BellaOnline Forums Family Child Abuse The Non-Disciplinarian

This started off as a response to the Belt-spanking thread, but drifted far off topic, so I thought I'd best post it separately.


I was spanked (hands only) quite a few times when I was little. It was always my Dad. Like many of the posters on the belt spanking thread, I remember that act, but not the reason. However, I remember very well the situations that led to the various non-physical punishments I received.

There was one time, when I was about 6 and half, I did something that angered my Dad so much, he was visibly stopping himself from turning me over his knee. He said he was too mad to spank me, so he stuck a chair in the corner of the dining room and I spent some long hours staring at the wall. He never did spank me over that incident. By the time he felt cooled off enough, he decided I'd already served my time sitting in the corner. I was grounded for a week (which at that age simply meant I couldn't go play with the neighbor kids) and that was the end of it. Mom said nothing about any of this, but let him chose my punishment and carry it out on his own.

My mom was always submissive to my dad's decisions on how to punish me for this or that offense. A few times, she outright told me she disagreed with him. But she never stood up to him. She never demanded a compromise, or even made a plea for leniency on my behalf. She just meekly let him choose the punishment. I never really understood this, and I still don't. My Dad has a somewhat domineering personality, which he has passed on to me, but he is not, and never was, a tyrant. Temperamental, and occasionally slightly intimidating when I was small, but by no means was he EVER scary. But she was cowed by him. I think she wanted to be.

The first time I became aware of this, I was about eight years old and going head to head with Dad over cleaning my room. Mom slipped up to my room while I was cleaning and told me she thought he was wrong for grounding me. (I'd had a rather busy week and my housekeeping had paid the price- clothes and books were scattered all over my room.) Even at that young age, I remember thinking she should tell HIM that, not me. I lost a lot of respect for her that evening.

There were other factors that led to my mother and I ending our communication with each other, but that evening, 18 or so years ago, was when it started... I began to see her as a weak, uncertain person. (One of the consistencies in my personality throughout my life is the high value I place on a person I view as strong and confident.) On the other hand, I get along with my Dad pretty well overall, always have.

My point to all this is that the deepest scars aren't always the ones left by the disciplinarian. Maybe Mom just didn't want to be the bad guy, but her refusal to speak her mind weighs more heavily on me as an adult than any punishment my dad ever chose, physical or otherwise.

So my question is this: Was Mom's refusal to take part in the disciplinary aspects of my early life and letting a very young me know about it a form of emotional neglect, emotional abuse, or just poor parenting tactics?

It's a good question. For me it was the other way around - my mother was the vicious disciplinarian and my dad stood by doing nothing. I remember at least one occasion when he whispered to me that he didn't agree with her - not only did he not agree with her choice of punishment but he actually thought she was in the wrong. But he said it to me, not her.

Don't most reasonable parents choose to defend their innocent children, no matter what?

I think it all depends on the reasons why your mother refused to speak up about the discipline he chose to exact. I couldn't even begin to say that it was any form of abuse on your mother's part. You are most likely the only one who might have an idea as to why she didn't participate with the disciplining. Could it have been that she didn't like to be a part of disciplining? In the beginning of your story, you share how your father had tremendous self-control over his anger with you. He did not lay a hand on you during that point in time. I respect him for his self-control. However, with your question at the end, I am wondering whether or not your father hit you at any point. What would you have liked for your mother to do with the discipline you received from your father? Did she ever talk to you about what she would have rather seen happen? It doesn't seem to me that your mother was emotionally abusive or neglectful. Did your mother ever sit and talk with you about what you had done in order to be disciplined? What were her thoughts on discipline?

I can see where your comming from. My mother was mostly verbally intimidating growing up and my father really never said a word about it. When I had hit 16 my mother had called me and my sister an [censored] one too many times when I had finally decided to ask why my father just sat and watched instead of saying something. Granted by that point he was really sick. Even to this day I'm not close with my mother eventhough i do talk to her. I have children of my own and I'm extremely afraid of having the same relationship with my kids that my mom and I do.

I was beaten with belts, shoes, wooden spoons, plastic spoons hand and fists occasionally feet etc and it was where even they my parents could reach me. I view anything other than a smack on the hand or the bottom abuse regardless of what the weapon is.
Its frigtening when you have children. I will be honest I used to smack on the hand or bottom when they were really naughty, but I stopped. I stopped smacking all together because I learned that you only smack when you lose control and if you do not lose control then you do not need to smack.
Abuse is a cycle and it needs to stop. There are other punishment which work more effectively and teach your child in the process, a smack last for 5 seconds, a stern talking to and a timeout in the bedroom last alot longer.
I remember when I was younger talking to my brother after we had both been battered and saying "well its not like they can hit us any harder now is it, and I can take that they had done to me so its no longer going to stop me"
The fear goes, well its for me anyway.