I was brought up in what was then West Germany during the 1970s. Both myself and my older sister were regularly spanked when we misbehaved. However, perhaps because of having children of different genders, my mother always made sure that spankings were given in private, so I never actually watched Christina (who is five years my senior) getting spanked at home. However, during one summer we went to visit my mother’s sister in her house in the countryside.
Aunt Anna was what people in the village called a spinster, a term she wore with a kind of quiet pride. She had never married, and though some whispered about her solitary life, she seemed perfectly content in her own company. Her days were marked by a steady routine—early mornings tending her garden, afternoons spent baking or mending, and evenings with a book or her embroidery. Aunt Anna was practical, self-reliant, and fiercely independent, traits that shaped not only her lifestyle but also her approach to discipline. She believed in order, respect, and the value of hard work, and she expected the same from anyone under her roof. Without children of her own, she treated us with a mixture of sternness and a certain old-fashioned affection, as if determined to pass on the lessons she valued most. Her unmarried status seemed to give her a sense of authority—she was beholden to no one, and her word was law in her home. There was a brisk efficiency to everything she did, and a no-nonsense air that made it clear she would not tolerate any nonsense from us either.
Aunt Anna had no children of her own but certainly knew how to use discipline when necessary, as we were to find out during our visit. Aunt Anna certainly did not care about privacy as much as my mother did. So it came about that after I acted up at the breakfast table one morning, my aunt pulled me close, smacked my bottom sharply several times as I stood there. I cried a little bit but it wasn’t as bad as what I usually got from our mother.
One afternoon towards the end of our stay, Christina went out to spend some time with some other girls in the village whose acquaintance she had made during the visit. Unfortunately for her, she lost track of time and was late home.
Aunt Anna had ordered Christina to be home for dinner at six o’clock and when she hadn’t returned by half past, my aunt began to worry that something might have happened to her. She eventually decided to go looking for Christina herself, leaving me in the house by myself.
It wasn’t very long before my aunt returned with my sister more or less in tow. We were ordered to sit down at the dinner table and the meal was eaten pretty much in awkward silence.
As the meal came to an end, we were about to jump up from our seats and help with the washing up but Aunt Anna had other ideas. “Christina, come here to me.”
My aunt pulled her chair out from the table and turned it around, to sit facing outwards. The kitchen was filled with the golden light of the late afternoon, dust motes swirling in the air. The room felt suddenly smaller, the clatter of cutlery and plates fading into a tense hush. Christina hesitated, her face pale and her eyes wide, glancing at me for a moment as if hoping for some escape. Aunt Anna’s expression was stern and unyielding as she patted her lap, making her intentions clear. With slow, reluctant steps, Christina approached, her hands trembling slightly at her sides. Aunt Anna guided her gently but firmly over her knee, arranging her so that her legs dangled awkwardly and her face was turned away from me. The chair creaked under their weight, and for a moment, everything was still except for the faint ticking of the kitchen clock.
Then, with a practiced motion, my aunt began smacking my sister’s bottom. The sharp sound of each smack echoed off the tiled walls, mingling with Christina’s startled gasps. At first, she tried to stifle her cries, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut, but as the spanking continued, her composure broke. Tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks, her face flushed with a mix of pain and embarrassment. She began to sob openly, her shoulders shaking with each smack. I sat frozen at the table, my own heart pounding, feeling a strange mix of sympathy and relief that it wasn’t me. Aunt Anna’s face remained set and determined, her hand rising and falling in a steady rhythm. The kitchen seemed to shrink around us, the only sounds Christina’s crying, the smacks, and the relentless ticking of the clock. Even the birds outside seemed to have gone silent.
At last, after what felt like an eternity, Aunt Anna stopped. She let Christina up, who stood there for a moment, wiping her eyes and sniffling, her face red and streaked with tears. Aunt Anna’s sternness softened just a little as she told us to do the washing up between us.
I tried to engage Christina in a whispered conversation about how much it had hurt etc as we washed the plates and cutlery but she was in no mood
