Was spanking/smacking common in the 1990s? Struggling with PIL

[onlyonsunday]

Found out recently that FIL would spank/smack/hit DH, until DH was age 11/12. FIL only stopped when DH got big and strong.

These weren't awful 'hidings' and didn't result in injury or broken skin. DH had to lay across FIL's lap and he would hit his bum over his clothes so no bare skin.

DH is totally unfazed by this and says it didn't do any harm. I have never known anyone hit their children in any way and am horrified. This would have been between 1985-1995. Was it fairly normal then? Or was this unusual?

There are other things in DH's childhood that I find horrifying, so I know my feelings on the spanking will be influenced by the other stuff.

So looking for thoughts on how this would have been viewed at the time.

TLDR: was spanking deemed normal as recently as 1995?

Edited to say: this is in the UK

I don't think so. I raised kids over that period (and earlier) and I always thought smacking was pretty barbaric parental behaviour. Wasn't illegal at the time I think.

I was born in 1962 and everyone I know smacked their children. It was pretty normal.

We were caned at school as well. Then smacked at home for being caned at school. These were very different times. It was mostly considered normal in order to bring up well behaved children.

The sort of smacking that the op describes is still legal in England.

And probably not so much in the 90s but in the 80s I think was still pretty common.

Yes pretty normal, and as a result we all behaved a lot better than many of the children I see today.

Banned in schools in 1986.

yes reasonably normal but a minority of parents and even then most wouldn’t do it to an older child.

My friend who had kids then smacked them.

Oh and another friend did it too.

Not normal in my experience. I was born in the fifties and was only smacked once. My Dad was horrified that he’d done it, on the spur of the moment, apologised, and never did it again.
I had my DC in the 70s and similarly smacked one of my DDs once in the jest of the moment but regretted it immediately and never did it again. I’m not aware of any family or friends who thought smacking was ok.

I was definitely hit/smacked in a much more severe way that your DH during that time period

Edit to say that it definitely did me harm. I learnt that hitting people when you were angry with them was normal

I was hit with things like wooden spoons or rulers. My mum (who did all the 'smacking') was given the strap in the 40s & 50s by her parents

Someone I work with the same age as me was hit regularly with a belt

Hate to say it but in some cases yes.

Oh, give over. My kids have always been well behaved (they're grown up now) and have never been smacked in their life. If you need to resort to physical violence to bring up decent children, you're doing it wrong.

My dad had a temper and more kids then he could cope with. If my mum was at work/out he definitely used aggressive behaviour to control us. He would chase us up the stairs then hit us. We new sometimes he just pretended to so we would go upstairs and leave him alone. He punched me once but i managed to shrink down so he got my arms and not my face . It stopped when we all got to teen years. Most of us left home by 16/17. It was the 80s/90s.
But he is now a really calm nice person. And my parents have blocked it out completely.

I was smacked. Over the knee pants down. Was horrible and humiliating.

Born 1979. My mum slapped the back of my legs once I think. Dad slapped my bum once and was really upset by it and apologised.

I remember one of my friends telling us she got regularly slapped when we were about 11 late 80s/early 90s, same time period as OP and we were all pretty shocked. Definitely wasn't normal or widespread amongst anyone I knew.

I was smacked occasionally as a child, I’m a similar age to your DH. I remember seeing other children (friends, school mates) being smacked for being naughty too, it seemed pretty normal to me then.

I don’t agree with it and don’t do it to my own children.

People saying it was normal as of that makes it acceptable. I was raised by grandparents born in the 1930s and was never hit as a child. They were clearly forward thinkers as opposed to nasty cunts I guess. I can’t imagine ever hitting a child. Vile thing to do irrespective of the era.

Not normal in the 90's

My boys were born in 1990 and 1994 so a little outside your time frame. My husband and I didn’t ever smack them, after having been smacked myself as a child I was vehemently opposed to it. However I’m sorry to say I doubt it was uncommon at the time.

It definitely happened in my school even after the ban and I would have said that the vast majority of parents would have backed the school anyway. That would have been late 80s.

You have to remember that when his Dad was a child smacking by teachers, the neighbour if you pissed them off etc was completely normal. I was smacked only by my parents and it was awful but it wasn't a deterrent, just part and parcel of being a child. They just see it that they were raised that way too.

I think the laying across the lap is a bit weird. I thought everyone did that dance where your parent held your arm up and you tried to dance your arse away from their swinging hand to try to lessen the blow.

I have never smacked my children.

I think it was fairly normal. My parents smacked me. I got hut with a stick or an open hand. My mum would throw her slipper at my head and she got me every time. I was smacked in school on the bottom with a ruler in the late 80s. I then got smacked at home for bejng naughty at school. Smacking wasn't banned in state school until 87. Private schools didn't stop until 98 in England and Wales. It was later in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

My brother and I were smacked in the 90s - pants down, over the knee - by my mum. My dad also washed my mouth out with soap until I was sick for swearing as a teenager. They don't think they did anything wrong.

I was never smacked as a child but many my age were. I remember some children being smacked by teachers when I was in year one. The deputy head at my secondary school used to keep a slipper he used to smack children with in a glass case in his office!

I also remember in primary school in the mid 1980s, a particularly 'naughty' boy was put across the head teacher's lap in a whole school assembly. She didn't actually hit him, but took her shoe off and held it over him and gave a speech about how lucky we were and that it wasn't long since teachers were able to hit children and that we should all be grateful and behave

I had my mouth was out with soap. I also had chill put in my mouth for swearing.