Before my son turned eight, he was spanked most often with my hand or a wooden spoon. These weren’t light spankings, but they were a far cry from the tannings I got from my (step)mom and her hairbrush.
Around his eighth birthday, I couldn’t help but notice those spankings were having a decreased effect on his behaviour and I knew it was time to break out the present I got from Mom at my first baby shower – a heavy, old-fashioned wooden hairbrush.
He eventually pushed the right (or wrong) button one afternoon. I clearly remember he had been spanked the day before for not listening to me. On this day, I told him he needed to put his bike away and come inside. A few moments later, he was – very sullenly – putting his bike gear way and having a bit of an attitude. I gave him a quick smack on his jeans and went about my business for the next hour or so.
Then I happened to look outside – and there was his bicycle, lying in our yard, not put away in the garage at all. I admit that was a fairly minor offence but it was his second day in a row of not listening to me. As I related in a previous story, my own first hairbrush spanking was for not doing a good enough job cleaning my room – not even disobedience; just failure to do the job properly.
I took him my son to the living room and told him to not move a muscle. I went to my bedroom, opened the top drawer and dug down to the very bottom. There sat the brush, nearly untouched since it was gifted to me more than eight years earlier. I felt the weight in my hand and recalled the absolute fire its close relative had so often delivered to my own backside. I took a breath, screwed up my resolve and went to grab a chair.
Brush in one hand, kitchen chair in the other, I returned to the living room and took a seat. My two daughters, then six and three, were in the room as well. My youngest was only a few months old and likely asleep, though I can’t swear to that.
I took my boy by the waistband of his jeans and undid the button and zipper, then yanked them to the floor. His briefs followed directly and there he stood, nothing on between his waist and knees. I began the lecture. Much like Mom had with me all those times, I didn’t hold back. I let him know that laziness and disobedience were not allowed in our house and that he was about to learn a lesson be would long remember. I added that the brush was going to be something he was not ready for, and that he was going to be a very sorry young man. Then across my lap he went.
I had gained experience spanking my cousins as a babysitter years earlier, and I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish – a tail end that would be sore for a couple days or more. I gave my boy no time to brace himself – nearly the second I had him in position, I let the rain of fiery hairbrush smacks commence.
They came fast as they came hard, and it took him a few seconds to even mentally catch up. Then the howling started – but this was just the beginning. I wasn’t just trying to get his attention, I was looking to get him to the point where he was sure he couldn’t take another smack.
Once I had him there, the spanking continued for several minutes, eventually moving down to his thighs. I noticed out of the corner of my eyes that the girls were no longer disinterested, but rather watching wide-eyed and likely fearful.
Finally, when he was a complete sobbing wreck and his bottom was deep red with splotches that bordered on purple, I returned him to his feet and yanked his clothing back up. I gave him a few seconds to stand there, still howling, and then told him: “You have exactly two minutes to get your little butt back outside and have that bike put away, or we will repeat this discussion at bedtime.”
I had never seen him move so fast to obey me. I’m pretty sure he was back in the garage with the bike in under a minute, his lesson well learned.
After months of spankings becoming more common for him, it would be nearly a month before we needed his second dose of the hairbrush.
Contributor: Erica