It Isn't Child Abuse

[Queen Boudica]

Geez, I hope someone told that family that what they were doing was NOT cool.

No - they totally lapped it all up and gave them a big applause and gifts at the end of the talk.

It is still going on, I bet. I see the culture of smacking that is acceptable in those people who attend that church and I just wonder what else happens behind closed doors? Hopefully things have moved on from the 70's when those girls were being brought up.

Obviously they felt loved by their parents and are still very close, so maybe it is the neglect, and emotional abuse or a combination that causes the trauma. If you are beaten and loved is it better than if you are beaten, emotionally abused and not loved? What a thought!

<edited Nicolette: fixed quote>

 

[SimplyComplex]

"this would hurt her more than it would hurt them"

My mom's favorite line...and she believed it!

Actually it was in therapy last month when I was talking about a traumatic spanking (we were doing nothing wrong, but my dad made us choose who "went first" when he was angry) that my T asked me what they used. They were high and mighty about never spanking with a bare hand...like it was abuse, where a spoon wasn't. Anyways as I sat and explained how they used a big iron ice cream blade and I stole it and hid it, then they switched to a much worse spaghetti spoon (with drain holes and teeth), I realized how scary abusive that is. I am quite sure it hurt me more then it hurt them...they didn't even feel the sting on their hands.

 

[Srain]

I had met 2 fraternal twins, maybe 7 or 8yrs old, girls I really liked them, who's mother seemed really nice however she had told them not to get muddy when we went out to play. I thought that was so odd because that time of year it was break-up season, ice and now melting everywhere and mud! Kids with rubber boots were going to get muddy, that's what we always did and did. It was great fun and there was nothing like sliding down mounds of mud on sheets of construction wood.

When we started back they begged me to come back to their house, something I didn't do much of, hoping things wouldn't go so bad if I was with them, I had forgotten that we were not suppose to get muddy and just before we got to their home they started getting scared. My experience was "looks mean everything!" so I was sure if I was there everything was going to be okay. Not there! That woman told one of the girl to grab the big wood spoon off the wall and go to her room. I watched as she did this and heard "whap! whap! whap!" and then she came back in and told the other that was sniffling to do the same, she smiled at me (I knew that smile but couldn't remember where I was so sick!) and told me I had better go home for the day. I wanted to grab the girls and take them with me but they were bigger than me and didn't know how. I was terrified.

I never said a word to my parents.

It never occurred to me there was a similarity to mine. But I was grateful nobody had to watch as my mother's lightening whip of a hand snap across my face at dinner or my father bit at his mustache and thrashed at me with that wired hanger while I rolled off the bed and tried crawling under the bed to safety. His fits of rage were out of nowhere, there was no building up to it, having an audience watching the "death march" to see if you would crumble, I felt soooooooo lucky and SAFE!

 

[Nicolette]

As a parent I am guilty of breaking a wooden spoon or two.... but on the kitchen bench for the noise effect after going through talking, one,two & three etc. :rolleyes:

I used to get beaten with the strap, wooden spoon & jug cord. The emotional neglect and being treated differently hurt me more than anything physical. Living in a house you are supposed to be able to call home and know you are not wanted there nor do you belong did more damage to me than any beating.

 

[shell]

I think some of the problem of is that it was acceptable to abuse children in the name of discipline and it was really only in the last decade or decades that people started speaking out against what was happening, and discipline in schools changed.
I was beaten with wooden spoons, rolling pins, broom handles, but most especially the handle of the feather duster and the metal rod off the vaccum cleaner, because I deserved it. My father recently told someone in front of me what a shit of a kid I was and its been nearly 30 years since I lived there, so they obviously still think they were totally justified in how they disciplined.
The hardest thing for me has been accepting that people knew we were being abused and chose to look the other way, because that's what they did back then.
My mother knew what she was doing was terribly wrong, and saw a doctor to get help. He gave her the option to walk out the door with no help, or he could write it down and remove us kids from her custody, she went on to abuse us continually.
She admits to abusing me everyday, but says it was due to a personality clash because I was extremely strong willed. Maybe one day I will believe that I wasn't responsible for some of happened I'm just not there yet. I know that I could never treat my own child that way, but when you've been told how bad you are all you life it's hard not to take some responsibility for how you were treated.

 

[Nicolette]

but when you've been told how bad you are all you life it's hard not to take some responsibility for how you were treated.

It's also hard to have healthy self esteem too! :eek:

 

[kayak]

Oh shell, I can relate to your post more than you know!! My T is trying to get me to understand that the reason I was hit while my sister never was, is that my mom and I had a "personality clash" and that I remined her of my father. I'm sure I will eventually come to understand why my T keeps making this point, but now every time she says it I mentally yell, "And why the flying f--- does that make a difference!" :mad:
The fact that it "used to be acceptable" and in many cultures still is acceptable, is one of the main reasons I struggle to call it "abuse". Half the kids in the world experienced what I did, or worse, and they don't have problems. Why should I? I feel like a freaking wimp because, really, it wan't that bad.

 

[Queen Boudica]

Half the kids in the world experienced what I did, or worse, and they don't have problems. Why should I? I feel like a freaking wimp because, really, it wan't that bad.

I've felt like that a lot. And when the negative thoughts come that is exactly what I think, that I am a wimp that it was not that bad, that other kids had it worse. But I think I am beginning to look at it differently, appreciate what a huge impact it would have on a young child.

I would not know whether those kids do not have problems I suspect a lot do. And they go on to do the same to their kids, so the cycle perpetuates. It is no longer acceptable in our culture for a reason, it was NEVER OK, it was barbaric.

I think your point in an earlier post about the small bodies is very valid. Despite me describing how my mother hit our small bodies with that hard shoe, I just did not really think about the small body part that much. I would have been really young, could have been 5 and probably much younger. I look at my children's tiny bodies and I could not imagine them being able to cope with that kind of beating. How could that not be traumatic to a young child? Your own parent who is supposed to love you out of control inflicting pain all over your body.

You are no wimp for surviving your childhood after all of that abuse. There are a lot of us in the same boat.

 

[kayak]

:cry:

 

[OKRADLAK]

If you are beaten and loved is it better than if you are beaten, emotionally abused and not loved? What a thought!

Wow! Never thought of that, but YES. When they say they LOVE YOU whist doing it they are sicker, and even sicker if they tell you that GOD LOVE YOU whilst doing it! IMO.

 

[Queen Boudica]

(((((((kayak))))))

 

[Rob_Dog19]

"if any of these came from a sibling, then it's not abuse." I'm sure you can imagine how good that made me feel

ugggh that just pisses me off!!! so much...it was unwanted sexual contact...that's not ok no matter who does it. period. uggghhh!!!! I am just so angry now