Reply #23: On spanking vs verbal abuse and threats

[pipi_k]

I can only recall being hit a few times by my father. My mother used to hit/slap us a lot more.

You know what hurt a lot more?


Seeing my parents engaged in physical violence against each other. Throwing plates of food around, hot soup, knocking over the Christmas tree, ripping the phone out of the wall, breaking my mother's jaw with a beer bottle, Dad trying to strangle Mom (she bore the marks of his fingers on her neck at my 10th birthday party).

Then there were the threats against us kids. We didn't need to be hit. All Dad had to say to us was, in one case where Mom was going to pack us up and leave him, that "The first one who moves I'll knock through the wall".

I don't in any way advocate spanking or hitting of any kind...but I do feel sad that there isn't more attention paid to the damage that can be done to kids who may not have been spanked with any regularity but have been victims of threats against them and parental violence against each other.

Sometimes I think that I would have preferred being spanked if only my parents hadn't tried to kill each other or threatened to knock us through walls, etc.