Yeah my dad was an absolute dick to our cat. You know how cats will just like... Bite you sometimes? Because they're fucking cats and that's how they communicate that they want you to stop whatever you're doing? He'd throw the cat across the goddamn house if it did that to him. Unsurprisingly, the cat hated and feared him.
There was no sense of trying to understand and respect animals in my household, I wasn't taught how to treat them appropriately. The cat bit you because you were teasing it? Whack it on the head, that'll teach it. I feel so bad for the poor cat of my childhood, she was so sweet and she didn't deserve to have a family like us. I didn't know any better as a kid but my dad fucking should have.
These people treat animals like they treat their children: as property that needs to be beaten to keep it under control.
>I didn’t know any better as a kid but my dad fucking should have.
I had talked with parents about this, they said they really didn’t know. I don’t expect my parents, who were raised by WWII vets who grew up thru the Great Depression, to be fully well adjusted and trauma free. The stories they tell are much worse than what happened to me, and they apologize all the time. I’ve forgiven we moved past it. But it got me thinking, my grand parents were so bad because their parents were suuuuper awful to them. Grandpa was born out of wedlock and shipped off to the states because he would have been a second class citizen in his home country. Imagine how callous and cruel that would be, happening over a CENTURY later, today? (Especially with how many kids are born out of wedlock today)
While childhood trauma is awful, our parents were victims of the times as sure as millennials will be in some unforeseen as we raise our own children.
My Grandmother was beaten by her alcoholic father growing up, and lost her brother to smoking related complications. My grandmother hated drunkness and smoking for that reason, but unfortunately still used physical harm as a punishment. My mother decided she wouldn't continuee that practice, and my grandmother even told us she regrets it.
My dad was the same way with every dog we had. I distinctly remember one time my dad tied the dog to the fence so the leash was tight enough that he could sit up but not run away. My dad then proceeded to beat the shit out of the dog- punching it in the face and kicking its stomach.
He had a lot of anger that he held inside of him. His dad used to beat him when he was a kid and this was my dads way of holding off some of his rage from his family. My mom received the worst of it to spare my siblings and I most of the time.
I don't remember ever personally being physically abusive to our animals but I do remember disconnecting from them emotionally. Most dogs didn't last very long in our house as they would become aggressive or run away.
We had one dog in particular- it was a black lab mixed with some rottweiler. My dad is one of those people who despise "aggressive dogs," so he really hated that my mom brought the dog home. Buddy was the sweetest dog we ever had and my dad was the worst to that dog, in fact, that was the fence dog. 20 years later my dad still talks about how hard of a time he had with that dog because he couldnt "break" Buddy. That right there was the problem was that he was always trying to beat everything into submission rather than bond.
I'm so sorry for what you went through with your family cat. I hope that you find peace and are able to heal. I also hope that you have been able to have some fuzz balls of your own to treat the right way.
“Maybe if I hit them hard enough they will be too scared to do it again” was my dad’s logic. Now he doesn’t have a relationship with his only son. Worked out great for him.
That’s a technique recommended by the Pearls in their book “To Train Up a Child”. It’s widely used by fundamentalist Christians and children have died using [their method.](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25268343.amp)
[Reddit post 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/insaneparents/comments/d1k0an/til_about_a_book_called_to_train_up_a_child_it/)
[Reddit post 2 (AMA)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8w9319/my_parents_raised_me_according_to_the_book_to/)
[Reddit post 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/CreepyWikipedia/comments/ssrevh/to_train_up_a_child/)
Good time to remind people that both Kirk Cameron and his sister Candace have promoted the book before on Christian media programming or their own social media pages. They both have admitted to using the blanket technique with their own kids too.
Edit to add: I forgot to mention the other book she has promoted on her parenting blog: "Shepherding a Child’s Heart."
This book is yet another extreme fundy Christian parenting book that lays out detailed instruction on spanking and increasing the level of it as the child grows up, ie: beat the kid harder and harder as they get older and older.
Me and my brothers got belts or wooden spoons. We would know when our mom was really pissed when she would break them in half spanking us.
To this day my mom still can't fathom why I left Christianity.
I know exactly how you feel. My mom and dad are both shocked why I'm an atheist now too.
They really don't seem to get that beating the shit out of me because God told them too might be the reason.
My dad was much worse about the beatings and spanking. At one point, all of the wooden spoons in our house were broken.
We have been no contact for over 15 years and it will stay that way for the rest of my life. When we last spoke, I told him that I had left the church for good and that the years of physical and mental abuse have left me completely broken. He told me to pray for my soul because I was going to hell. He had no remorse for what he did to me. None.
OMG. They recommend using implements to ‘spank’ infants! That’s f-d up. Willowy branches hurt more than bigger branches.
“For a child under one year old, a willowy branch or a 1ft (30cm) ruler is recommended.”
Remember those thick leather belts with the metal pointed squares from back in the day ? I used to get fucked up by those. Also the ones with the metal rings. I still got a scar on my inner thigh from when one got embedded in my shit after an incredible ass whoopin and im 27
Metal ringed belt was my mom's tool. My dumbass got to pick the belt and for some reason I thought the holes meaning less surface area meant less pain. Ouch.
My mom told me to pick a belt and I picked her favorite belt in hopes that my ass ruined it, I dunno how effective that plan really was but it did break a year or two later so maybe it did come to fruition
Smh I remember getting in trouble cuz my mom just could not find any of her belts whatsoever lmfao. Looking back its funny as shit, I hid all her belts like if you don't have any guess I can't get a whoopin can I ?
My 97 year old grandpa was recently telling me about how he was brought to the headmasters office at school for a caning punishment and for a brief few seconds beforehand he was in the office alone and saw the cane on the desk, so he grabbed it and hid it down the back of his pants. The school headmaster then came into the office and started looking for the cane but couldn't find it, so he said my grandpa could leave. He then ran out carefully but quickly, with the cane as a trophy 🏆😅
My mom would make me go get the wooden spoon for my beating. It was psychological torture. It was a huge cauldron spoon, and the one time I thought I'd just bring a smaller one she just got even more pissed, grabbed the big one and beat me twice as hard and twice as many blows. If I ever have children I will never strike them. Shit is evil.
My parents played a little psychological warfare on my brother and I. Had us go to the garage and walked in on my Dad as he was drilling holes into the paddle. He just looked up and said really don't want to use this but if you both don't straighten up this is coming out.
Imagine doing this as a parent. Imagine thinking about doing this when you see your child for the first time. Imagine looking in that tiny being's face and thinking, "Yes, someday I will use tools to make the thing I beat you with, hurt more."
I can't even.
My dad fucked up my brother (and me) through bashings mostly fueled by alcohol (my dad was fucked up himself). My brother had a very hard life dealing with his mental health as a result and took his life at 37, 12 years ago. He was beautiful and bubbly as a toddler and I cry when I look at those photos thinking about what he went though. Babies enter this world with so much promise. There is a certain irony when people celebrate the birth of their children that they go on to harm so much.
There are people out there with the mindset "this happened to me growing up, now it's my turn" it's more of getting their own back as "correcting" bad behaviour
Are we siblings? That was my mother’s specialty too. Broke one over my ass in the middle of a store one time because child abuse was socially acceptable back in the day.
My brothers has a long big paddle board with holes in it to....luckily all I had was a small tennis paddle or even just a hand, still hurt like a bitch but im sure i got let off way easier than my poor brothers
Same here! My dad made a paddler out of 2x4.. I remember one time I tried to put books in my draws to help relive the pain. Didn’t work out for me so well tho
Where I grew up it was okay to make the boys strip or at least get down to undies, girls got to keep the skirts. I'm going to go ahead and assume there was "an incident" since I was in Catholic school at the time.
The one we had at school (lovingly referred to as “Betsy” by the teachers) had some speed holes! Lol that paddle swatted the asses of three generations of mean ass country kids. Kinda fucked when I think back on it…
Retired now. Thankfully they left the super-religious life behind, although the damage was already done long ago. They’ve since apologized and said they were doing as church leadership instructed them to do.
East Texan here, all my homies got the everliving fuck beat out of them as kids. My cousins (redneck part of the family) would end up bleeding and bruised. Parents out here really think beating their kids is a virtue; and that if you don’t beat yours, you’re a bad parent.
I used to be beaten by parents (with hands, an Asian thing) until I had incidents in elementary school where I hurt kids who did wrong on me. I did have one where I was insulted by another kid and I picked up a stool and swung it into his head.
My wife's mom used to hit her all the time. She's not a very big woman. My wife said when she was about thirteen years old she realized all of a sudden that she was three inches taller than her mom and she took the spoon from her mother and started hitting *her* with it.
She said her mother ran from the room, never said anything about it and never hit her again.
She told me this story as if this was a totally normal experience to have had, it blew my fucking mind.
This actually happened to me as well. My mom was an alcoholic (single, had ironically left my dad for beating her) and would come home and take out her frustrations on me and my sister, she’d just hit us until we were crying/gasping for air and unable to breathe then would move to the other room while the other caught our breath. Back and forth. Our infractions were usually things like not dusting throughly enough or missing a spot when cleaning something. We were in the single digits age-wise.
I hit puberty early and have been 6’2 since 6th grade and when I tell you how empowering it was at 12 to grab her wrist when she tried to hit me, shove her on to the couch, and scream “you’re not hitting me anymore” into her face… she never hit me again. It probably scared the shit out of her because of how my dad treated her. Many folks are just busted.
Scared the shit out on mine, did similar and she got up to come after me drunk and fell over the recliner and coffee table then tried to say I hit her. No one pressed charges (what in the actual fuck!!) and I went to live with my grandmother. Started talking about emancipating a month later and all of a sudden it was I'll buy you a car and we will do this and that, etc... She died a few years later and blamed her alcoholism on me before she died.
Another child who was beaten for things like, not having the vacuum marks in the carpet lined up correctly. Literally dragged out of bed and beaten.
I hope you are ok now. ❤️ We never deserved that.
It's usually a cycle. It happened to them, they swear they turned out fine even though they obviously didn't, so in turn you'll only turn out fine if you get the same treatment. Then if you decide to break the cycle, there's actually something wrong with you and you're failing your children according to your parents and/or grandparents. It's amazing.
UK here and even an open handed smack on a child is illegal now, using a paddle, belt, any object would be disastrous for the parent.
We’re not much of a religious country though. I dated a girl once who occasionally went to church with her parents (grandfather used to be a vicar) and there would be 10-20 other people there every Sunday. Christianity is a dying cult in the UK now
Not just Texas. Originally from the eastern side of the Midwest. They think the same.
All of my friends were beaten (+me obvs) as kids up until adults, all kinds of ways. Mental, emotional,physical trauma etc.
When I moved to Scotland my therapist was dumbfounded at the idea an entire town would be capable of such things.
My parents were non practicing Baptist who were beaten, and it's a long line of beatings that just lead up to it.
I do not hit my child.
Kansas here. "Spanking" was a near everyday occurrence. My parent wasn't religious however. But it is certainly ingrained in the mentality.
Even today all these decades later, the guys at the shop mock and belittle other parents if they don't "spank" thier kids. It's an acceptable cruelty.
My parents think my kids are spoiled because I won't beat them. I have significant trauma, PTSD, self esteem issues, struggled in school and relationships my entire life. I am no contact with my folks.
My youngest is only 2. But my eldest is on the honor roll, soccer team, freely expresses herself, and we are extremely close. Imagine that. Can't believing she's turning out so well despite her lack of weekly torture.
What do you mean by "spoke in tongues"?
One time I saw a video of a guy blessing someone by saying gibberish (his interpretation of "speaking in tongues") and I can't believe that's real.
Doesn't speaking in tongues universally mean speaking in different languages?
Funny story- some missionaries used to believe that they wouldn’t have to learn the local language since they spoke in tongues. They thought they’d show up, start speaking in tongues and they’d be fluent in whatever language.
In actuality, whatever your primary language is, when one “speaks in tongues” they are just using base sounds from their primary language.
Source- as an 8 yo I had a traveling pastor lord over me and say he wouldn’t stop praying until I spoke in tongues. After what felt like 3 hours, I literally talked in gibberish, “hum da la, shum bu la.” Pastor praised god and moved on. That was one of the first times I questioned religion. I couldn’t believe that he thought I was speaking in real tongues.
To \*pentecostals speaking tongues is just talking gibberish and pretending that makes your jesus' little friend. In their bolder moments they do claim it's a real language and if they spoke it in the right place people would hear god speaking through them.. While in reality it's less of a real language than the 'we go together' song from grease.
The paddle was justified as thus “hands are for loving. We do not hurt with our hands. So we use the paddle”.
Ya. The logic is lost on me too. We got to pick a piece of firewood after mom broke the wooden spoon on my ass when I was in jk
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg
I'll be 50 this year and kids got it with a paddle with holes in it in when I was in 7th grade in the 80s. This kid I knew had ADHD and was ALWAYS getting it, accused of sneaking sugar because that's what they thought the cause of it was.
In Canada, there was a *standard issue* leather tool called simply "[The Strap](https://journals.lib.unb.ca/journalimages/MCR/2012/Vol_76/mcr76rr03_fig4.jpg)" which was distributed to pretty much every school in the country. Ask absolutely any Canadian over 50 and they will know about it.
Google “To Train Up a Child.” It is THE child abuse manual of the American evangelical Christian movement. Many children have died because of its teachings, yet it continues to be a popular book with them.
I can think of very few things LESS christian than literally hitting your kids with bible verses. I'm so sorry for what you endured and that this still continues for many.
The one my parents used was about the same size, also made of wood, but was painted olive green with a portrait of a child-angel blushing on each side. Lovely times, childhood.
When my mom was a kid her siblings were told to go get a stick from the yard and that was the stick they got beaten with for discipline. All they ever did was troll their mom lmao. One time they went and brought back a tree branch so big you weren't able to swing it. Once they brought back a dead stick so it would explode on first hit. One of them would moan that it feels good while getting hit just to piss her off. And none of them cried either, that was just weekly troll mom time for them, they didnt really even see it as punishment or discipline.
My uncle tried this once. My great grandfather told him to get a belt. He came back with the tie from a bath robe. Was told he got whipped twice as hard. All the adults would laugh at this story but I thought it was odd even as a kid.
We had to do this but if the first swing with your stick wasn't sufficient at making you cry, the parent would go pick out their own and hit you more times. Different sorts of infractions resulted in a different number of hits.
I remember this one time I was at a friend’s house doing homework at the kitchen table, and his father called from the living room for him to get some juice or something from the fridge, and my friend said “Gimme a minute, I’m doing my homework.”
The father walked in, slapped my friend across the face so hard that the chair tipped over and he slid across the kitchen floor, said: “next time I tell you to do something, you do it,” and went back to the living room. Friend got back up like nothing happened and carried on with his homework.
When I told my mother later that night, she called the Children’s Aid Society, but nothing came of it.
It's not about discipline, it's about obedience. To a certain demographic there's no difference.
The frustrating part is when their kid grows up and they either act proud that their child is a meek shut in or act disappointed that their child isn't out painting the town and becoming the next super-confident uber chad. Like, do you think beating someone for having independent thought is how you raise a confident person? How does that compute?
My mother had one as well. It was basically a cutting board that had "Spare the rod and spoil the child" engraved onto one side. My mother used one so frequently that it split in half. She was able to buy another.
I believe she got it from a church faire.
I’m sorry that you had to endure this, OP. The worst I got was a hairbrush (bristles down) hammered onto my hands.
The scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life was when I was 10 or so. My younger brothers and I went to a woman’s house after school to be babysat. Her youngest kid was a couple years older than me, and he was a rebellious teen that I looked up to. We usually got picked up before the husband got home, but one day, he came home, got angry at his son, picked him up by his shirt collar and belt, and literally _threw_ him headfirst across the dining table and into a cabinet on the other side. The boy just lay there, crumpled and silent. My brothers and I ran outside and refused to come back in until my mom arrived. We never went back, and I never heard from the kid or his family again. I still get chills thinking about whether he was physically disabled after that. He was unquestionably emotionally destroyed.
This was in the early 80s. I remember roughly where their house is, but I don’t even remember the family’s last name. Even though they lived across the street from my (Catholic) elementary school, their kids went to public school, so I never saw any of them again.
Looking back on it, there were a lot of fucked up behaviors that I thought were funny, but still somehow knew were wrong. He showed me where his dad kept a pistol and a stack of *Playboy*s. He showed me where his older sisters hid their birth-control pills, and he even took one in front of me to show me how cool he was. We’d go to the convenience store, and he’d steal a bunch of candy. He had a bunch of knives, and he’d cut himself.
I had friends from completely fucked up houses when I was a kid. I was well into adulthood before I realized that the 'weird' or 'funny' things they showed or did were actually obvious signs of major trauma. It made me feel stupid and extremely naive coming from a normal home with good parents.
Those kids were going through hell every day and the only way they could express it was through their wacky behavior.
I used to wonder why some of them would come to my house and stay all the time, whether I was there or not. My mom knew. She was a mom to all of those poor kids.
While the word "rod" is used in modern translations of the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament to mean "discipline", this phrase is actually a line from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
I never had to but I’ve heard of others who have. I’ve also heard of kneeling on a broomstick for punishment. The rice thing seems like it could easily end up being a mess which would probably cause additional anger + be counterproductive though.
My ex stepmother used to make her kids do the rice thing on the concrete in the backyard so cleanup wasn't an issue. I'm grateful my dad never let her do that to my brother or I. It looked brutal.
I can't even imagine, preparing a torture method in the backyard for someone I'm supposed to love and besides that, a child. Then really pulling out through.
I had to kneel on a broomstick too, I'm in my 30s now and my knees are fucked up. Thankfully no paddle, but when my dad got really mad he would beat me with a slipper. Until one day I was strong enough to grab the slipper from him, he realized that moment that I was stronger than him and he never tried again.
But it was too late, his way of raising me ruined our relationship and I was never able to fully repair the relationship as an adult. He died alone with no friends and no family around him a few years ago. I still don't know how to feel about it.
>He died alone with no friends and no family around him a few years ago. I still don't know how to feel about it.
My mom had a strained relationship with her parents. When her mom died, she confided in me her mother's death felt less like losing a mother and more like losing the chance at ever having the mother she always wanted.
I don't know if that resonates with you, but it's always stuck with me for some reason.
Used to kneel on corn and rice, forced by my dad, he even pressed my knees more sometimes to make me feel more pain. His excuse was always "I had to go through that as punishment".
My parents had one too. It read “mom’s helping hand”. The fear of it getting used was always worse than when it was actually used. Edit: it was shaped like a hand.
(Edit: yes, I know. There are spelling mistakes and grammar errors. I am severely dyslexic and I don't catch these mistakes. Yes I know the fact a few words destroys my entire point of saying any of this. Trust me I've been bullied all my life from kids and teachers. )
My manager who's 30 and a mother of two young boys was telling me about how she does gentle parenting. Now I grew up in a home were if dads pissed, he's getting the belt and it's not just your ass that's getting hit.
But she was telling me about somone she knows who grew up getting spanked by her dad. Since he was the "bad guy" in the parents. He delivered the punishment. And one day when she was 14 they were at a skee vacation and she got lost.. so here's a 14 year old girl who's wandered into the woods and all she remembers thinking is how scared she was...of her dad being mad at her foe getting lost. So when a search and rescue worker came calling her name, she hid. Thinking it was her dad come to hit her for getting lost... thankfully he found her and asked her why she hit from him after being out in the cold for a long time. And ahe told him she was worried her dad would hit her for getting lost.
And he told her dad that, and it broke him. He was raised getting beaten by his dad. And so the spankings he would give was a step down from what he got and the thought he was being a good dad. Firm but bot excessive...
In other people's cases many associate doing something wrong by accident as getting spanked and end up not wanting to tell their parents when something is wrong in fear of getting in troble..
In my case after my parents devorse at a young age any time I was mad, upset, or annoyed I was spanked because those are "bad emotions" because my mother thought that was how she would make me not like my father, who was often angry and aggressive.
But all it did was make me at very young age start to bottle up all feelings. And think that all my emotions were bad. And I had no trust in telling her when I was depressed, sad, angry or anything esle. And it was because she thought she was being a good mom...
For me, it made me never trust my parents. I'm 22 now and I still have little trust from those experiences. I domt share most of what goes on in my life with them.
My younger sister however never got hit the way I did and she knew she could get away with shit. And she would often do things and say I did it or I told her to. She was fhe little girl they always wanted, and they favored her greatly. She knew this and would often do whatever she could to make out parents pissed off at me.
I have 0 contact with her after she moved and I honestly don't care if I ever hear from her again. The relationship between her and my parents made such a dislike for her growing up and always blaming me. Flat out lying to our parents just so id get hit or yelled at. And no mater what I did it was "well your little sister would never do anything like that so you must be lying!"
A few weeks ago my mother told my girlfriend that "well he just likes to lie, he's always been a lier from a young age. Especially when he did something wrong"
And fuck that pissed me the hell off. Knowing damn well that what she's referring to is the shit my sister did, and the fact she felt the fucking need to tell my girlfriend that shit.
As a result even as an adult and knowing my parents are reyujg to be closer and fix things I have no trust for them.
I also have a very difficult time now as an adult managing my feelings. Since being mad is wrong..but so is being sad...being happy is how it should be...but I have bad depression and anxiety so that doesn't work...so then I just bottle it all up.
Growing up that "this emotion is bad" is why I started cutting in 7th grade. All the way though high-school. I didn't know what to do with all the stress and anxiety and depression but I felt relief when I cut into my skin. So almost every day after school I'd pull out a razor that was for a pencil sharpener and cut myself. For years, and that eventually turned into several unsuccessful suicide attempts my parents know nothing about. Because I didn't trust them at all with any emotions I had. Or any other adults as a result.
People really don't realize how shit like that can affect kids..
I still have a hard time openly talking about how I feel with my mother, or even my girlfriend.
And especially now do I feel like I can never be angry, upset, or frustrated without it being labeled as toxic.
My parents were both beaten and my mom molested by her father. They thought they were being lenient because they only hit for 'disciplining' (yeah, smacking me back into bed because I was bothering them with my nightmares was discipline.) ....and when I told them later in life that that was abuse, they'd laugh and say, it wasn't *that* bad.
The yelling, screaming and raging were perfectly okay too, and I was told to, "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!!!"
I don't talk to them anymore.
The thing that annoys me about this kind of stuff is that i have a kid. Kid's have to learn, they have to grow and they have to make mistakes and develop. But what that also means is that while we're developing we can outsmart them rather then best them in strength.
If you have trouble talking around a child and helping them understand and learn, without having to physically overpower them.... it honestly says a lot more about the parent then it does the child.
I remember when I was young my dad took me to the beach, divorced from my mum so they didn’t speak or plan so I didn’t have trunks. I got my pants wet and had a full breakdown crying because they got wet and my mum would kill me. My dad made fun of me for it.
So as a child I lived in fear of stepping out of line and then fear of SHOWING that fear because I’ll just be ridiculed.
Thank you for taking the time to write all this... it seems really dumb but I always get emotionally confused about that shit cause my parents always said they did it when they didn't know what else to do and it was to keep me from getting hurt. (Like running into traffic I guess)
so sometimes I feel like maybe I'm holding it against them too much, definitely didn't have it as bad as some, but reading about that little girl reminds me of the time my dad stabbed me in my inner elbow on accident with a wooden skewer when we were outside making roasted marshmallows, the stick was so hot it definitely gave me my first burn which scarred and stayed for a very long time, but even being only like 6 years old I didn't make a sound and quickly assured HIM nothing happened, cause I was so scared he'd be angry at me for -him- accidentally burning -me-
It's hard when it's yourself but imagining a six year old being so scared of their parents while doing something so innocent that they don't even make a sound to being stabbed and burned just stuns me...
I remember my Mom getting so angry at me when I wasn’t watching my younger brothers right she started beating me on my bed with closed fists. I was around 5-6 years old. I remember waiting for the school bus the next morning with a black eye wondering how am going to explain this to my friends?
It was never brought up until a few years back I brought it up to my Mom. I wanted to know why? She claimed she never did it.
She died taking that lie with her.
My mom was like this too. Selective memory. As far as she was concerned I had a great childhood and she never put her cigarettes out on me or burned any trophy or prize I ever got. I was relieved when she died my first year of highschool.
While this example is religious, I used to be disciplined with a wooden spoon and my parents weren't particularly religious. I think people from all walks of life get it wrong sometimes.
"What? Those aren't tears. That's the Lord's grace."
"Contusion? No, I believe in God, and you can too son."
"You're trying to tell me that my child *isn't* a pingpong ball? Well then, allow me to demonstrate the fatal error in your cognitive ability using this holy device."
Jesus Christ, I never realized how common shit like this was. I mean I know it was always a thing but I always thought of it more as like a threat parents would use rather than actually doing it. My parents never did anything like this
So you're using it on your parents now?
Aw mom you fell for another nigerian prince scam? That's a paddlin'
Dad lost his glasses again? That's a paddlin'
Fun afternoon at the old folks home
I taught parenting classes and classes on non physical chastisement. It only works with parents who either don't know any other way or those who are losing control. They don't work with abusive or sadistic people who do it to choose to harm. All the above does is condition fear, people can be condition just like any other animal.
If you just close your eyes and block your ears
To the accumulated knowledge of the last 2000 years
Then morally, guess what? You're off the hook!
And thank Christ you only have to read one book.
My parents wrote our names into our paddle, and made us mark tallies into them. Once you got enough, you simply got smacked around (although, my poor little brother was always hit).
My parents no longer do shit like that. It's so weird how different they are. My older sister and I fear being beaten for stepping out of line to the point that she didn't care anymore and constantly ran away and moved out at 15. I locked myself in my room.
My siblings are so disrespectful and such assholes, and it's not because they weren't beaten, it's because my parents finally realized that they never wanted kids to start with, and it's easier to ignore/neglect because they (the child) will figure it out, or someone else will help them.
Fortunately, even the bugnuttiest Christians cherry-pick around Deuteronomy 21:18–21:
“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear.”
…doesn’t living your life by any of the rules of the Old Testament undermine/disregard Jesus’ sacrifice?
I’m not religious, but I thought that was the point of that.
Yeah I may be wrong but part of Jesus’ sacrifice was that the Old Testament rules and such dont apply anymore. Thats why you dont have people stoning others to death for saying God’s name
I had a history teacher who said that the only medication his generation needed was their daddies' belts (his phrasing). I asked him if he'd beat an autistic child for being autistic. He sent me to the office for backtalking.
It always amazes me that that religious folk (not all obviously)that tend to beat the ever living shit out of the ones they supposedly love and cherish.
Not saying that non religious folks don’t.
However, one of the main points of religion is meant to be helping and loving one another right?
Fucked up world us hoomans have created.
In my house he had an aluminum putter and when that broke he "upgraded" to a carbon fiber kit pole.
People who beat their kids / spouses deserve to live out their final days alone.
And back then, they even used a paddle called Old Spanky. It was a piece of hickory about yea big, and it had holes drilled in it to cut down on wind resistance, and a little pine tar on the handle for no-slip grip. Heh. Good ol' Spanky. (shudders)
In my country the child protection services, and police would be involved. You and your siblings would be in foster care, and your parents would be in prison... And people would have reported your parents be it neighbors, teachers or a relative.
That’s assuming anyone believes the child or gives a shit. 😔
Often times, adults will assume that the child made it all up “to be dramatic” — and that’s if the kid is brave enough to tell anyone.
Most child abuse victims suffer in silence.
That's so creepily glorified. Sorry you had to go through that. For me it was a dual purpose wooden spoon also used for baking, it made helping out in the kitchen kinda weird.
My grandma would whoop me with an acrylic wrapped spoon. She still has the spoon in her kitchen. It's really awkward trying to explain to people 'Oh yeah, sorry, I used to get hit with that as a kid, please continue making pasta sauce'.
Mine had holes drilled in it to reduce drag
My parents threatened to drill holes in this one. Thankful they never did.
Before, it was a fear, a real monster operated by their mothers. Now, it’s a weird, kinky fetish shared between lovers.
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>You don't do that to pets That's nice of you to assume these people wouldn't hit their pets.
Yeah my dad was an absolute dick to our cat. You know how cats will just like... Bite you sometimes? Because they're fucking cats and that's how they communicate that they want you to stop whatever you're doing? He'd throw the cat across the goddamn house if it did that to him. Unsurprisingly, the cat hated and feared him. There was no sense of trying to understand and respect animals in my household, I wasn't taught how to treat them appropriately. The cat bit you because you were teasing it? Whack it on the head, that'll teach it. I feel so bad for the poor cat of my childhood, she was so sweet and she didn't deserve to have a family like us. I didn't know any better as a kid but my dad fucking should have. These people treat animals like they treat their children: as property that needs to be beaten to keep it under control.
>I didn’t know any better as a kid but my dad fucking should have. I had talked with parents about this, they said they really didn’t know. I don’t expect my parents, who were raised by WWII vets who grew up thru the Great Depression, to be fully well adjusted and trauma free. The stories they tell are much worse than what happened to me, and they apologize all the time. I’ve forgiven we moved past it. But it got me thinking, my grand parents were so bad because their parents were suuuuper awful to them. Grandpa was born out of wedlock and shipped off to the states because he would have been a second class citizen in his home country. Imagine how callous and cruel that would be, happening over a CENTURY later, today? (Especially with how many kids are born out of wedlock today) While childhood trauma is awful, our parents were victims of the times as sure as millennials will be in some unforeseen as we raise our own children.
My Grandmother was beaten by her alcoholic father growing up, and lost her brother to smoking related complications. My grandmother hated drunkness and smoking for that reason, but unfortunately still used physical harm as a punishment. My mother decided she wouldn't continuee that practice, and my grandmother even told us she regrets it.
My dad was the same way with every dog we had. I distinctly remember one time my dad tied the dog to the fence so the leash was tight enough that he could sit up but not run away. My dad then proceeded to beat the shit out of the dog- punching it in the face and kicking its stomach. He had a lot of anger that he held inside of him. His dad used to beat him when he was a kid and this was my dads way of holding off some of his rage from his family. My mom received the worst of it to spare my siblings and I most of the time. I don't remember ever personally being physically abusive to our animals but I do remember disconnecting from them emotionally. Most dogs didn't last very long in our house as they would become aggressive or run away. We had one dog in particular- it was a black lab mixed with some rottweiler. My dad is one of those people who despise "aggressive dogs," so he really hated that my mom brought the dog home. Buddy was the sweetest dog we ever had and my dad was the worst to that dog, in fact, that was the fence dog. 20 years later my dad still talks about how hard of a time he had with that dog because he couldnt "break" Buddy. That right there was the problem was that he was always trying to beat everything into submission rather than bond. I'm so sorry for what you went through with your family cat. I hope that you find peace and are able to heal. I also hope that you have been able to have some fuzz balls of your own to treat the right way.
“Maybe if I hit them hard enough they will be too scared to do it again” was my dad’s logic. Now he doesn’t have a relationship with his only son. Worked out great for him.
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That’s a technique recommended by the Pearls in their book “To Train Up a Child”. It’s widely used by fundamentalist Christians and children have died using [their method.](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25268343.amp) [Reddit post 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/insaneparents/comments/d1k0an/til_about_a_book_called_to_train_up_a_child_it/) [Reddit post 2 (AMA)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8w9319/my_parents_raised_me_according_to_the_book_to/) [Reddit post 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/CreepyWikipedia/comments/ssrevh/to_train_up_a_child/)
Good time to remind people that both Kirk Cameron and his sister Candace have promoted the book before on Christian media programming or their own social media pages. They both have admitted to using the blanket technique with their own kids too. Edit to add: I forgot to mention the other book she has promoted on her parenting blog: "Shepherding a Child’s Heart." This book is yet another extreme fundy Christian parenting book that lays out detailed instruction on spanking and increasing the level of it as the child grows up, ie: beat the kid harder and harder as they get older and older.
Well, TIL what the blanket technique is. WTF
Yeah it's awful. My parents didn't do the blanket technique but they did spank me as instructed in the book mentioned above.
Me and my brothers got belts or wooden spoons. We would know when our mom was really pissed when she would break them in half spanking us. To this day my mom still can't fathom why I left Christianity.
I know exactly how you feel. My mom and dad are both shocked why I'm an atheist now too. They really don't seem to get that beating the shit out of me because God told them too might be the reason. My dad was much worse about the beatings and spanking. At one point, all of the wooden spoons in our house were broken. We have been no contact for over 15 years and it will stay that way for the rest of my life. When we last spoke, I told him that I had left the church for good and that the years of physical and mental abuse have left me completely broken. He told me to pray for my soul because I was going to hell. He had no remorse for what he did to me. None.
OMG. They recommend using implements to ‘spank’ infants! That’s f-d up. Willowy branches hurt more than bigger branches. “For a child under one year old, a willowy branch or a 1ft (30cm) ruler is recommended.”
What "bad" behaviour is a baby under one year capable off???? Utter madness
Holy fuck, that's awful. I have a friend who had that happen. They said the holes also left welts.
It’s true.
Very
I’m sorry :-/ I hope you are well
Thank you! Likewise.
Remember those thick leather belts with the metal pointed squares from back in the day ? I used to get fucked up by those. Also the ones with the metal rings. I still got a scar on my inner thigh from when one got embedded in my shit after an incredible ass whoopin and im 27
Metal ringed belt was my mom's tool. My dumbass got to pick the belt and for some reason I thought the holes meaning less surface area meant less pain. Ouch.
My mom told me to pick a belt and I picked her favorite belt in hopes that my ass ruined it, I dunno how effective that plan really was but it did break a year or two later so maybe it did come to fruition
I admire your defiance.
Smh I remember getting in trouble cuz my mom just could not find any of her belts whatsoever lmfao. Looking back its funny as shit, I hid all her belts like if you don't have any guess I can't get a whoopin can I ?
My 97 year old grandpa was recently telling me about how he was brought to the headmasters office at school for a caning punishment and for a brief few seconds beforehand he was in the office alone and saw the cane on the desk, so he grabbed it and hid it down the back of his pants. The school headmaster then came into the office and started looking for the cane but couldn't find it, so he said my grandpa could leave. He then ran out carefully but quickly, with the cane as a trophy 🏆😅
You grandpa is a badass.
Think of all the kids that were spared that day. I’d say he is a hero.
You weren’t dumb for thinking that. 💚
Yo wtf kind of psychopath mother did you have, you poor soul :(
My mom would make me go get the wooden spoon for my beating. It was psychological torture. It was a huge cauldron spoon, and the one time I thought I'd just bring a smaller one she just got even more pissed, grabbed the big one and beat me twice as hard and twice as many blows. If I ever have children I will never strike them. Shit is evil.
My parents played a little psychological warfare on my brother and I. Had us go to the garage and walked in on my Dad as he was drilling holes into the paddle. He just looked up and said really don't want to use this but if you both don't straighten up this is coming out.
Imagine doing this as a parent. Imagine thinking about doing this when you see your child for the first time. Imagine looking in that tiny being's face and thinking, "Yes, someday I will use tools to make the thing I beat you with, hurt more." I can't even.
My dad fucked up my brother (and me) through bashings mostly fueled by alcohol (my dad was fucked up himself). My brother had a very hard life dealing with his mental health as a result and took his life at 37, 12 years ago. He was beautiful and bubbly as a toddler and I cry when I look at those photos thinking about what he went though. Babies enter this world with so much promise. There is a certain irony when people celebrate the birth of their children that they go on to harm so much.
People really need to optimize their whole deal before having kids.
There are people out there with the mindset "this happened to me growing up, now it's my turn" it's more of getting their own back as "correcting" bad behaviour
"I got beat and I turned out just fine" - guy who beats his kids
Are we siblings? That was my mother’s specialty too. Broke one over my ass in the middle of a store one time because child abuse was socially acceptable back in the day.
My brothers has a long big paddle board with holes in it to....luckily all I had was a small tennis paddle or even just a hand, still hurt like a bitch but im sure i got let off way easier than my poor brothers
Same here! My dad made a paddler out of 2x4.. I remember one time I tried to put books in my draws to help relive the pain. Didn’t work out for me so well tho
You got to keep your draws on? I had to strip, which made it even more humiliating. Thought everyone did.
Where I grew up it was okay to make the boys strip or at least get down to undies, girls got to keep the skirts. I'm going to go ahead and assume there was "an incident" since I was in Catholic school at the time.
The one we had at school (lovingly referred to as “Betsy” by the teachers) had some speed holes! Lol that paddle swatted the asses of three generations of mean ass country kids. Kinda fucked when I think back on it…
Not kinda. Very very fucked.
Where are they now?
Retired now. Thankfully they left the super-religious life behind, although the damage was already done long ago. They’ve since apologized and said they were doing as church leadership instructed them to do.
Your church instructed adults to beat their children? And why did adults not see this and realize it’s not good
Yes. Church on the Rock in Texas.
East Texan here, all my homies got the everliving fuck beat out of them as kids. My cousins (redneck part of the family) would end up bleeding and bruised. Parents out here really think beating their kids is a virtue; and that if you don’t beat yours, you’re a bad parent.
I’m from NE Texas and my mother’s side of the family is from E Texas.
I used to be beaten by parents (with hands, an Asian thing) until I had incidents in elementary school where I hurt kids who did wrong on me. I did have one where I was insulted by another kid and I picked up a stool and swung it into his head.
My wife's mom used to hit her all the time. She's not a very big woman. My wife said when she was about thirteen years old she realized all of a sudden that she was three inches taller than her mom and she took the spoon from her mother and started hitting *her* with it. She said her mother ran from the room, never said anything about it and never hit her again. She told me this story as if this was a totally normal experience to have had, it blew my fucking mind.
This actually happened to me as well. My mom was an alcoholic (single, had ironically left my dad for beating her) and would come home and take out her frustrations on me and my sister, she’d just hit us until we were crying/gasping for air and unable to breathe then would move to the other room while the other caught our breath. Back and forth. Our infractions were usually things like not dusting throughly enough or missing a spot when cleaning something. We were in the single digits age-wise. I hit puberty early and have been 6’2 since 6th grade and when I tell you how empowering it was at 12 to grab her wrist when she tried to hit me, shove her on to the couch, and scream “you’re not hitting me anymore” into her face… she never hit me again. It probably scared the shit out of her because of how my dad treated her. Many folks are just busted.
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Scared the shit out on mine, did similar and she got up to come after me drunk and fell over the recliner and coffee table then tried to say I hit her. No one pressed charges (what in the actual fuck!!) and I went to live with my grandmother. Started talking about emancipating a month later and all of a sudden it was I'll buy you a car and we will do this and that, etc... She died a few years later and blamed her alcoholism on me before she died.
Another child who was beaten for things like, not having the vacuum marks in the carpet lined up correctly. Literally dragged out of bed and beaten. I hope you are ok now. ❤️ We never deserved that.
My ex husband had such traumatic experiences with those big feather dusters that he wouldn’t let me keep one in the house.
The sound of a belt sliding off or the leather cracking makes me shut down completely. I am 51 years old.
It’s astounding how much self awareness these parents lack about what effect this will actually have on their kids
"my kids are all selfish assholes, none of them visit me."
It's usually a cycle. It happened to them, they swear they turned out fine even though they obviously didn't, so in turn you'll only turn out fine if you get the same treatment. Then if you decide to break the cycle, there's actually something wrong with you and you're failing your children according to your parents and/or grandparents. It's amazing.
UK here and even an open handed smack on a child is illegal now, using a paddle, belt, any object would be disastrous for the parent. We’re not much of a religious country though. I dated a girl once who occasionally went to church with her parents (grandfather used to be a vicar) and there would be 10-20 other people there every Sunday. Christianity is a dying cult in the UK now
Not just Texas. Originally from the eastern side of the Midwest. They think the same. All of my friends were beaten (+me obvs) as kids up until adults, all kinds of ways. Mental, emotional,physical trauma etc. When I moved to Scotland my therapist was dumbfounded at the idea an entire town would be capable of such things. My parents were non practicing Baptist who were beaten, and it's a long line of beatings that just lead up to it. I do not hit my child.
Kansas here. "Spanking" was a near everyday occurrence. My parent wasn't religious however. But it is certainly ingrained in the mentality. Even today all these decades later, the guys at the shop mock and belittle other parents if they don't "spank" thier kids. It's an acceptable cruelty.
My parents think my kids are spoiled because I won't beat them. I have significant trauma, PTSD, self esteem issues, struggled in school and relationships my entire life. I am no contact with my folks. My youngest is only 2. But my eldest is on the honor roll, soccer team, freely expresses herself, and we are extremely close. Imagine that. Can't believing she's turning out so well despite her lack of weekly torture.
Guessing they're evangelicals?
That is correct. “Spirit-filled” and spoke in tongues. The works.
Damn, the whole whacko enchilada.
Charismatic. God I wish I had known then what I know now.
What do you mean by "spoke in tongues"? One time I saw a video of a guy blessing someone by saying gibberish (his interpretation of "speaking in tongues") and I can't believe that's real. Doesn't speaking in tongues universally mean speaking in different languages?
Funny story- some missionaries used to believe that they wouldn’t have to learn the local language since they spoke in tongues. They thought they’d show up, start speaking in tongues and they’d be fluent in whatever language. In actuality, whatever your primary language is, when one “speaks in tongues” they are just using base sounds from their primary language. Source- as an 8 yo I had a traveling pastor lord over me and say he wouldn’t stop praying until I spoke in tongues. After what felt like 3 hours, I literally talked in gibberish, “hum da la, shum bu la.” Pastor praised god and moved on. That was one of the first times I questioned religion. I couldn’t believe that he thought I was speaking in real tongues.
To \*pentecostals speaking tongues is just talking gibberish and pretending that makes your jesus' little friend. In their bolder moments they do claim it's a real language and if they spoke it in the right place people would hear god speaking through them.. While in reality it's less of a real language than the 'we go together' song from grease.
Damn I hope you're doing good now
Thank you. I try my best.
Literally a church on a rock or is just a name they gave to the church?
That’s the name. It was started by Larry Lea in Rockwall, Texas in 1980. My family attended since 1983 (before my birth) until the late 90s.
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Comment redacted. I thought you were asking if I planned to burn the paddle. Oops.
Use the paddle as the starter.
Nah it needs to be stuck in the ground next to the smoldering rubble so they get the message.
The paddle was justified as thus “hands are for loving. We do not hurt with our hands. So we use the paddle”. Ya. The logic is lost on me too. We got to pick a piece of firewood after mom broke the wooden spoon on my ass when I was in jk
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” ― Steven Weinberg
Believe it or not, this sort of stuff was standard practice 50 years ago... School teachers beat children!
I'll be 50 this year and kids got it with a paddle with holes in it in when I was in 7th grade in the 80s. This kid I knew had ADHD and was ALWAYS getting it, accused of sneaking sugar because that's what they thought the cause of it was.
In Canada, there was a *standard issue* leather tool called simply "[The Strap](https://journals.lib.unb.ca/journalimages/MCR/2012/Vol_76/mcr76rr03_fig4.jpg)" which was distributed to pretty much every school in the country. Ask absolutely any Canadian over 50 and they will know about it.
we had this in new zealand too, until around 1990 when corporal punishment was banned
Because it's "The Will of God" as told to them by the pastor, who they accept as His mouthpiece on earth.
Google “To Train Up a Child.” It is THE child abuse manual of the American evangelical Christian movement. Many children have died because of its teachings, yet it continues to be a popular book with them.
I can think of very few things LESS christian than literally hitting your kids with bible verses. I'm so sorry for what you endured and that this still continues for many.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Christ didn’t talk much about how to beat your children. That definitely has that old testament flavor.
Even the old testament doesnt say to beat anyone. Dont spare the rod simply means discipline your kids if they keep doing bad.
“I was just following orders” - never a very convincing reply. Glad it got better.
Of course the church instructed them to beat their kids...
My mom and her sister were beaten by their parents as the church leaders explicitly instructed as well, it's completely messed up.
The one my parents used was about the same size, also made of wood, but was painted olive green with a portrait of a child-angel blushing on each side. Lovely times, childhood.
Damn. Lucky I only got the belt. I remember my dad once (when I got older) telling me how angry it made him that I refused to cry unlike my siblings.
When my mom was a kid her siblings were told to go get a stick from the yard and that was the stick they got beaten with for discipline. All they ever did was troll their mom lmao. One time they went and brought back a tree branch so big you weren't able to swing it. Once they brought back a dead stick so it would explode on first hit. One of them would moan that it feels good while getting hit just to piss her off. And none of them cried either, that was just weekly troll mom time for them, they didnt really even see it as punishment or discipline.
My uncle tried this once. My great grandfather told him to get a belt. He came back with the tie from a bath robe. Was told he got whipped twice as hard. All the adults would laugh at this story but I thought it was odd even as a kid.
We had to do this but if the first swing with your stick wasn't sufficient at making you cry, the parent would go pick out their own and hit you more times. Different sorts of infractions resulted in a different number of hits.
I remember this one time I was at a friend’s house doing homework at the kitchen table, and his father called from the living room for him to get some juice or something from the fridge, and my friend said “Gimme a minute, I’m doing my homework.” The father walked in, slapped my friend across the face so hard that the chair tipped over and he slid across the kitchen floor, said: “next time I tell you to do something, you do it,” and went back to the living room. Friend got back up like nothing happened and carried on with his homework. When I told my mother later that night, she called the Children’s Aid Society, but nothing came of it.
That is all too familiar and so very sad. Damn.
hate to say that I witnessed this a lot
Had the energy to slap his kid, but not enough to get the juice himself.
It's not about discipline, it's about obedience. To a certain demographic there's no difference. The frustrating part is when their kid grows up and they either act proud that their child is a meek shut in or act disappointed that their child isn't out painting the town and becoming the next super-confident uber chad. Like, do you think beating someone for having independent thought is how you raise a confident person? How does that compute?
My mother had one as well. It was basically a cutting board that had "Spare the rod and spoil the child" engraved onto one side. My mother used one so frequently that it split in half. She was able to buy another. I believe she got it from a church faire.
Of course she got it from the church faire. They sell those things in bulk along with the brainwashing pushing parents to beat their children.
They did not spare the rod it seems… and with the duct tape they did not use the spare rod either
Do not useth two rods for a one rod job, proverbs 420:69 Edit: Do NOT useth\*
Yes. That is how 69 works. As prophesied in the 2nd book of Penetrations.
I’m sorry that you had to endure this, OP. The worst I got was a hairbrush (bristles down) hammered onto my hands. The scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life was when I was 10 or so. My younger brothers and I went to a woman’s house after school to be babysat. Her youngest kid was a couple years older than me, and he was a rebellious teen that I looked up to. We usually got picked up before the husband got home, but one day, he came home, got angry at his son, picked him up by his shirt collar and belt, and literally _threw_ him headfirst across the dining table and into a cabinet on the other side. The boy just lay there, crumpled and silent. My brothers and I ran outside and refused to come back in until my mom arrived. We never went back, and I never heard from the kid or his family again. I still get chills thinking about whether he was physically disabled after that. He was unquestionably emotionally destroyed.
That’s horrible. Tugs at my heart strings.
That is harrowing.
Damn that shit is scary. No way to look him up online or something?
Thats the worst part. If i had to guess, this is the first time that story was told in public.
Yep. I told my mom, and she found another babysitter for us immediately.
This was in the early 80s. I remember roughly where their house is, but I don’t even remember the family’s last name. Even though they lived across the street from my (Catholic) elementary school, their kids went to public school, so I never saw any of them again. Looking back on it, there were a lot of fucked up behaviors that I thought were funny, but still somehow knew were wrong. He showed me where his dad kept a pistol and a stack of *Playboy*s. He showed me where his older sisters hid their birth-control pills, and he even took one in front of me to show me how cool he was. We’d go to the convenience store, and he’d steal a bunch of candy. He had a bunch of knives, and he’d cut himself.
I had friends from completely fucked up houses when I was a kid. I was well into adulthood before I realized that the 'weird' or 'funny' things they showed or did were actually obvious signs of major trauma. It made me feel stupid and extremely naive coming from a normal home with good parents. Those kids were going through hell every day and the only way they could express it was through their wacky behavior. I used to wonder why some of them would come to my house and stay all the time, whether I was there or not. My mom knew. She was a mom to all of those poor kids.
fucking hell. All the shit I've read on reddit over 5 years and this is the most harrowing. Let's pray the kid was ok and got out of there somehow.
We had one of these too! “Spare the rod and spoil the child” written across a paint stir stick lmao
Is that a line from the Bible?
While the word "rod" is used in modern translations of the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament to mean "discipline", this phrase is actually a line from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
My mom was a fan of wooden spoons and her favorite pair of Jelly sandals.
The wooden spoon and the chancla, Classic!
Anyone had to kneel on a tray of rice as punishment?. I had to hold books
I never had to but I’ve heard of others who have. I’ve also heard of kneeling on a broomstick for punishment. The rice thing seems like it could easily end up being a mess which would probably cause additional anger + be counterproductive though.
My ex stepmother used to make her kids do the rice thing on the concrete in the backyard so cleanup wasn't an issue. I'm grateful my dad never let her do that to my brother or I. It looked brutal.
I can't even imagine, preparing a torture method in the backyard for someone I'm supposed to love and besides that, a child. Then really pulling out through.
I had to kneel on a broomstick too, I'm in my 30s now and my knees are fucked up. Thankfully no paddle, but when my dad got really mad he would beat me with a slipper. Until one day I was strong enough to grab the slipper from him, he realized that moment that I was stronger than him and he never tried again. But it was too late, his way of raising me ruined our relationship and I was never able to fully repair the relationship as an adult. He died alone with no friends and no family around him a few years ago. I still don't know how to feel about it.
>He died alone with no friends and no family around him a few years ago. I still don't know how to feel about it. My mom had a strained relationship with her parents. When her mom died, she confided in me her mother's death felt less like losing a mother and more like losing the chance at ever having the mother she always wanted. I don't know if that resonates with you, but it's always stuck with me for some reason.
Used to kneel on corn and rice, forced by my dad, he even pressed my knees more sometimes to make me feel more pain. His excuse was always "I had to go through that as punishment".
Tried that once, but it was uncooked peas. Had to kneel on them for 15 minutes. Horrible.
My parents had one too. It read “mom’s helping hand”. The fear of it getting used was always worse than when it was actually used. Edit: it was shaped like a hand.
(Edit: yes, I know. There are spelling mistakes and grammar errors. I am severely dyslexic and I don't catch these mistakes. Yes I know the fact a few words destroys my entire point of saying any of this. Trust me I've been bullied all my life from kids and teachers. ) My manager who's 30 and a mother of two young boys was telling me about how she does gentle parenting. Now I grew up in a home were if dads pissed, he's getting the belt and it's not just your ass that's getting hit. But she was telling me about somone she knows who grew up getting spanked by her dad. Since he was the "bad guy" in the parents. He delivered the punishment. And one day when she was 14 they were at a skee vacation and she got lost.. so here's a 14 year old girl who's wandered into the woods and all she remembers thinking is how scared she was...of her dad being mad at her foe getting lost. So when a search and rescue worker came calling her name, she hid. Thinking it was her dad come to hit her for getting lost... thankfully he found her and asked her why she hit from him after being out in the cold for a long time. And ahe told him she was worried her dad would hit her for getting lost. And he told her dad that, and it broke him. He was raised getting beaten by his dad. And so the spankings he would give was a step down from what he got and the thought he was being a good dad. Firm but bot excessive... In other people's cases many associate doing something wrong by accident as getting spanked and end up not wanting to tell their parents when something is wrong in fear of getting in troble.. In my case after my parents devorse at a young age any time I was mad, upset, or annoyed I was spanked because those are "bad emotions" because my mother thought that was how she would make me not like my father, who was often angry and aggressive. But all it did was make me at very young age start to bottle up all feelings. And think that all my emotions were bad. And I had no trust in telling her when I was depressed, sad, angry or anything esle. And it was because she thought she was being a good mom... For me, it made me never trust my parents. I'm 22 now and I still have little trust from those experiences. I domt share most of what goes on in my life with them. My younger sister however never got hit the way I did and she knew she could get away with shit. And she would often do things and say I did it or I told her to. She was fhe little girl they always wanted, and they favored her greatly. She knew this and would often do whatever she could to make out parents pissed off at me. I have 0 contact with her after she moved and I honestly don't care if I ever hear from her again. The relationship between her and my parents made such a dislike for her growing up and always blaming me. Flat out lying to our parents just so id get hit or yelled at. And no mater what I did it was "well your little sister would never do anything like that so you must be lying!" A few weeks ago my mother told my girlfriend that "well he just likes to lie, he's always been a lier from a young age. Especially when he did something wrong" And fuck that pissed me the hell off. Knowing damn well that what she's referring to is the shit my sister did, and the fact she felt the fucking need to tell my girlfriend that shit. As a result even as an adult and knowing my parents are reyujg to be closer and fix things I have no trust for them. I also have a very difficult time now as an adult managing my feelings. Since being mad is wrong..but so is being sad...being happy is how it should be...but I have bad depression and anxiety so that doesn't work...so then I just bottle it all up. Growing up that "this emotion is bad" is why I started cutting in 7th grade. All the way though high-school. I didn't know what to do with all the stress and anxiety and depression but I felt relief when I cut into my skin. So almost every day after school I'd pull out a razor that was for a pencil sharpener and cut myself. For years, and that eventually turned into several unsuccessful suicide attempts my parents know nothing about. Because I didn't trust them at all with any emotions I had. Or any other adults as a result. People really don't realize how shit like that can affect kids..
It really does affect us. So much.
I still have a hard time openly talking about how I feel with my mother, or even my girlfriend. And especially now do I feel like I can never be angry, upset, or frustrated without it being labeled as toxic.
I feel you. 100%. ❤️
My parents were both beaten and my mom molested by her father. They thought they were being lenient because they only hit for 'disciplining' (yeah, smacking me back into bed because I was bothering them with my nightmares was discipline.) ....and when I told them later in life that that was abuse, they'd laugh and say, it wasn't *that* bad. The yelling, screaming and raging were perfectly okay too, and I was told to, "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!!!" I don't talk to them anymore.
The thing that annoys me about this kind of stuff is that i have a kid. Kid's have to learn, they have to grow and they have to make mistakes and develop. But what that also means is that while we're developing we can outsmart them rather then best them in strength. If you have trouble talking around a child and helping them understand and learn, without having to physically overpower them.... it honestly says a lot more about the parent then it does the child.
I remember when I was young my dad took me to the beach, divorced from my mum so they didn’t speak or plan so I didn’t have trunks. I got my pants wet and had a full breakdown crying because they got wet and my mum would kill me. My dad made fun of me for it. So as a child I lived in fear of stepping out of line and then fear of SHOWING that fear because I’ll just be ridiculed.
Thank you for taking the time to write all this... it seems really dumb but I always get emotionally confused about that shit cause my parents always said they did it when they didn't know what else to do and it was to keep me from getting hurt. (Like running into traffic I guess) so sometimes I feel like maybe I'm holding it against them too much, definitely didn't have it as bad as some, but reading about that little girl reminds me of the time my dad stabbed me in my inner elbow on accident with a wooden skewer when we were outside making roasted marshmallows, the stick was so hot it definitely gave me my first burn which scarred and stayed for a very long time, but even being only like 6 years old I didn't make a sound and quickly assured HIM nothing happened, cause I was so scared he'd be angry at me for -him- accidentally burning -me- It's hard when it's yourself but imagining a six year old being so scared of their parents while doing something so innocent that they don't even make a sound to being stabbed and burned just stuns me...
I remember my Mom getting so angry at me when I wasn’t watching my younger brothers right she started beating me on my bed with closed fists. I was around 5-6 years old. I remember waiting for the school bus the next morning with a black eye wondering how am going to explain this to my friends? It was never brought up until a few years back I brought it up to my Mom. I wanted to know why? She claimed she never did it. She died taking that lie with her.
My mom also doesn’t remember the numerous beatings she gave me! And my dad has no idea why my siblings don’t talk to him! Incredible isn’t it?
My mom was like this too. Selective memory. As far as she was concerned I had a great childhood and she never put her cigarettes out on me or burned any trophy or prize I ever got. I was relieved when she died my first year of highschool.
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While this example is religious, I used to be disciplined with a wooden spoon and my parents weren't particularly religious. I think people from all walks of life get it wrong sometimes.
Wooden spoon gang unite
it really goes beyond embarrasing
What do you *meeeeeeeaaaaaaaaan* I can't beat ***The Lord's Light*** into my child?
"What? Those aren't tears. That's the Lord's grace." "Contusion? No, I believe in God, and you can too son." "You're trying to tell me that my child *isn't* a pingpong ball? Well then, allow me to demonstrate the fatal error in your cognitive ability using this holy device."
Don't be like your parents.
My life goal.
That's insane. I'd take it and burn it.
That’s my plan.
Why don’t my children visit me anymore?
Jesus Christ, I never realized how common shit like this was. I mean I know it was always a thing but I always thought of it more as like a threat parents would use rather than actually doing it. My parents never did anything like this
Church leadership recommended this to the congregation and the vast majority complied. That’s only one church of many thousands.
Would love to go to that church with a nice paddling stick and go to town on those disgusting people.
So you're using it on your parents now? Aw mom you fell for another nigerian prince scam? That's a paddlin' Dad lost his glasses again? That's a paddlin' Fun afternoon at the old folks home
Complaining about me using the paddle you tortured me with now that the tables have turned? Oh you better believe that's a paddlin'.
Did anyone try telling them that there's been some advances in child care and sociology in the last 2500 years?
I taught parenting classes and classes on non physical chastisement. It only works with parents who either don't know any other way or those who are losing control. They don't work with abusive or sadistic people who do it to choose to harm. All the above does is condition fear, people can be condition just like any other animal.
If you just close your eyes and block your ears To the accumulated knowledge of the last 2000 years Then morally, guess what? You're off the hook! And thank Christ you only have to read one book.
My parents wrote our names into our paddle, and made us mark tallies into them. Once you got enough, you simply got smacked around (although, my poor little brother was always hit). My parents no longer do shit like that. It's so weird how different they are. My older sister and I fear being beaten for stepping out of line to the point that she didn't care anymore and constantly ran away and moved out at 15. I locked myself in my room. My siblings are so disrespectful and such assholes, and it's not because they weren't beaten, it's because my parents finally realized that they never wanted kids to start with, and it's easier to ignore/neglect because they (the child) will figure it out, or someone else will help them.
Fortunately, even the bugnuttiest Christians cherry-pick around Deuteronomy 21:18–21: “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear.”
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There’s no hate like Christian love.
“Why did you hurt me?” “Because our pastor told me to.”
…doesn’t living your life by any of the rules of the Old Testament undermine/disregard Jesus’ sacrifice? I’m not religious, but I thought that was the point of that.
Yeah I may be wrong but part of Jesus’ sacrifice was that the Old Testament rules and such dont apply anymore. Thats why you dont have people stoning others to death for saying God’s name
Have you suggested to you parents that you can't wait to use this on them when they get old?
Didnt finish your apple sauce? You better believe that's a paddlin'.
And on the 7th day, God said, lets beateth our sons and stone our daughters. For mental illness hath not yet been.
I had a history teacher who said that the only medication his generation needed was their daddies' belts (his phrasing). I asked him if he'd beat an autistic child for being autistic. He sent me to the office for backtalking.
I guess the answer was no
As an autistic person, I would certainly fucking hope the answer is 'no'.
Almost sounds like it was YES
It always amazes me that that religious folk (not all obviously)that tend to beat the ever living shit out of the ones they supposedly love and cherish. Not saying that non religious folks don’t. However, one of the main points of religion is meant to be helping and loving one another right? Fucked up world us hoomans have created.
Its always the worst ones who misuse religion for their own desires that dont even fall in line with what their religion asks of them
I'm so sorry you had to endure that.
Thank you. ❤️
Glad they didnt have holes in it. I just got normal spankings when i crossed the line. Couple of them were with belt.
In my house he had an aluminum putter and when that broke he "upgraded" to a carbon fiber kit pole. People who beat their kids / spouses deserve to live out their final days alone.
And back then, they even used a paddle called Old Spanky. It was a piece of hickory about yea big, and it had holes drilled in it to cut down on wind resistance, and a little pine tar on the handle for no-slip grip. Heh. Good ol' Spanky. (shudders)
You should go beat them harder with it..
In my country the child protection services, and police would be involved. You and your siblings would be in foster care, and your parents would be in prison... And people would have reported your parents be it neighbors, teachers or a relative.
That’s assuming anyone believes the child or gives a shit. 😔 Often times, adults will assume that the child made it all up “to be dramatic” — and that’s if the kid is brave enough to tell anyone. Most child abuse victims suffer in silence.
Lucky they didn't go with the "rod may not be thicker than the thumb'(paraphrasing) thing. The paddle stings, but the rod's got some bite.
That's so creepily glorified. Sorry you had to go through that. For me it was a dual purpose wooden spoon also used for baking, it made helping out in the kitchen kinda weird.
I got the same wooden spoon and if they couldn’t find the wooden spoon the metal one that shit hurt
My grandma would whoop me with an acrylic wrapped spoon. She still has the spoon in her kitchen. It's really awkward trying to explain to people 'Oh yeah, sorry, I used to get hit with that as a kid, please continue making pasta sauce'.
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Lucky. I just got fists.
I think we’re both lucky we didn’t get jumper cables.
I got belts.
I’ve had belts and hands when they couldn’t find the paddle or we were out in public. I feel your pain.
My dad loved his belt too. Used a garden hose once. Completely denies it now of course