Reply #30: I got spanked occasionally by my mom, my sister got beaten [View All]

[noonwitch]

My dad rarely disciplined me and he never hit me. He beat my sister with a belt once, and felt really badly about it afterwards and never did it again.

My mom did most of the discipline. She hit me with her hand (swat on the butt) a couple of times, washed my mouth out with soap once, but I was basically an obedient child and did not require discipline frequently.

My little sister was a whole different story. My mom beat her on a regular basis with a wooden spoon. My sister was a high-energy kid with a big mouth. She'd mouth off, then run up the stairs and hide under her bed. My mom would grab her legs, pull her out from under the bed, put her over her knee and just whale on her with that spoon. It wasn't very effective, because my sister preferred to get beat than to have a time out and have to be still for any length of time. She'd always tell mom "It doesn't hurt". It had to hurt, it left marks, but she could take it. The beatings never really corrected her behavior any, a time out works better with those kind of kids. I witnessed most of it, so it did affect my behavior because I didn't want to get hit like that.

I don't think that this had any long term effect on us, ultimately, except that my brother and sister do not spank their children, nor would I if I had any. None of this was outside of community standards at the time, and many kids in our neighborhood got it much worse. I don't think we would have been better off in foster care-my dad paid for my college tuition, the state wouldn't have covered it all like that.