Parental punishment

[Unbroken1]

Not sure how to re-interpret my childhood experience with being punished by my parents. I was raised as an only child in the 60s and 70s by two people that I now recognized as personality disordered. Both my parents were born during the Depression in the 1920s/30s, so growing up in an impoverished economic (as well as social) environment no doubt had a lot to do with who they were.

My dad's father abandoned his wife and 3 children when he was 4 or 5 and I've always wondered what his role model was for raising me. I think my grandfather must have been pretty cruel because dad adopted an authoritarian parenting model, embracing the "Spare the rod, spoil the child" approach. Spankings were common, but he never used a belt or any object. It was always formal - with an explanation before making me drop trou and administering a bare butt hand spanking. I guess this was considered the proper approach. It was also used in my grade school and high school but there, the wooden paddle was used. My eighth grade home room teacher was a religious fanatic who would quote scripture before using his customized paddle, which had holes drilled in it to reduce air friction.

But the parental punishment would be doled out in other ways as well: making me walk back to my school one night after I left something there at a Cub Scout meeting when I was about 8; withholding my coveted Zorro watch for a couple weeks as punishment for opening a Christmas gift early, and other times I can't recall but no doubt were similar. Yelling at me for spilling a milkshake in his new car. I became very accident prone as a child and had several times starting at 4 years old when I had to be stitched up for cuts I got while playing. I've always been a bit clumsy, and now I have carpal tunnel in both wrists which sometimes makes it hard to grasp objects without dropping them. I now see this as somaticized trauma as much as a result of decades of working at the computer.

On top of all that, he had been a sports multitalented in high school and college. But when I was enrolled in grade school football I quit. My Little League baseball efforts were halfhearted and so I quit that as well. I did enjoy tennis in junior high but the coach was another authoritarian and I became extremely insecure when playing in tournaments despite having talent enough to be ranked for a brief time.

At some point I must have subconsciously decided that mom and dad weren't trustworthy and I became rebellious, and starting smoking weed and doing LSD at the age of 13. While still managing to be an A student. That came to a head after dad searched my room one weekend when I was staying over at a friend's house and discovered my roach clip, rolling papers and a hash pipe which I had bought at the local head shop. He confronted me and was going to physically beat me but realized I was too big at that point when I grabbed his arm as he was going to hit me.

When he was dying from cancer in my 30s I was still caught up in playing the role of faithful son and the last time I saw him, I said if he ever needed to talk, I was there for him. Nothing but crickets. Three months later he was gone.

I believe now that dad pretty much wrote me off as a lost cause after that fight and engaged in the silent treatment with me for the rest of my life and only engaged in the most superficial of relationships with me, outsourcing the emotional effort to mom.  Calls with him lasted a few minutes before he would say "Well, here's your mother," before turning over the phone to her. He was a silent, angry and resentful man as far as I was concerned and rarely had any encouragement or kind words, even when I graduated with Honors from a famous design school.

I am now able to see the emotional damage that both my parents carried from their own extremely dysfunctional childhoods. Mom's method was much more emotional and she would by turns be generous with me but sometimes would declare that she had changed her mind about giving me something I wanted. She would also humiliate me for being a clumsy kid. She had been a 1950 Miss Texas competitor and tap dancing was her big "talent" so I suppose my lack of coordination was an embarrassment. Dad would keep her in expensive clothes and jewelry while I got the Sears versions of the toys I wanted. I was given a male dachshund puppy but it was given away after a short while because it didn't get along with mom's female poodle.

I'm encouraged by much more healthy parenting standards now but I can see how cruelty in raising children produces damaged adults - me being one - and I believe that the mass narcissism that we are seeing in our (American) culture is partly a toxic byproduct of the cruelty inflicted on children by their parents. I still tell myself it wasn't nearly as bad as my neighborhood friend, whose father would wail on him with a belt in the front yard for everyone to see while he screamed at him. The next day, my folks might be socializing at their house for cocktail hour so I suppose that was OK with them.

[notrightinthehead]

I am so sorry. What a sad childhood. And your father never got to know your real, wonderful self  because he was so stuck in his resentment and expectations. Congratulations that you survived that abuse in your childhood and you not only survived, you made something of yourself, in spite of it. Well done!

[Jolie40]

my parents were also cruel to me
we all went to family counseling when I was a teen & the counselor recognized that I was the scapegoat

did it change their behavior....no
mom still grabbed my arm & left her nail marks in my skin & threw dishes at me
he hit me SO long & hard when I was 6,  bet that I cried for an hour....still remember it like it happened yesterday

one thing from childhood, I promised myself that I would never, ever be like them
when we became parents, I made husband promise to never hit our child

we love being parents & tell our child "I love you" daily & also hug child every evening before bedtime

never heard I love you nor got hugs as a child
I'm so happy to turn that around & give to our child what I never had

[TimetoHeal]

I am so sorry about your childhood experience, unbroken (and I love your screen name!).

It is so disheartening to see/know the damage that it causes us.  I wonder, can it be undone completely?  I am half a century old, and it hasn't been.

And the inappropriate punishments, yes, I can relate.  Not to mention the physical punishments, I was "grounded" from TV for 2 weeks when I was 5 years old because I broke all my fingers trying to do a cartwheel.  You would think the pain of 5 broken fingers and wearing a cast would be "punishment" enough for a 5 year old child. But no, I wasn't supposed to be doing a cartwheel, so I had to be further punished.   

Thank God things have come as far as they have for children!