I remember getting my fair share of dirty lickins. Nothing that really stands out, except the time my dad tried to give me a spanking but was too drunk to do it. It was a family reunion and I was being a little asshat. He went to slap me and fell down. He turned bright red and yelled from the ground: GET OVER HERE WHERE I CAN REACH YOU! I was terrified, but my uncles thought it was hilarious. Of course, this was before the internet so I couldn't publicly humiliate him on You Tube. I always think of the Sam Kinison line about "Mr.Hand turning into Mr.Fist" when I get really mad at my kid. I just can't bring myself to do it, even though I'd really like to sometimes. (A smart ass teenager can do that to just about anyone I think.) So, I candy-ass out and let my wife do the daily beatings.
My dad used a paddle on me when I was bad, until he broke it on me. He became pretty fond of belts, although his favorite tool of discipline was definitely his fists. As far as physical fallout, I'll tell the two worst incidents. One time I was messing around and annoying my dad. I forget the exact circumstance, but I was about 8 years old at the time. Long story short, my dads elbow just happened to fly backwards at mach II and hit me in the face. Next thing I remember was waking up in my bed, my father standing over me asking me if I was okay. He said that he didn't notice me behind him and that I needed to be more careful while playing, an obvious lie even to me. I remember not being able to feel a large portion of my face for a while, and then pain at the slightest touch. I had a shiner for weeks, and I still have slight discoloration from the bruising it caused. I'm sure some bones in my face were broken or fractured, but I never went to the hospital. Another time, I swore at my father and he used a stun gun on me when I was about 10. He was screaming at me over something and I let "fuck you" slip. He turned bright red and he started coming right at me. I thought I was going to get a massive ass kicking, so I just stood there because it wouldn't have been out of the norm for me. He stormed past me and went straight into his office, I thought he was going to get a gun and shoot me. I stood there paralyzed with fear, well, not all of me was paralyzed. I manged to piss myself. He came out, stun gun in hand and just went to town. I was on the ground, balled up, crying with him sitting on top of me calling me a pussy for crying. He asked me if I learned my lesson and I said yes. He decided I hadn't and hit me with the stun gun one more time. In the face. By far the most humiliating thing I've ever had done to me was when I was 6 my dad made me put on a one of those shock collars they had for dogs. He said we were going to test out our new electric fence that we had just put in for our dog. He walked out to the perimeter of the fence slightly behind me. I stop right before the flags marking where the fence is, and the collar is giving off the warning beep. All of the sudden I hear from behind me "Hey Cult, look at this" I turn around and my dad kicked me in the chest sending me over the fence, shocking me. In front of our neighbors. My dad thought it was hilarious, so did my redneck neighbors.
Growing up, Dad was the scary one. Mum always played the "Wait 'til your father gets home" card, and we'd be packing it until he walked in the door. The only good side to getting a whack from Dad would be 45 minutes later he would come into our room and apologise to us and then be really nice to us for the next few days. Mum had some alternative punishments. It was school holidays and she had dragged me (aged 6), my sister (aged 3) and my 6 month old brother to the bank. My sister was being a bitch, annoying the baby and making him cry. Everyone in the line was shooting daggers at Mum. So she bends down and grabs my sister and whispers in her ear. My sister's face contorts with pain, and I'm thinking "Sucker, she's gonna make you pay when we get in the car" Next thing my sister screams at the top of her lungs "You bit my ear!" Mum explained later that she had leant down to tell her to behave, but just bit her ear on a whim. So in line, we have my brother screeching in his stroller, my sister holding her ear and wailing and half the line wanting to kill my Mum for the screaming baby and the other half wanting to lynch her for child abuse. Mum just gathered her children and walked out of the bank and took us home.
My mother used to spank me on the back of the thighs with a fly swatter. My dad popped me with his hand maybe once or twice. But, his thing was to grit his teeth, and talk very quietly to me, while grasping my bicep. He would slowly tighten his grip until I was on my knees. Ow. I have used a paint stick a few times on my children. (Not the thick kind from a paint store, but the cheap thin ones from Lowe's.) It stings like hell on the back of the thighs, and will stay red for just a short period of time. I've only had to do it a few times, and now the threat of it is just as effective. I was paddled by the principal at my school in 7th grade. He had several different paddles, one was a wooden paddle with holes in it -- I guess to reduce drag during the swing. That crap hurt, and he would probably be sued and fired if he did that today. (That was many years ago, and he still works at that school.)
I most certainly was spanked, pretty often in fact and I deserved every single one of them and much much worse. I was a terror as a child. Prone to fits, tantrums, in addition to being a snotty little mouthy shit. I'm lucky my parents were as laid back as they were. In addition to spankings punishments for larger offenses were usually manual labor. One summer my father had me dig the hole for our above ground pool by hand. After week or so of working on it for a few hours every day he brought in a tractor to finish the job but those 30ish hours on the other end of a shovel were a life lesson I'll never forget. While most spankings or physical punishments have all jumbled up in my mind there is one specific one I'll never forget because it was administered by my grandfather. He was a tough old farmer and a house of a man. I can remember him in his late 60's hauling fully loaded tobacco wagons by himself the length of two barns because hooking up a tractor would, "take too much fucking time". I spent summers on the farm and since it was an all male operation involving rough manual labor amongst a bunch of working class gents the language was a "little" rough. Of course being a young lad of 10 or 11 years old my vocabulary increased ten fold daily. My grandfather allowed me to participate with my new vocab since he believed I could act like a man if I was doing a man's job. After the end of one of my stays my mother came to pick me up and I threw a fit not wanting to go home. After thoroughly embarrassing myself in front of my grandfather I was standing next to him as my mother went into the house to get something. As she walked away I said something along the lines of, "stupid bitch" under my breath. I never saw the smack coming. As fast as a blink my grandfather backhanded me like an uppercut across the jaw. I saw stars, I felt pain, and I remember flying through the air, ears ringing thinking I had been hit by a car. I landed in the dirt and looked up to find my grandfather standing over me. Eyes wide and enraged. I was terrified. This giant man had never even raised his voice to me but I had seen him dress down plenty of people on the farm. He squatted down in front of me and there was probably smoke coming out of his nostrils. "You will never say that foul word to your mother. Understood." No threat of further violence and he didn't even raise his voice. I can still recall his gravely deep voice created from years of cigar smoking and it gives me goosebumps to this day. I nodded my head in agreement and he held out his hand helping me to my feet and I didn't cry. He dusted me off, gave me a hug and a pat on the head and waved goodbye as we pulled out of the driveway. You can bet your ass I've never used that word against my mother since either.
My mom used to make my brother do that. My mom was always the disciplinarian of the family; I got spanked plenty of times. She would use this cutting board with a handle that was about 18" long. The only event that sticks out in my mind is this one time where I tried to run from her, and I locked myself in the bathroom. She said if I didn't come out, she was going to multiply the number of spanks by 10 (I usually got 3-5). For a minute I thought about it, and wondered how long I could stay locked in that bathroom, but I eventually came out to take my punishment. Anyway, as a father now, I'll spank my son if he gets out of line badly enough, though I honestly haven't had to do it in about 3 years because the threat of a spanking has been sufficient to get him to clean up his act. Edit: In reference to the video of that 16 year old: while he was acting like a total twat, that was a nasty surprise, especially considering the cars that his family had. So I'm not saying he should have done it, but I understand his anger.
I grew up with spanking but nothing like what some of you here are describing. I was never hit with tools or implements of any kind, never by a closed fist and never randomly. A spanking was always delivered as a result of an infraction of some kind. They were never prolonged affairs either, mostly it was a couple of quick wallops and only rarely did it take more than minutes for any of my parents anger to burn itself out, to become something else. Maybe shame that they'd lost control, maybe just the realization that the point was made. I don't know, we've never talked about it. Growing up I became fairly adept at judging where I was with regards to the line where physical punishment could suddenly enter into the mix. It wasn't carved in stone that line, it depended on a multitude of factors and where some were from inside our house and something I could control, some were just work or world related. After a bad week a dropped plate at dinner after being told to be careful could result in an openhanded slap in the face followed by a long and loud lecture, after a good week maybe there would be a slow, hour long, incline of annoyance towards a sound spanking followed by silence. I don't remember my spankings as being a conscious parenting decision in my family. There was no corporal punishment waiting as we came home from parent-teacher conferences where my scholastic aptitude was praised but only under the cloud of talking in class. Instead there were hour long lectures where my parents tried to imprint on me the respect needed for authority. Violence only came as a result of frustration, as a sudden impulse not quelled fast enough. As such, it wasn't always fair. One event that really stuck with me and that I to this day can remember clearly, is my sister and myself horsing around in the living room. We were crawling around on the floor, chasing each other back and forth, when my sister bumped a small table holding a plant that came crashing down on the floor. My mother was close by but had her back turned on us and as the sound brought her around she probably saw my sister as being further from the mess than me so she gave me a quick few slaps and dragged me to my room by my arm, me all the while protesting my innocence and crying. I think I remember it so clearly because of how unfair it all seemed to me, because of the realization that punishment can come raining down even though you are not responsible yourself for whatever triggered it. None of my memories of spankings concern the pain. What little pain existed was drowned out tenfold by the humiliation of having someone, anyone, lay a hand on me in that way. Of brushing up against that line and of backing down from what I wanted to say, however much I believed in it, in order to avoid the punishment that would follow. I didn't speak to my mother for two days after the plant and I had a similar period of silence towards my father after he gave me a beating that he later apologized to me for. Ironically, the only reason I started talking to him again was the clear signs I got of approaching the line again, the line where he'd stop being contrite and start getting angry. Any physical punishment in our home ended when I was around 14. After getting in a fight with my sister over the sink as we were brushing our teeth I locked her out of the bathroom so I could finish and as I opened the door my mother stormed in. Finishing up in there I could hear it all go down outside so I was prepared and grabbed her arm, straight armed so she couldn't reach me and hurried past her. In closing the door on her I gave her a little shove to keep her from it and she fell backwards on the floor where she sat looking up as I spun around and made for my room. I have never been so ashamed in my life, before or after. It happened in the morning with my father already gone for work and after school I stayed away the entire evening, only coming home so I could go to bed. None of us ever talked about it and after a week of not looking each other in the eyes things were back to normal, more or less, the only distinction being that the line was gone. I'm not sure what they said to each other, if it was a reasoned decision on their part or if they ever even talked about it, but none of them ever raised their hand against me again.
My mom always says to people I didn't get enough hidings. I was a little shithead, so I think I got plenty - mostly open slaps to the face, the "grip-and-drag" (I'm sure many of you are familiar with this), the occasional open punch from my father when I wasn't doing something to his satisfaction, etc.. By little shithead, I mean I frequently talked back, threw tantrums, openly defied them, etc. I was never hit with implements, though. They eventually realised that, by age 16, hitting me would have no effect other than making me angry and willing to break shit regardless of the consequences. I also have the capability of doling out the silent treatment - my record was a week of not one word (even in public - I think some people thought I was mute), and I was a talkative kid. Moral of the story: I will never be having kids, because I know they will only be worse than me.
My parents believed in the saying spare the rod, use a bat. Now I could have just sat there and taken my beatings like a little bitch but that wouldn't have been fun. No I began planning at an early age. I learned their methods, what would set them off, what angles they would come from, what weapons they'd use. With my 6th birthday coming up I could finally get what I needed to take the fight to my parents: a plastic suit of armor from toys R us. It came with a sword, shield, helmet, chest and leg guards. A few days after my birthday I felt an ass whooping was about to be laid down by my mother so I suited up. I walk into the room fearless and ready for war. She looks at me half pissed off at what I'd done earlier and half worried that her son was a retard. She moves in to hit me with her shoe so I block it with my shield and jab back with my sword. The battle was won, she starts to walk away. Then out of no where she throws one shoe up high so I block it with my shield and another low which hits me square in the balls. Ever since that day she would always prefer to throw objects rather than hit me up close; baseballs, tennis balls, wooden spoons. Oh the beatings I've taken from wooden spoons. Instead of skipping along the sidewalk with my lunch box like a pansy on my first day to school I was screaming my head off at home wanting to stay and play Atari. Then my dad and uncle tell me "get in the car, we're only saying this once." When I screamed back "NOOOOOOOOOO" I remember a wooden spoon being swung at my forehead after which I wake up in the car pulling up to the school.
I'm sorry, I am joining this conversation now. So my parents had the great insight to punishment. I can remember a few times my father has lost his anger, none of them have resulted in me getting punched in the face. But that isn't a bad thing, my Dad isn't a bad dude, has maybe a little too much of a nice side. Reading through all of these, the only thing I could come up for with a punishment was this. So when I was a total ass as a kid instead of putting me in a corner, sending me to my room, or hitting me. My dad would go down to his office. Now his office wasn't that scary as is, but you have to understand it was his Man Cave. I have no idea what my dad did down there for years. Anytime I went down there, all I saw was my dad sitting at a desk looking at a computer, maybe watching the stock markets. So nothing crazy going on there, right? Unfortunately, that is where the story peaks. When he would come up from his man cave, he had a legal ledger and a pen. What is the purpose of these, you ask? Whatever it was that I did wrong, I got to write "I will not do, XX". Yeah have you ever saw a Simpsons opening scene? I love my parents, but seriously? How useless.
My parents didn't really believe in spanking, but thoroughly enjoyed the threat of it. I remember Dad chasing my terrified ass around, holding a leather belt which he folded in half and pulled each end apart really quickly to make a loud cracking noise. He'd also hit the ground around me until he was satisfied that I'd learnt my lesson for whatever shithead thing I did. It didn't click with me until years later that he never gave me a good hiding with the belt as other kids got. My Mum would absolutely never hit us, I guess because her Dad was a cunt woman basher and she was breaking the cycle. I could write a book on my Dad's... let's say, unconventional parenting. I love that old bastard.