Corporal punishment was a pretty regular event in my family when I was a child. Spankings from my mother, which were usually done with a wooden spoon or hairbrush, were quite painful, but not painful enough to inspire real terror.
It was my father, who would use his leather belt, that I really feared. For that reason, I would tend to take more risks when my father was out of town. Strangely, however, the spanking that had the greatest impact on me was given by my mother. This is how it happened.