I grew up in the late 50s and early 60s, when girls always wore skirts and dresses, and lots of crinolines. One time, my sister took one of my favourite light pink petticoats and wore it to school. When she came home I noticed it peeking out from underneath her hemline. I grabbed her skirt […]

I remember the time me and my brother (who was two years older) got spanked over a water-related escapade. We had come home from school and were going out to a church dinner that evening. We were sent upstairs to take a bath and get ready. During the transition from my brother getting out of […]

I grew up in a big African-American family (three daughters, two sons) in Alabama, US, in the early 1980s, and spankings were an almost daily part of family life. When we were little, the boys got their pants taken down and us girls got our skirts raised up and put over Momma’s knee for a […]

This is a memory from when I was four. My mother was talking on the telephone with a friend. She was in the upstairs telephone room, at the opposite end of the house from the nursery, and nanny was with my brother Jeff, then three. Jeff was getting up from his nap. I too had […]

When I was 10, I thought all physical discipline would end at our private school, at least for girls. We generally got some form of detention. I had a friend named Darla who lived just a few blocks from me. We were the two leaders of the girls in the class and often were in […]

I had just turned seven and was playing at the park with some friends. Our mothers were sitting on benches a few hundred yards away, where they could see us but we were too far to call. Late in the afternoon, a kid came and told me my mother wanted me to come because it […]

Mom was having a tea at 3.30 that spring afternoon. The cook had made wonderful cookies for the occasion and placed them on covered platters in the pantry. The cook then had the afternoon off, and the maid would do the serving while mom poured the tea. I was six, Jeff was five, and my […]

This extract from The American Home (now Better Homes and Gardens) of April 1948 was kindly sent to us by an anonymous contributor. I Believe Children Should Be Spanked! by Jennie P. Bramer I have just spanked one of my young sons, and the peace that has settled over the household encourages me to say a […]

My brother and I had a typical sibling relationship growing up – in other words, we often fought like cat and dog. Although I was two years younger than my brother, I must say usually I was the tormentor and he was the tormentee. After all, he wasn’t allowed to hit me because he was […]

“I said no!” my mother yelled as she pulled my little hand out of the enormous plant and gave it a sharp slap. I was four years old at the time, and I had been jealous of my little two-year-old sister Sara the whole day. It seemed as though she had been getting all of […]