Thanks for sharing this. The title was even hard to read, but it helps to hear that others had simlilar experiences to mine. I remember learning that families who didn't spank their kids had wild heathens who ruled the house. Any time we saw one of "those" families, there was a comment about how they just needed some discipline.
We were spanked with wooden spoons or rulers because they were cheap, accessible in most rooms of the house, and easy to replace when they broke (which they did often, with 3 strong-willed kids in the house). I remember my parents proudly saying that they didn't discipline in anger but they sure seemed mad when they screamed at me and pulled me away from whatever I was doing that was deemed wrong. I wouldn't get the "calm" conversation until afterwards, though. I'd run to my room, crying of course, and they'd follow a few minutes later to make sure I understood the lesson. That's where they would soothe themselves with "this hurts me more than it hurts you." I had to pull myself together quickly so they wouldn't decide I was "overreacting" or I might get round 2. I realized recently that pattern gave me much more practice at intellectualizing my emotions instead of actually feeling them, so guess what I'm relearning in my 40s? I also hate to show my emotions in front of people and worry a lot about whether my reaction is appropriately sized for what's happening. I sometimes think I'm autistic, and then I think about these experiences, and it's hard to know now if I seemed "defiant" because I reacted to the world differently, or if abuse disguised as salvation taught me to respond to the world this way.
It's a lot to sort out, and that aspect of worrying about overreacting seems sadly soooo common, which makes it hard to connect with others. Thanks for sharing --- and for reading!
Yes in our house spanking was calm and rational and yet multiple spoons were broken on my younger sibling. Make it make sense? I also struggle with intellectualizing my feelings and the long-term impacts of that are devastating. I am so happy to be at a place in my healing where I am "allowing" myself to feel everything -- grief and anger and resentment and also hope and joy and curiosity. When you suppress certain emotions, it ends up impacting our ability to engage with the ones that are life-giving, which is so tragic to me.
The last time I was spanked I was 13, and I don't remember the initial offense, but I remember I told my dad "spanking doesn't work on me anymore" so his "calm and rational" choice was to break an extra-thick ruler on me. It hurt & I finally cried, but he never spanked me again. That's the moment I revisit to prove to myself spanking was always about pride and power, not discipline.
Oh my god..."I had to pull myself together quickly so they wouldn't decide I was 'overreacting' or I might get round 2." I just heard DING DING DING in my head and lots of dots connected. I relate to everything you said about emotions.
Much love to you! It was quite a revelation to realize I learned to squash my emotions to stay safe. Learning so many new tools now that serve me much better than that old mess!
Also, my dad was usually the calm, rational one and my mom was the freakout yeller. I only remember being spanked by him, although I know my mom spanked my younger siblings enough to switch from a wooden spoon to a spatula because the spoon had lost its effectiveness. My dad treated my mom with condescending disdain when she lost her cool, and he was the one I always wanted to emulate. I thought appearing even-keeled and level-headed was superior, but the way I learned it was just another unhealthy end of the spectrum.
I don’t have many memories of being spanked. The only one I do have is of the time my mother decided to never spank me or my sisters ever again. I think she went to get the wooden spoon and then, in full tears, told me that she wasn’t gonna do it because it wasn’t right. She apologized for all the times she did spank me. I must have been five or six (my sisters are younger than me). I marvel at her courage to admit she was wrong and part ways with the cultural programming she was receiving both from church and her friendship with the only evangelicals we knew who, because they were English-speaking and could read them, had Dobson’s books on their bookshelves. I doubt she knew at the time that she was going to safeguard her relationship with her daughters by choosing attunement and connection over enforcing obedience and hierarchy. Or that she would give me a core memory that shaped me greatly into the kind of person that prioritizes safety and accountability in relationships.
About the same time I disaffiliated from my church, I broke-up with my best friend when we became parents and she began devouring Christian parenting advice (like Ted’s Tripp’s book). I had such a hard time watching her spank her daughter or assume normal toddler behavior was willful sin. I had heard enough from our church community (including the lead pastors who had five-six kids themselves) to know that spanking was encouraged within young families and was proudly perceived as a counter-cultural practice. While my church community wouldn’t have equated outright refusing to use corporal punishment with disobeying God, they would have called it “not choosing God’s best.” You know, just plain old guilting and emotional manipulation. But the manipulation works to keep people like my friend in the fold. Spanking is a cultural practice that differentiates who is in and who is outside of the group. And when you are in evangelical spaces, the stakes of being outside the group are magnified to existential proportions.
a lot of spanking happens prior to children forming many concrete memories, so it makes sense (and is interesting) that it sounds like your mom had memories that you didn't (however, we know that whether you had memories or not, it still has impacts!). Also, so sad to hear about the friendship breaking down, and the ways this just keeps getting passed on to new generations
Decades of misery. My antisocial narcissistic (wannabe criminal, con artist) father found Jesus and found a way to hide his sadism and desire for worship in a fundamentalist Baptist church in the 1970s. He was pretty brutal until he found Dobson and Gothard and then those books and seminars gave him a better way to hide what he wanted to do anyway. While it made "discipline" less violent, the ritual around it could drag it on for hours, and lasted well into my teen years. Those moments of ritualistic pain and humiliation were punctuated by ordinary, garden variety abuse and rage.
I'm in my early 50s now. I've been in heavy trauma therapy for the past four years including EMDR, and it shows no signs of ending anytime soon. Nightmares, anxiety, cPTSD, anger, isolation, and a childless life so I would not abuse them...my birthright.
There are words I cannot even say, things I cannot mention even to my therapist. My husband doesn't know the half of it.
Fun times...the current GOP candidate even looks like my father, who died two years ago. I didn't feel safe at all until then.
The way you phrased it, as someone coming from the inside of the house, in your piece today, was the absolute most spot-on description of what it is, where it comes from...sadly.
Thank you for your courage in speaking out. I'm not there yet.
It really speaks to how impactful it is, as well as how long it takes to be able to recognize and name that it's abusive (esp because of all the rhetoric around it!)
This entire presidential election (not to mention the last 8 years) is SO triggering to so many survivors. I hope you can give yourself some compassion today -- because you ARE speaking out, in the way that is safe for you. You deserve all the care and safety in the world.
I relate to your story and I am so sorry you had to endure that from a parent! I cannot even hardly look or listen to the current GOP candidate as well because of how much he reminds me of my own father. My father also died a few years ago and all I felt was relief. Healing really did begin after he died, but it takes so long. You are not alone <3 Lots of love to you
You are not alone. I wept reading your comment here. I had to keep asking myself, "Wait. Did I write this or did this person Rebecca write this?"
I am right here in this pain with you. Decades of misery, punishing myself to try to use suffering to redeem myself/get to safety, C-PTSD, anxiety, depression, thousands of hours reading/writing/ thinking about trauma and how the human nervous system works, thousands of hours of therapy, child-free lifestyle--check (and yes, so I know I won't/can't perpetuate the cycle of ***extreme*** spiritual abuse on any children), nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks to the hostile environment of being in the uterus of someone who was **disgusted** and ***enraged*** at me.
And as I pursue recovery from all this, all the while watching Narcissist in Chief run for office so he can once again come back into power and do something such as pack the Supreme Court with justices [sic] who'd be sure to overturn Roe and thus usher in a whole new era of unwanted children.
I have also had the audacity to take up yoga [Satanic? ha!], and meditation [Satanic? Give me Satan over Christianity's &%$# punitive adoration-seeking mind-reading deity], and attune to what my body is telling me enough to admit to myself something I think I may have been in denial about for a long time, which is that I am non-binary.
And incidentally against white supremacy. And against patriarchy. And for diversity, equity and inclusion. Could I be any more strong-willed/rebellious/out of control?
All the love and all the power to you, I say. I stand in solidarity with you. Healing is possible, I've come to believe, no matter how bad it was and no matter how bad it feels right now. No matter how scary or how shameful it might feel to even think about acknowledging having a desire to be a human and thus to heal. I am sending out a secular prayer to the cosmos for healing for you, Rebecca.
I barely got through the beginning of this because it mirrored my childhood experience exactly. I am now starting to realize how traumatic and abusive this was. Great piece.
Spanking was absolutely imbued with divine authority in our home growing up. It was “god’s way” of discipline. My parents took enormous pride in the fact that they didn’t spank us out of anger and didn’t use their hands to hit us. For them the spiritual ritual, use of a dowel, and subsequent forced repentance and “repair” somehow made their punishment morally upright. It was explicitly stated that spanking was intended to break our will and not our spirit and ultimately teach us to obey god.
I have a photo of myself, as a 3 or 4 year old, in a double bike trailer next to a family friend who is about the same age. He is melting down with what seem to be typical big toddler feelings. I have a look of shock and disgust on my face- as though I can’t believe he is bold enough to express himself like that. Like, doesn’t he know how to behave and what could happen?
There was always a type of pity and judgement towards families that didn’t spank their children. Those kids were given too much authority and influence- they were out of control and headed for destruction. I internalized this judgment, well into my early adult years; it was part of how I defended my parents actions and tried to stay connected. I would have gone toe to toe with anyone who argued that spanking was harmful. I felt that I was evidence of its effectiveness and was too fragmented to connect the dots.
"break their will and not their spirit" is such a toxic phrase. I'm so sorry you experienced this -- and internalizing this as "good" was part of the entire ritual, which is so sad to me.
I remember being told spanking was in the Bible and when we would see kids acting out in stores or wherever my parents would say " that kid needs a good spanking". It was totally acceptable in our church or family to spank your kids. Sometimes mine would use their hand, a wooden spoon or a belt. I agree with several comments that even reading the title made me cringe and I was having a hard time reading this post.
I do remember all of us kids being very obedient because we were deathly afraid, but once we were older we did not obey. It did not produce godly children, it produced angry hurt children who saw God as always ready to pounce and parents who were very critical and always pointed out when we did something "wrong".
yeah, I appreciate you sharing about how it created a particular culture in church settings talking about discipline -- and insiders and outsiders. And yes, definitely had a big impact on how kids experienced God
Sep 10·edited Sep 10Liked by Krispin Mayfield, D.L. Mayfield
This is SO helpful, having all of this in one post. All this stuff I knew but had not articulated in terms of how it absolves the parents and centers their experience.
There's also the cover that this kind of thing gives to more outright abuse. My dad always hit us in anger, but he could frame it as the "right" thing to do because of this rhetoric. For a long time, I thought that the problem was that he did it out of anger, not that he did it at all. I told myself if he'd done it the way Dobson, et al describe (calmly and in the way you describe here) then it would have been less horrible. But actually, I think it would have been worse because of the mindfuck.
And our bodies remember. Once in my late 20s I was standing beside my dad when I told him something I thought would make him angry. He lifted his hand to pick up something and I flinched so much that everyone in the room (just my mom and sister) noticed. And he acted like it was ridiculous that I reacted like he was going to hit me. True, he hadn't hit me since my mid teens, but my body remembered.
It’s so convenient how even when confronted with fact/science based evidence, Evangelicals continue to use the Bible to justify anything and everything. The refusal to change or admit they are wrong is harmful and abusive. There is no way for kids to be safe- parents will always put “Jesus” above their own children.
It's taken me a couple tries to read this article as different memories and experiences popped up and I made sure I was taking care of myself. I sure hope y'all took time to give yourselves a hug after writing this piece as well! It's such important work and I feel so seen.
I hope you are taking care of yourself today Sarah! These are really rough topics. Both Krispin and I have been surprised by how impacted we have been this week, but we are having a very slow weekend to recuperate.
Yeah, that title made me not want to read, but I got brave.
Somehow I have no idea if my dad was spanked or not. I mean probably, but my grandparents were extremely progressive in certain ways, so I don't know.
My mom got it with a huge leather strap. It hung near a bathroom and I saw it every time I went to my grandparents' house growing up & at some point I learned what it had been for. We knew of other families who smacked their kids on the face.
My parents didn't use a belt or strap or smack us in the face. So that means they did it the right and good way. Supposed to only be with the ruler (or whatever they could find?), and not in anger, but I got handprints, and I remember anger. I don't remember any nice conversations afterward. But they definitely said the words in the title beforehand, and in my head I was like YEAH, RIGHT.
We also had a hand-made paddle in our home, and the sight of it always made my blood run cold. It haunted whatever room it occupied in our house. I remember as a child on my way out of church when my dad, the pastor, paused from smiling and shaking hands to lean down and say, "You're getting a spanking when we get home." The offense? Laughing when my brother sang different lyrics to a hymn. The dreaded anticipation as I waited to get home had my stomach in knots, and my nervous system reacts the same way to this day when I'm worried about something. He followed Dobson's script to the letter: "This hurts me more than it hurts you." My mom still suggests spanking at the first hint of "disobedience" from any child.
This was my childhood to a T. My mom got those toys that were wooden paddles with a string and bouncy ball, removed the string and ball, and paddled us with them. Every time I saw one of those toys it only meant spanking to me. I remember trying to pad my pants with blankets. I can’t remember if she said anything although I’m sure she did because it would have been so obvious. And she always used the “this hurts me more than it hurts you line,” which I always thought was absolute bullshit.
She was definitely one of the parents who felt she had to do this and wasn’t happy about it, and despite herself and the evangelical influence, was still a great mom in other ways. But to this day she really struggles with emotional issues. Usually they are bypassed with comments like, “you know that’s Satan,” or “you just need to pray about it.” I am proud to be breaking this cycle.
I am so taken aback by the description of it being over quickly, clean, poof, resolved. It never felt like that to me but explains a lot if that's how it felt to them.
I kept trying to articulate some of my thoughts and feelings about this, and I literally can't. My body and my mind keep freezing up, which is telling, I know. I'm so thankful that y'all are writing about this and doing this hard work, and I want to participate when I can, but golly, this chapter is apparently not one I'm ready for yet.
Thanks for sharing this. The title was even hard to read, but it helps to hear that others had simlilar experiences to mine. I remember learning that families who didn't spank their kids had wild heathens who ruled the house. Any time we saw one of "those" families, there was a comment about how they just needed some discipline.
We were spanked with wooden spoons or rulers because they were cheap, accessible in most rooms of the house, and easy to replace when they broke (which they did often, with 3 strong-willed kids in the house). I remember my parents proudly saying that they didn't discipline in anger but they sure seemed mad when they screamed at me and pulled me away from whatever I was doing that was deemed wrong. I wouldn't get the "calm" conversation until afterwards, though. I'd run to my room, crying of course, and they'd follow a few minutes later to make sure I understood the lesson. That's where they would soothe themselves with "this hurts me more than it hurts you." I had to pull myself together quickly so they wouldn't decide I was "overreacting" or I might get round 2. I realized recently that pattern gave me much more practice at intellectualizing my emotions instead of actually feeling them, so guess what I'm relearning in my 40s? I also hate to show my emotions in front of people and worry a lot about whether my reaction is appropriately sized for what's happening. I sometimes think I'm autistic, and then I think about these experiences, and it's hard to know now if I seemed "defiant" because I reacted to the world differently, or if abuse disguised as salvation taught me to respond to the world this way.
It's a lot to sort out, and that aspect of worrying about overreacting seems sadly soooo common, which makes it hard to connect with others. Thanks for sharing --- and for reading!
Yes in our house spanking was calm and rational and yet multiple spoons were broken on my younger sibling. Make it make sense? I also struggle with intellectualizing my feelings and the long-term impacts of that are devastating. I am so happy to be at a place in my healing where I am "allowing" myself to feel everything -- grief and anger and resentment and also hope and joy and curiosity. When you suppress certain emotions, it ends up impacting our ability to engage with the ones that are life-giving, which is so tragic to me.
The last time I was spanked I was 13, and I don't remember the initial offense, but I remember I told my dad "spanking doesn't work on me anymore" so his "calm and rational" choice was to break an extra-thick ruler on me. It hurt & I finally cried, but he never spanked me again. That's the moment I revisit to prove to myself spanking was always about pride and power, not discipline.
Oh my god..."I had to pull myself together quickly so they wouldn't decide I was 'overreacting' or I might get round 2." I just heard DING DING DING in my head and lots of dots connected. I relate to everything you said about emotions.
Much love to you! It was quite a revelation to realize I learned to squash my emotions to stay safe. Learning so many new tools now that serve me much better than that old mess!
Also, my dad was usually the calm, rational one and my mom was the freakout yeller. I only remember being spanked by him, although I know my mom spanked my younger siblings enough to switch from a wooden spoon to a spatula because the spoon had lost its effectiveness. My dad treated my mom with condescending disdain when she lost her cool, and he was the one I always wanted to emulate. I thought appearing even-keeled and level-headed was superior, but the way I learned it was just another unhealthy end of the spectrum.
I don’t have many memories of being spanked. The only one I do have is of the time my mother decided to never spank me or my sisters ever again. I think she went to get the wooden spoon and then, in full tears, told me that she wasn’t gonna do it because it wasn’t right. She apologized for all the times she did spank me. I must have been five or six (my sisters are younger than me). I marvel at her courage to admit she was wrong and part ways with the cultural programming she was receiving both from church and her friendship with the only evangelicals we knew who, because they were English-speaking and could read them, had Dobson’s books on their bookshelves. I doubt she knew at the time that she was going to safeguard her relationship with her daughters by choosing attunement and connection over enforcing obedience and hierarchy. Or that she would give me a core memory that shaped me greatly into the kind of person that prioritizes safety and accountability in relationships.
About the same time I disaffiliated from my church, I broke-up with my best friend when we became parents and she began devouring Christian parenting advice (like Ted’s Tripp’s book). I had such a hard time watching her spank her daughter or assume normal toddler behavior was willful sin. I had heard enough from our church community (including the lead pastors who had five-six kids themselves) to know that spanking was encouraged within young families and was proudly perceived as a counter-cultural practice. While my church community wouldn’t have equated outright refusing to use corporal punishment with disobeying God, they would have called it “not choosing God’s best.” You know, just plain old guilting and emotional manipulation. But the manipulation works to keep people like my friend in the fold. Spanking is a cultural practice that differentiates who is in and who is outside of the group. And when you are in evangelical spaces, the stakes of being outside the group are magnified to existential proportions.
a lot of spanking happens prior to children forming many concrete memories, so it makes sense (and is interesting) that it sounds like your mom had memories that you didn't (however, we know that whether you had memories or not, it still has impacts!). Also, so sad to hear about the friendship breaking down, and the ways this just keeps getting passed on to new generations
Decades of misery. My antisocial narcissistic (wannabe criminal, con artist) father found Jesus and found a way to hide his sadism and desire for worship in a fundamentalist Baptist church in the 1970s. He was pretty brutal until he found Dobson and Gothard and then those books and seminars gave him a better way to hide what he wanted to do anyway. While it made "discipline" less violent, the ritual around it could drag it on for hours, and lasted well into my teen years. Those moments of ritualistic pain and humiliation were punctuated by ordinary, garden variety abuse and rage.
I'm in my early 50s now. I've been in heavy trauma therapy for the past four years including EMDR, and it shows no signs of ending anytime soon. Nightmares, anxiety, cPTSD, anger, isolation, and a childless life so I would not abuse them...my birthright.
There are words I cannot even say, things I cannot mention even to my therapist. My husband doesn't know the half of it.
Fun times...the current GOP candidate even looks like my father, who died two years ago. I didn't feel safe at all until then.
The way you phrased it, as someone coming from the inside of the house, in your piece today, was the absolute most spot-on description of what it is, where it comes from...sadly.
Thank you for your courage in speaking out. I'm not there yet.
It really speaks to how impactful it is, as well as how long it takes to be able to recognize and name that it's abusive (esp because of all the rhetoric around it!)
This entire presidential election (not to mention the last 8 years) is SO triggering to so many survivors. I hope you can give yourself some compassion today -- because you ARE speaking out, in the way that is safe for you. You deserve all the care and safety in the world.
I relate to your story and I am so sorry you had to endure that from a parent! I cannot even hardly look or listen to the current GOP candidate as well because of how much he reminds me of my own father. My father also died a few years ago and all I felt was relief. Healing really did begin after he died, but it takes so long. You are not alone <3 Lots of love to you
You are not alone. I wept reading your comment here. I had to keep asking myself, "Wait. Did I write this or did this person Rebecca write this?"
I am right here in this pain with you. Decades of misery, punishing myself to try to use suffering to redeem myself/get to safety, C-PTSD, anxiety, depression, thousands of hours reading/writing/ thinking about trauma and how the human nervous system works, thousands of hours of therapy, child-free lifestyle--check (and yes, so I know I won't/can't perpetuate the cycle of ***extreme*** spiritual abuse on any children), nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks to the hostile environment of being in the uterus of someone who was **disgusted** and ***enraged*** at me.
And as I pursue recovery from all this, all the while watching Narcissist in Chief run for office so he can once again come back into power and do something such as pack the Supreme Court with justices [sic] who'd be sure to overturn Roe and thus usher in a whole new era of unwanted children.
I have also had the audacity to take up yoga [Satanic? ha!], and meditation [Satanic? Give me Satan over Christianity's &%$# punitive adoration-seeking mind-reading deity], and attune to what my body is telling me enough to admit to myself something I think I may have been in denial about for a long time, which is that I am non-binary.
And incidentally against white supremacy. And against patriarchy. And for diversity, equity and inclusion. Could I be any more strong-willed/rebellious/out of control?
All the love and all the power to you, I say. I stand in solidarity with you. Healing is possible, I've come to believe, no matter how bad it was and no matter how bad it feels right now. No matter how scary or how shameful it might feel to even think about acknowledging having a desire to be a human and thus to heal. I am sending out a secular prayer to the cosmos for healing for you, Rebecca.
I barely got through the beginning of this because it mirrored my childhood experience exactly. I am now starting to realize how traumatic and abusive this was. Great piece.
I'm so sorry you know this kind of pain.
Spanking was absolutely imbued with divine authority in our home growing up. It was “god’s way” of discipline. My parents took enormous pride in the fact that they didn’t spank us out of anger and didn’t use their hands to hit us. For them the spiritual ritual, use of a dowel, and subsequent forced repentance and “repair” somehow made their punishment morally upright. It was explicitly stated that spanking was intended to break our will and not our spirit and ultimately teach us to obey god.
I have a photo of myself, as a 3 or 4 year old, in a double bike trailer next to a family friend who is about the same age. He is melting down with what seem to be typical big toddler feelings. I have a look of shock and disgust on my face- as though I can’t believe he is bold enough to express himself like that. Like, doesn’t he know how to behave and what could happen?
There was always a type of pity and judgement towards families that didn’t spank their children. Those kids were given too much authority and influence- they were out of control and headed for destruction. I internalized this judgment, well into my early adult years; it was part of how I defended my parents actions and tried to stay connected. I would have gone toe to toe with anyone who argued that spanking was harmful. I felt that I was evidence of its effectiveness and was too fragmented to connect the dots.
so much focus on intent and not on impact -- if you're not angry, it's not harmful. Soooo horrible.
"break their will and not their spirit" is such a toxic phrase. I'm so sorry you experienced this -- and internalizing this as "good" was part of the entire ritual, which is so sad to me.
I remember being told spanking was in the Bible and when we would see kids acting out in stores or wherever my parents would say " that kid needs a good spanking". It was totally acceptable in our church or family to spank your kids. Sometimes mine would use their hand, a wooden spoon or a belt. I agree with several comments that even reading the title made me cringe and I was having a hard time reading this post.
I do remember all of us kids being very obedient because we were deathly afraid, but once we were older we did not obey. It did not produce godly children, it produced angry hurt children who saw God as always ready to pounce and parents who were very critical and always pointed out when we did something "wrong".
yeah, I appreciate you sharing about how it created a particular culture in church settings talking about discipline -- and insiders and outsiders. And yes, definitely had a big impact on how kids experienced God
This is SO helpful, having all of this in one post. All this stuff I knew but had not articulated in terms of how it absolves the parents and centers their experience.
There's also the cover that this kind of thing gives to more outright abuse. My dad always hit us in anger, but he could frame it as the "right" thing to do because of this rhetoric. For a long time, I thought that the problem was that he did it out of anger, not that he did it at all. I told myself if he'd done it the way Dobson, et al describe (calmly and in the way you describe here) then it would have been less horrible. But actually, I think it would have been worse because of the mindfuck.
And our bodies remember. Once in my late 20s I was standing beside my dad when I told him something I thought would make him angry. He lifted his hand to pick up something and I flinched so much that everyone in the room (just my mom and sister) noticed. And he acted like it was ridiculous that I reacted like he was going to hit me. True, he hadn't hit me since my mid teens, but my body remembered.
yes, 100% our bodies remember!
It’s so convenient how even when confronted with fact/science based evidence, Evangelicals continue to use the Bible to justify anything and everything. The refusal to change or admit they are wrong is harmful and abusive. There is no way for kids to be safe- parents will always put “Jesus” above their own children.
There is no way to be safe in this context -- wow, that is a powerful way of putting it.
It's taken me a couple tries to read this article as different memories and experiences popped up and I made sure I was taking care of myself. I sure hope y'all took time to give yourselves a hug after writing this piece as well! It's such important work and I feel so seen.
I hope you are taking care of yourself today Sarah! These are really rough topics. Both Krispin and I have been surprised by how impacted we have been this week, but we are having a very slow weekend to recuperate.
Yeah, that title made me not want to read, but I got brave.
Somehow I have no idea if my dad was spanked or not. I mean probably, but my grandparents were extremely progressive in certain ways, so I don't know.
My mom got it with a huge leather strap. It hung near a bathroom and I saw it every time I went to my grandparents' house growing up & at some point I learned what it had been for. We knew of other families who smacked their kids on the face.
My parents didn't use a belt or strap or smack us in the face. So that means they did it the right and good way. Supposed to only be with the ruler (or whatever they could find?), and not in anger, but I got handprints, and I remember anger. I don't remember any nice conversations afterward. But they definitely said the words in the title beforehand, and in my head I was like YEAH, RIGHT.
I love that even as a kid you knew to call to BS on that phrase! But seriously, it's so horrible.
We also had a hand-made paddle in our home, and the sight of it always made my blood run cold. It haunted whatever room it occupied in our house. I remember as a child on my way out of church when my dad, the pastor, paused from smiling and shaking hands to lean down and say, "You're getting a spanking when we get home." The offense? Laughing when my brother sang different lyrics to a hymn. The dreaded anticipation as I waited to get home had my stomach in knots, and my nervous system reacts the same way to this day when I'm worried about something. He followed Dobson's script to the letter: "This hurts me more than it hurts you." My mom still suggests spanking at the first hint of "disobedience" from any child.
Oh Jonathan, I am so sorry.
I resonate with the dread in anticipation. Spanking was almost always and end of the day ritual in our home :/
By the way, another great Substack (Webworm by David Ferrier) has just posted on this same topic: https://www.webworm.co/p/spanking
So glad people are talking about how this all fits into the larger authoritarian nature of evangelicalism.
Thanks for this link!
This was my childhood to a T. My mom got those toys that were wooden paddles with a string and bouncy ball, removed the string and ball, and paddled us with them. Every time I saw one of those toys it only meant spanking to me. I remember trying to pad my pants with blankets. I can’t remember if she said anything although I’m sure she did because it would have been so obvious. And she always used the “this hurts me more than it hurts you line,” which I always thought was absolute bullshit.
She was definitely one of the parents who felt she had to do this and wasn’t happy about it, and despite herself and the evangelical influence, was still a great mom in other ways. But to this day she really struggles with emotional issues. Usually they are bypassed with comments like, “you know that’s Satan,” or “you just need to pray about it.” I am proud to be breaking this cycle.
I am so taken aback by the description of it being over quickly, clean, poof, resolved. It never felt like that to me but explains a lot if that's how it felt to them.
I kept trying to articulate some of my thoughts and feelings about this, and I literally can't. My body and my mind keep freezing up, which is telling, I know. I'm so thankful that y'all are writing about this and doing this hard work, and I want to participate when I can, but golly, this chapter is apparently not one I'm ready for yet.