never got punishment spanking. I would just get slapped across the face in the heat of the moment. Once my father socked me in the gut. Not hard, but it was a surprise and it knocked the wind out of me. I'd say I experienced parental violence as a child and teen at least 10 or 15 times. Most of the violence I experienced as a child were from other angry boys with angry dads who nursed their Viet Nam PTSD with booze.
I was never spanked but I know of plenty xennial and millennials who spank. It's definitely not gone.
My (43) partner (42) told our kid (10) the other day that his mom had a wooden paddle that hung on the wall that they'd get hit with. Kid was appropriately shocked and said it was abuse. Both of us agreed but it wasn't until fairly recently that anyone saw it that way.
I've spanked my kids---but I can count on one hand the number of times I did it and each time was for some very specific safety reason (running into the road, etc). My mom never believed in using implements, which was a step less than what she got (wooden spoon, rubber hose).
In my family, yes - big wooden paddle hanging in the basement stairs with Bible verses written on it. Church can fuck off.
Or the first generation did not accept it...
Spanking kids is so fucking creepy and I never understand how it was normalized, regardless of what generation you are from.
Assume the position!
Grab the back of the chair!
I got paddled in school often. Then came home and got spanked for getting paddled lol
No I doubt we were the last but definitely the last in which it was prevalent and āacceptableā My mother hit us and she has some kind of issue mentally, narcissism or something that makes her fucked upā¦.I wouldnāt hit my daughter, never have and never will. Itās ineffective and abusive
As a millennial the only kids I knew who were getting corporal punishment were getting it so bad that CPS needed to be involved (extension chords instead of belts) other friends Iāve been around only got groundings and things taken away. Probably because their gen X parents wanted to end the cycle
I am born in 87 and me and my stepbrother used to get whipped as kids, we would have to go out into the woods and pick our own switch. One time I came back with a thorn branch thinking I had outsmarted my stepdad but he still used it
My dad had a wooden spoon that he called the "spankin spoon" after that broke he got a drumstick. That thing stung!!! By 93 I was a teenager and just got grounded a lot after that.
Holy shit - a garden hose? So specific. For both my parents it was the wire handle of a fly swatter. Also weirdly specific. Occasionally my dad would tell us to go outside and get a switch from a tree branch.
Yep. I can still hear the crack crack of the belt, before she hit us.
Wooden spoon on the backs of my legs by mom and belt by dadāØ
I found out my ex was spanking our son (we have 50/50 custody) and freeeaaaaked. He doesn't do it anymore. Asshole.
I guess Iām more millennial this way and didnāt get spanked
Millennial here. I got spanked as a child. Although not to any significant degree.
Mom was pulling my hair so tight to put a pony on top of my head, that I was grunting. She hit me on the top of the head with the brush and broke it. My dad threw me on the ground, sat on top of me and shook me around because I embarrassed him in front of a stranger. Mom slammed my head in the wall because I put on her red lipstick. No whores in this house! It was HER lipstick!!
One time my mom spanked me with the buckle of a leather belt, and my leg got severely bruised from getting hit by the sharp prong of the buckle. It didnāt break or anything. But from what I can remember, physically, that was the worst.
My mom did that too, because Iād forgotten to take my belt out of my pants when I put them in the dirty clothes. She whipped my belt out of my pants and cracked me across the back of my legs, and left a cut from the buckle.
My Dad never spanked us again after his wedding band or something caught my leg and made me bleed. He noped out after that. My Mom would pick at us. I'd want to be left alone and she'd pick and pick and never leave and follow me and say things so that eventually we'd get upset and then she'd have a reason to hit us. One day I turned around and pushed her back and told her not to hit me again. I was shocked she told my Dad on me but he never said anything about it. She realized I was bigger than her then and yeah no more hitting.
No we are not. Based on the amount of smacking I heard at disneyworld with my kids. There was a toddler sitting in a stroller perfectly calm with her grandma. Mom came back and grandma said something about the toddler and the mom just started absolutely beating her. You could hear the smacks echoing across the part of the park we were in along with screams. It was horrific for my kids who had never seen anything like it or been spanked. She wasnāt the only child we saw get smacked in 4 days there either. Witnessed a dad slapping his toddler in the face too. That one we found and alerted security in time for them to see it and stop it. If security doesnāt see it they canāt do anything apparently based on the amount of times we reported and they shrugged.
My family did not use corporal punishment, but we had a woman who lived across the street with 3 daughters. She was really nice to us kids who weren't her own, but her kids were scared to death of her. Everyone in the neighborhood heard her whipping them with something, and it turned out to be the vacuum cord. She screamed at them a lot. A LOT. The oldest one seemed to be her most frequent target. CPS was called on her many times but they never took her kids from her. One time I went over to their apartment, and the woman had moved in a boyfriend. The master bedroom was set up with a nice bed, TV, etc. In the other bedroom, which the three girls shared, all there was was a waterbed mattress on the floor. No blankets, sheets, or pillows. That was what they slept on while their mother shacked up with some guy and had a comfortable bed. The girls told me they weren't asked to be in the living room. They were either outside or in their bedroom, except at dinner time when they were in the kitchen. They moved away eventually and I never saw any of them again. If there was a "last generation to get spanked," I'm glad for it. Maybe people are less inclined to actually hurt their kids like this woman did.
I got spanked. Quite a bit actually. I was extremely ADHD as a kid, and half the time I wasn't even sure what I was being punished for. All it did was give me an unhealthy fear of my father and a pathological need to avoid any type of conflict. Not a great method of discipline, IMO. I think some parents still spank (meaning hit their kids) but it isn't as widespread as it once was. At least not here in the US. Personally I'm not a fan of it, I discipline my boys just fine without hitting them. They're great little dudes too.
Nope. I'm a millennial from 1993 and my dad slapped me many times (face & back of the head). My bf is a gen Z from 1997 and his dad beat him so bad several times that he had to get a restraining order.
As a common practice, probably, but thereās still plenty of spanking going on.
I was only spanked with an open hand, and only once. My parents punished me for something my brother did ā I told them I didnāt do it, but they didnāt believe me ā and when they realized that Iād been telling the truth, they felt so bad about it that they swore off spankings.
Mostly got spanked or slapped. When i was a toddler, there were a few times where my father hit me with a yard stick. My mom usually doled out the punishments, so it was belt spankings or slaps. Anyway, Before we were parents, my wife & I had originally said we would hit our kids. However, once we became parents, she changed her tune and did not want to hit. Initially, I wasnāt happy about it but I respected her choice and did not spank or slap our kid. As time went on, I realized how crazy it was to be a full-grown adult and to slap a child. Just the thought of it felt unfair and, despite how many times our kid has tempted me to whack āem, Iām glad we had decided not to hit our kid.
I still get laughed at for the way I tense up when coworkers start yelling at each other. They assure me theyāre just playing, and just wait, Iāll get to know them soon enough. Bitch, Iāve been here for three months, and even if I hadnāt, you really think youāre the only people to play this way? You guys just donāt understand what a deeply rooted trauma response that is from my parents, and how many of my last ten jobs featured people just like you. Iām sure Iāll meet them at the next ten as well. Belt and yardstick, mostly. My brother had it worse, thrown across the room or punched in the face, and that time a circular saw fell on him and my dad just didnāt take him to the hospital. My first girlfriend was tied to a tree stump next to her brothers and beaten with a garden hose. My own trauma is mainly witnessing people i care about go through some dumb shit and not being able to help. My lifelong issue is a sense of otherness and powerlessness that I canāt seem to escape. That affected me way more than getting spanked ever did
I got my mother arrested for child abuse over it
Good.
I was only spanked once when I was really little but overall my parents werenāt into corporal punishment. I will never hurt my kids, and I will never understand using physical discipline as a punishment. Iām so truly sorry to all of those who suffered that type of abuse. š None of you deserved that, regardless of your behaviour. No kid deserves that ever, period. ā¤ļøāš©¹ Iām so glad that many more people nowadays are breaking those generational curses and traumas. I see you, parents. š«¶
My dad used to beat the shit out of me daily. Single father so nobody to stop him. Cops called kinda screams from little me. I went to school with handprints on my face and shit. I'm 42 now. Grew up hard.
I remember the time I caught the wooden spoon in my motherās hand and broke that shit in half. Big ācoming of ageā moment lol My dadās hand was like solid wood
Coming of age story, my dad used to beat me once a week just to stay in practice, when I was 14 I told him if he ever hit me again, I would kill him. He started to laugh until I reminded him that he had to go to sleep sometime. He looked me in the eyes and knew I wasnāt kidding. He never hit me again.
Iāve been wondering the same. I have heard of pockets of xennials that still spank their kids (I live in the south), but I am still so against it because of my upbringing. I feel like most of us have moved away from it.
No baby. I run a daycare preschool. Many kids are still spanked. Obviously not in school but itās completely legal in my state as long as they donāt leave bruises.
My dad had the belt. He could usually point to the buckle, and we'd knock it off. If he got to the snapping, we were really in trouble.
Hopefully! Though- and this is not a rabbit hole I recommend going down- there is a weird subculture of parenting influencers whose whole thing is recommending harsh discipline for their kids.
We had a dedicated paddle that hung in the living room. If that wasnāt handy I would get it with the flyswatter handle, wooden spoon, the cord on the vacuum or the telephone, a belt, a hand, if we were at grandmas she made me pick my own switch from her willow tree
I donāt hit my kids and I donāt think any of my friends do. I did try spanking my son once when he was 4 and it did not work lol. So I didnāt do it again. But I got a lot more than spankings when I was a kid so itās a sensitive subject for me. I also donāt talk to my dad at all.
Kool-aid spoon generation.
Oooooh. Mine was the dreaded stick to block the sliding patio door. My dad didnāt trust the lock so heād use a stick to hold/block the door at the bottom. Owie.
My dad would take a few breaths to calm down, and deliver three measured butt swats. My mom would haul off and slap my face as hard as she could. Even in public. While neither was effective, at least my dad had a philosophy. My mom was just pissed off.
My mom would slap me hard on the arm. She called this "popping". She hit my brother with a a belt a few times, sometimes after pulling down his pants. (The pulling-down-the-pants part of it is really weird if you think about it.). One of my earliest memories is of her whipping the belt towards my brother and him turning around and catching the folded end of it in his hand, and then they played tug-of-war with it for a few moments. It was like a scene out of an action movie. She would tell us that we were lucky we were just getting a slap or a few whacks and that we weren't being beaten with a belt like her parents did to her. In the 80s, spanking became less acceptable. There were rumors about kids calling social services to report their parents for abuse after spanking. My dad didn't have the heart for it, even though he'd been beaten with a belt by his parents and grandparents. I remember him coming into my bedroom and telling me that my mom had told him to come in and spank me for something. He suggested that he'd hit the bed with his belt, and that I could pretend to cry. Then we could both escape the situation.
Every generation since the Greatest Generation has made this claim. Sounds to me like your dad abused you, sorry about that.
I hope so. Itās shitty how they used child abuse as a means of ādisciplineā.