Were your parents violent?

[freedomfromforum]

Yes, and they still are.

I'm un-learning violence.

[Zazzy]

Well, I used to get a beating from my old man when I did fuck up real seriously. And well, it could get rough sometimes, but I don't really remember ever having a broken bone.

It is good your dad didn't break your bones, but this seems like a strange standard.

Children can't be reasoned with most of the time, so it all comes down on actually letting them know that something is bad by administrating some pain from time to time, so that they don't fuck up as I did, and even if they did, they actually know that they did fuck up and apologize, and avoid that kind of behavior in the future.

I'm glad you thought it was good for you, but generally, what do you think it teaches children when those in power lash out angrily at them, even when they have screwed up? What does this do to teach them impulse control or emotional intelligence? My father was beaten as a child (at home and by nuns at school), and he is still so angry and hurt about it that he can't even talk about it without anger and pain after all these years (he's 70 now). And man, does he hate nuns.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

My parents were utterly remarkable people. They had seven children and never struck one of us, at any time, for anything.

My father had a great gift for the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger speech. He could sit one of us down and explain in great and painful detail how we had let him down, and maybe we didn't appreciate his love enough to try and make him proud of us. Mam had a simpler, but equally effective tactic: 'How would you like your father to see what you've done?' I'd've sooner had a beating, I think.

A few years before the end of his life, I asked Da why he went to all the trouble to lecture us about misbehavior, when all my friends seemed to have gotten a dose of the strap, or a good, old fashioned thumping. I'll never forget what he said:

'I didn't want you kids to grow up like I did. If I beat you to correct your behavior, you'd have gotten the lesson that hurting someone was a way to correct a behavior of which you didn't approve. That, and any man who would hit a child is a contemptible coward.'

Greatest man I've ever known.

Boru

ps: Orogenicman can vouch for the fact that, if you let me, I'll go on and on about Da.

[Fruity]

TGAC, I'm so sorry you had to live through that. You remind me of my brother.

My parents had difficult up-bringing, so in my opinion, they did the best they could with us. They used the belt, but it's nothing compared to what they lived. What they did that really affected me was the way they shoved religion up our noses and controlled our lives to the core. I mean, let's face it, the fact that I had to escape a fucking Bible Institute after being locked in a room for two months at age 17 pretty much gives it up.

Then there is my brother. My brother now seems angry most of the time. When he speaks he says everything with a temper. He is very intelligent and when he is talking to someone who proves to be very ignorant he gets frustrated and this leads him to express himself with aggressiveness, which others relate to arrogance. He hates kids, except mine. No, really. In fact, on Saturday he came to visit with his wife of 5 years and they told me that they're getting a divorce. His wife wants kids, and he doesn't. He loves my kids, but that's just because they're mine. We are very close. He doesn't even like my sister's kids. Anyway, he was bullied, too. He has Tourette Syndrome and kids found this amusing. I am a year and half older than him, so we went to the same schools most of the time (keep in mind I went to around 20 schools, since my parents moved us around due to the "ministry"). He was bullied in every school. Since I was his older sister, I defended him. I was the tom-boy sister who got in fights all the time to defend him. Most of the time he didn't know I did this, because I didn't want him to feel worse. My parents didn't allow him to defend himself, since he had to give the other cheek. I had to do it, though, because this was the only way they would space out the beatings, spitting, etc. Now, people question why my brother is so aggressive. I was there to see everything, so I get it. That's probably why he makes the exception with me. We get along. My parents feel guilty, too. They have said they're sorry so many times, that now I feel sorry for them.

[Creed of Heresy]

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Some weeks or a few months ago, the most dispicable member of this forum wrote a reply to one of my posts, stating that if I was beaten more often as a child, I would be "a better person". That kept me thinking for quite a while and recent events here surrounding a scandal in which children were violently abused, I got to think about that subject even more.


My parents actualy did beat me and they did it frequently for a very long time despite it being illegal. Mostly my father, who would use a wooden stick/club, would demand that I pull my pants down. If I wouldnt, he would thrash the thing arround my face until I pulled them down. Occasionaly he would use his hands, but not very often. My mother would just use whatever she could get her hands on. Books, cables, boxes, plastic bottles, whatever. She had a pritty hard punch that was capable of throwing a child off a chair.

The beatings were not always given for " bad things", yet sometimes they were. For example when I sat on my mums glasses once and broke them, or when I jumped into a pool in my clothes at a bbq by friends of my parents or when I started crying in a toy store when I wouldnt get a something that I really wanted. For my parents it was mainly a method that was supposed to "create interrest" and at one point in my life it unfortunatly would be combined and get worse with another sad chapter in my life.

The "creating interrest" part is a rather sad part that most people aswell as I myself cannot grasp and which my parents (a few years ago) appologised for. My parents for example payed for piano lessons when I was 6 or 7, I was not interested, so they started beating me. The beating was supposed to get me "interested" in learning the piano and I will never forget the vicious beating I got when I was kicked out of the piano lessons for "lack of interrest". Yet the beatings would continue, since my parents would give me guitar lessons, flute lessons, french lessons and other of which they thought I could gain interest for by being beaten to the point that I couldnt even sit. My parents were obsessed with the idea of "creating a child" that was overly intelligent. reading, counting and most of the things which were mentioned above had to be learned years before I entered school. Later in my life I came to the conclusion that to them I was more a science project than a son. I know that my father felt bad about it. I know that he absolutly hated what he was doing and that my mother pressured him into doing it. He would later become very depressed about this and was the first one who wanted to talk things through and appologise.

The beating which are connected with a rather tragic chapter of my life stand at the start of a tragedy which made me the fucked up person I am. I was viciously bullied from day one that I entered school at the age of 6. I was forced to eat paper, dead flies, earth worms and other bugs. Forced to lick clean the black board and to lick clean the organic waste bin in the class. I was regularey shoved into an electric fence on the way to school, once ( I remeber very clearly) I entangled myself and it took me five minutes to get out whilest getting shocked every 3 or 5 seconds. It was a jump into a pile of shit. I had known violence before, but never encountered violence on such a collective scale. For a young child looking forward to school, it destrys a part of you. Anyway, I remember one faitfull day in my life: the first parent-teacher confrence and I looked forward to it because I thought my parents would help me.
They came home and beat the living crap out of me. The teacher had told them that I had done all these things because "I wanted attention" and not because I was forced to. To this day I dont know if that was done because she hadn`t noticed or because of whatever other reason. On some occasions, some of the grade school teachers would also give beatings. But important is, it changed my life on a massive scale. From age 6 to age 15 I would be bullied and abused on a scale that I dont feel comfortable writing about here. Things were done to me that gave me nightmares that will probably follow me into my grave. And all the while, whilest I was forced to do horrible things to amuse a bunch of wicked sadists, I had to be scared that my parents would find out. Because no matter what I was found doing. Was it being forced to eat bugs, or much worse, my parents never believed that it was forced. And every conversation between them and a teacher would start with something like "Oh that attention deficite". Way to school - beating, school - beating, way home - beating, home crying and sometimes beating, for 9 years.

At age 15 or 14 my mother smashed a book arround my head while I was writing my homework, the pencil I had was rammed deep into my teethridge. I freaked, grabbed a book and threw it into her face, she fell to her knees, I grabbed a desk lamp lamp and was about to bash it arround her head, but I couldnt. I just could not hurt my mum. I threw it away and ran out of the house crying. I came back later and my parents didn`t say a word. In fact, not many words would be spoken between us for years until I was maybe 18 or 19. They wouldnt have a problem with me dying my hair, doing drugs, drinking or whatever, and I dont know if they did it out of ignorance or recognition of their mistakes.
The bullying though, continued until I was 15, it left the deepest scars I have. Things were done to me which go beyond the usual schoolyard bully and which I have never told anyone. In fact, despite my hands shaking, I had no problem writing down the story of me and my parents and my arms only started shaking when I got to mentioning the bullying. The treatment my parents gave me might be vicious and wrong, but it absolutly nothing compared to what my generation did to me.

I am in a way suprised that my parents didnt leave the psychological scares on me that some and I myself expected. My explaination is that other traumatic events in my life simply overshadowed those. But I have to addmit, that when recently telling this a good friend, there was a felling of relief. I have also confronted my parents, who appologised in an earnest way that fixed our releationship to great extent in the last year. So to some extent I dont know why I opened this thread, I have a big issue with writing about my bad expiriences, I am not the kind of person who justifies his actions with such expiriences, and I have absolutly no idea what I could personaly gain through this or what others could gain.
To some extent I honestly have to say that I wanted to show a disgusting person who reveiled that he beats his kids a frankensteins monster. But maybe if you want to share some of your expirences, this could hopefully be more than that.

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I'll respond in more detail tomorrow. For now though...I've been up for 25 hours after 2 hours of sleep and I'm crashing off the adderall GNIGHT

[Fruity]

mehmet wrote:

Children can't be reasoned with most of the time, so it all comes down on actually letting them know that something is bad by administrating some pain from time to time, so that they don't fuck up...

Excuse me? I reason with my children. My oldest is seven and my little one is one year and a half. I sit and talk with my oldest and he reasons. He is a great critical thinker in his capabilities. His skills will improve in time, but dude, I'll be there to help him develop those skills to the maximum potential. I have never had the need to inflict pain, and the need does not exist anyway. Need to inflict pain? I love you, so here, hurt! That's fucked up. That's so... godly. My son stands out from other kids, because he tries to reason all the time when there is conflict. He will stand there and discuss the issues in hand. I know many of the other kids that surround him are disciplined physically, and these kids usually resort to screaming, crying, or hitting when they are in conflict with other kids. Yes, my son gets mad, but he problem solves.

Even my baby. He loves to throw tantrums where he hits his own head on the floor when he gets mad. I pick him up, sit him in his high chair, buckle him up, place the little table cover over his lap, and then I sit next to him until he calms down. I do this so he doesn't hurt himself, but he hates it. He wants to play on the floor. So now, when I begin to pick him up, I can feel it in his breath how he starts to settle. He knows he better calm down. When I put him back down he changes his behavior. It doesn't work all the time, but we'll get there.