I married Jason in the mid 80s, and at the time his son Steven had just turned five years old. Jason’s ex had a big drug problem so he had had custody of the boy since they broke up, when Steven was just two.
I think it was this troubled background which caused Jason to go much easier on Steven than he might have done under any other circumstances, and when we first got married, it felt like I didn’t have the right to interfere or overrule my husband on such matters. I felt sorry for the kid too, which probably didn’t help.
The top and bottom of this was that Steven became an increasingly disruptive influence on our household and our relationship. I bit my lip and stood my ground for a couple of months, then on a phone call to my mom, I unloaded to her about the problems we were having.
“Well, it sounds to me like that little boy needs his bare bottom thoroughly spanking,” Mom said. That surprised me, to be honest – she was never the biggest spanker in the world and I could only remember one such occasion, when she put my little brother across her knee one time. I think I had gotten the odd whack when I was very young but I had been too little to really remember it.
I made some non-committal noises to Mom, but she had planted the seed of thought in my head. The next evening, we had just finished having a sandwich while watching TV (we had been out for a substantial lunch), and I asked my stepson to pick up his plate and bring it into the kitchen for me. He turned around to face me and with a look of defiance, he replied: “Ah, get it yourself.”
Something snapped inside me. I advanced on the boy, saying: “I have had enough of this behaviour. This ends now.” I dragged him over to the couch, where I quickly yanked down his elasticated shorts and briefs in one swift action. Now bare-bottomed and yelling in protest, I put the boy over my knee, lifted his shirt tail clear and with one arm firmly around his waist, I began to spank his bum.
The protests turned quickly to out-and-out crying as I used my hand on his behind, slapping his rear end briskly and hard. Steven’s bum began to redden quickly, but I didn’t stop until that little boy was a mess of tears and his backside and thighs were scarlet.
“Now, get to bed!” I shouted. “I don’t want to see your face down here until the morning, do you understand?” He ran screaming from the room, desperately trying to get his shorts and underpants back up at the same time. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen his private parts, as I bathed him, but he seemed hugely embarrassed by the experience.
For my own part, I felt pretty bad. Jason had a look of shock on his face at having witnessed the punishment, and we didn’t have a lot to say to each other for the rest of the night, but had he said anything, I was ready to defend my position and my actions.
To my relief, in the morning we not only had a chastened boy but actually a very kind and obedient one. Steven came straight up to me in the kitchen and hugged my legs, saying: “I’m sorry, Mommy.” It was the first time he had called me that, and I felt very close to him all of a sudden.
Before getting breakfast, I took him into the lounge and put him on my knee for a few minutes while I cuddled him and explained that I still loved him, but that if he was naughty in future, Mommy would spank.
After about a year, I acquired a hairbrush for spanking his bottom, and the extra sting that produced made sure Steven was always good for me, and we are still incredibly close even today.
Contributor: Ruth