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I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, and while spanking was, I think, still in common practice in my neighborhood.
Though it had already gotten a certain stigma attached to it, mainly from well-intentioned liberals who could not differentiate between abuse and discipline that came from a loving place.
My folks were (and are) progressive liberals with strong social consciences,
However, they also are very old-fashioned in their beliefs about raising kids.
I have a set of cousins, the children of my mom’s sister, who also grew up in a spanking household and whose parents shared the same views on it as my parents did.
Like my mom, my aunt was a ‘first response spanker’.
Though she tended to let more things slide than my mom did (probably because of the sheer number of offspring there),
Spankings were not rare and unlike my house, they were always done in the open in front of whatever family happened to be there.
With the exception of the youngest boy, I’d seen each of my cousins on the receiving end of a spanking at least once, bent over and getting the paddle applied to their bottoms.
My aunt also believed in the principle of ‘while you are a guest here, I expect you to follow the rules’
I had found myself in that bent-over position a handful of times when I stayed there over the years.
My mom called me on a Friday and asked if I wanted to spend the weekend at her house.
At first, I thought Mom just wanted to offer me some company so I wouldn’t be all by myself – but while that may have been in true in part, I subsequently found out that she was watching three of my cousins that weekend, in addition to my youngest brother, so perhaps she may also have been looking for ‘reinforcements’!
The oldest, my cousin Judi, was at college.
The oldest male cousins, who were twins were on a traveling hockey team and my aunt and uncle were acting as chaperones at some tournament taking place over the border in Canada.
My dad was there, too, because the older of my younger brothers was on a team in a different age division.
My sis was at a sleepover, so that left my brother Patrick, Julia, Jason, and Jeremiah for my mother to corral.
The evening started out well.
Though I was not of legal age, Mom let me drink while I was there and I was enjoying some sparkling wine.
Mom was making pasta with meatballs, a fave of the youngsters.
My little brother seemed to be enjoying having Jeremiah around, maybe because it meant he was not the youngest for a change.
That left Julia and Jason. Julia was in the midst of her young teen girl ennui and everything in her body language, tone and expression said she wanted to be anywhere else but where she was.
I tried to engage her, but the monosyllabic responses I was getting caused me to throw in the towel.
Jason was always moody and sullen, even on a good day, and his mood that night was apparently compounded because he was missing out on some outing with his school buds.
His face was planted into the screen of the Gameboy he brought with him and he barely acknowledged anyone else’s existence.
My mom called everyone down for dinner around five, and while Patrick and Jeremiah were eager eaters and answered the bell the first time, it took some additional cajoling to get Julia and Jason to the kitchen table.
Julia was playing the ‘I’m not hungry’ card and asked to be excused.
Mom was being unusually patient but shot down the request with a terse: “No.
If you don’t want to eat, fine – but you can stay here until we have.”
That engendered a huff and some mumbles that again Mom let pass, although I could sense her growing agitation.
Perhaps as a passive-aggressive way to get herself away from the table, Julia started fussing with Jason, whom she was seated next to.
First, she said she wanted the Gameboy after dinner.
That started an argument over what their mom had said about sharing it.
My mom refereed that one and the table fell silent for a few moments.
Then Julia piped up that Jason was kicking her under the table.
Jason said he wasn’t.
Then Julia told Jason to move over and stop crowding her, punctuating the request with an elbow to Jason’s ribs.
Mom intervened again, telling them both to knock it off and settle down.
The sniping kept up in muted tones for a few more minutes before erupting again when Julia shrieked ‘stop kicking me!’
She thrust another elbow into Jason.
He in turn slapped her forearm and she made a move to slap him back.
Their voices were raised and there were several words used by both that definitely were not appropriate.
I can’t say for sure exactly what happened next but in the scrum that ensued, someone’s hand made contact with the glass milk pitcher on the table, tipping it over onto a porcelain salad bowl.
The collision broke the handle of the pitcher, put a significant chip in the bowl, sent salad flying and a gusher of milk spilling across the table.
Mom jumped up and shooed everyone away from the table in case there was any broken glass.
Then, very calmly, she took command of the clean-up, dispatching me for paper towels, clearing away broken dishes, and inspecting the floor and table for any stray shards.
Satisfied, she turned her attention to Julia and Jason, who were standing a few feet away against a wall, both with expressions of fear frozen on their faces.
Julia especially was trembling and there were tears in her eyes.
Mom pointed at her.
“I want you to go upstairs to the closet and bring down the paddle that’s in there,” she said firmly but in a very even tone.
Julia dissolved into sobs and began begging forgiveness.
“It’s too late for that, young lady –
I warned you both and now there are going to be consequences.”
She turned to Jason and told him to take one of the kitchen chairs and place it in the middle of the room.
Julia returned in a few moments with the paddle – a firm plywood ping pong bat that had the rubber removed from one side and then sanded and varnished.
Julia shakily handed it over to Mom.
Mom sat in the chair and had Julia and Jason stand side by side.
By this time, the other boys and I had returned to the table and were about six feet from where Julia and Jason stood.
My mother waved the paddle at both.
“I warned you both – ” she said.
Julia, meantime, had dissolved into a fresh set of tears.
Jason and Julia stood to mom’s right, hands at side and heads down, avoiding eye contact.
“Look at me,” Mom snapped.
“Get your heads up so I can look you in the eye.
” With that, the pre-spanking lecture began in earnest – an event that always seemed longer to me when I was a ‘feature player’ than when I was just a spectator.
My own experience with mom’s lengthy and elaborate spanking routine had found this part to be the worst of the whole ordeal, even beyond the physical discomfort of the pending spanking.
The pre-spanking lecture while you stood there exposed was the ultimate in embarrassment, especially on those occasions where it was witnessed by others.
I had not seen either of these two spanked in at least a couple of years.
Julia had been on puberty’s doorstep last time I saw my aunt paddle her.
My mother motioned for Julia to come over to her.
All of the spankings my aunt gave were with you bent over grabbing the seat of a chair.
Over the knee spankings were foreign to my cousins and it took a few seconds for Julia to get in position.
Her toes touched the floor and her hands grabbed the chair rungs.
Mom did no talking once the lecture ended and you went over her knee.
When Julia was properly positioned, the paddle went up and then landed with a firm thwack on her bare bottom.
Her legs did a small ‘fish tail’ and she croaked out:
“One, ma’am.” Like at our house, they had to count swats at their house, but my aunt insisted on the ‘ma’am’ after each one.
My mom had a set cadence of swat, count, pause, pause, thwack.
She definitely was not using maximum force but the swats were firm enough to elicit yelps, squeaks and ouches and have Julia swim kick and buck from time to time.
Her voice getting higher pitched with each swat.
Mom gave swats in groups of 12, and this day Julia took two dozen before mom let her up.
After a few moments, Mom sent her back to trade places with Jason and called him over.
He shuffled over to mom and draped himself across her knee.
I don’t know for sure if mom was paddling him harder, but the swats sounded louder and Jason seemed to buck and twist more under them.
I could tell he was trying to be macho and tough it out but there was a distinctive grunt that he made with each swat and his breathing was becoming more rapid.
He too earned two dozen swats and when he was told to get up, he stood in place.
Mom banished Julia to an empty corner of the kitchen and Jason to a corner between the pantry and the refrigerator.
Mom had us clear away plates and load the dishwasher, and during that time she disappeared upstairs.
She called down for me to get dessert – chocolate eclairs – out and put them on the table.
When she returned, the eclairs were on the table and Julia and Jason were still planted nose-first in their respective corners.
From her apron pocket, mom pulled two small hotel-size bars of Ivory soap and a wooden hairbrush – the rectangular mahogany one that had been so often used on my bottom, including for my last spanking not more than a year and a half earlier.
Mom sat down again in the kitchen chair and called Julia and Jason out.
Seeing the brush, Jason gulped and Julia started to tremble and cry again.
“I heard some highly inappropriate language from both of you; language that I don’t allow in this house.”
She summoned over Julia, who mini-stepped her way over and was a mess of tears even before she went over Mom’s knee.
In terms of impact, these swats were definitely firmer and produced a crisp smack that echoed around the room.
The brush, from my own experience, packed a wallop.
It was probably four inches long by three or so inches wide, with a long handle.
Mom kept that same cadence and brought swat after swat down, sometimes on the opposite side, sometimes in the same spot.
Swats six and seven were reserved for the tops of Julia’s thighs where they met her bottom.
She let out a throaty howl with each and scissor kicked her legs.
After delivering the 12th firm smack, Mom told Julia, now a mess of tears, to stand up and for Jason to come and take her place.
Jason climbed over Mom’s lap.
I don’t think he was anticipating the intensity of the brush and he let out a clear gasp after the first swat and found it increasingly difficult to hang on to his macho persona as the brush found its target, especially the two that landed at the tops of his thighs.
Those swats broke him and he began to cry openly.
When he had gotten his dozen, he was allowed to stand up and he vigorously rubbed his bottom.
Julia and Jason had one further indignity to suffer.
Mom unwrapped the Ivory bars and popped one into each of their mouths.
They were dispatched back to the corner, and while we ate our eclairs, they got to keep a bar of soap between their teeth.
When we finished dessert, mom called them out, took out the soap and rinse their mouths.
Then they had to finish cleaning up the kitchen before getting sent to bed early.
A more subdued but far more polite Julia and Jason sat down gingerly for breakfast on Saturday.
I could detect a wince or two when they shifted in their chairs.
My mom never made mention of the previous night and she never told my aunt what happened.
Nevertheless, Julia and Jason still got in trouble at home for the incident at their aunt’s house.
Jeremiah squealed, giving my aunt all the details, and on Sunday night Julia and Jason found themselves, according to my cousin Judi, in the kitchen each getting a dozen licks with a vinyl blind wand – known as ‘The Stick’ in their house.
