The following is a true story, which I would love to share with your readers. It happened to me in the early 1980s. My parents divorced when I was seven years old. My Mom had been a stay-at-home mother since I was born, but after the divorce she went back to work and needed to find someone to watch me over the summer.
So she arranged for my Aunt Janice (who was actually her first cousin) to take care of me. Aunt Janice was an attractive woman of around 40 at the time. She had a husband and a couple of teenage kids of her own, but when I stayed at her house it was usually just her and me.
Aunt Janice always acted very friendly and upbeat when my mother was around, but with children she was very stern and strict. The first day that I was at her house, she sat me down to give me a long list of rules – the most important one being: “Do as you’re told, and don’t talk back.”
Aunt Janice then informed me that she had an understanding with my mother that so long as she was taking care of me, she could punish me any way she saw fit. I was a quiet boy, and usually obedient, so I didn’t get punished much at home or at school. I wondered what kinds of punishments Aunt Janice might use. However, I was determined to follow her rules so as not to have to find out.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before an issue came up that got me in trouble. I was a shy, slightly anxious kid, and for some reason I had this weird fear of using the bathroom while away from home. I was shy about asking, and I felt self-conscious about the idea that someone might overhear me in the bathroom.
If I needed to use the bathroom at Aunt Janice’s, I would usually wait until she was in the basement doing laundry or upstairs doing housework. But around the third or fourth day that she was watching me, the first incident occurred. I was playing outside in the back yard and Aunt Janice was watching me from the kitchen table. I felt a very strong urge to pee but was too shy to go back inside and explain that I needed to use the bathroom.
After maybe an hour of trying to hold it, I ended up wetting my pants. I tried to hide my accident for a while, but when Aunt Janice came to check on me and saw that I had wet myself, she angrily ordered me inside. She threw my pants and underwear in the laundry and gave me a bath. While I was in the tub, she told me that I would be getting punished for wetting myself.
After drying me off and getting me into a change of clothes, she took me to the kitchen and told me to wait there. She brought a small wooden chair out of the closet and placed it facing a corner. “This is my naughty chair,” she informed me. “Any time you do something wrong, you will sit in this chair and face the corner until I tell you that you can get out.” She then marched me over to the corner and placed me in the chair.
I continued to have wetting accidents once or twice a week over the next couple of weeks. With each incident, my time in the naughty chair increased. Aunt Janice also introduced other punishments – no TV, no toys, no dessert, no going outside – to try to break me of the habit.
Around the third week, after discovering that I had wet my pants while watching TV and left a stain on the couch, she had had enough. After changing me once more, she sat me down and said: “Michael, I have tried every other punishment I can think of with you, and they are clearly not working. There is only one option left – a spanking!”
I felt my heart skip a beat when I heard that word. My mom had swatted me on the behind a couple of times, but had never taken me over her knee for a formal punishment.
My mental image of a spanking, which mostly came from TV shows and movies, was of a child draped over a grown-up’s lap, getting his bottom smacked with a hairbrush or a paddle until it was red and sore. Upon being told that I was going to get spanked, I was very frightened – but also a little curious, and maybe a little excited too, to find out how it would feel to be punished in that way.
Aunt Janice took me intto the kitchen, where she retrieved a wooden spoon from a drawer. She took one of the chairs from the kitchen table, placed it in the middle of the room, sat down, and motioned for me to come near.
When I was face-to-face with her, she asked me: “Does your mother spank you?” I shook my head. “Well, she should,” Aunt Janice replied. “Do you know what a spanking is? Do you understand what I am going to do?” I nodded. “Good – now take down your pants.”
I hesitated a little, but after she gave me a stern look I complied, dropping my pants to my ankles but leaving my underwear on. I was afraid Aunt Janice would tell me to lower my underwear as well, but instead she patted her lap to indicate that it was time for me to lie across it.
I did so then, once I was over her knee, my heart skipped another beat as I felt her peel back my underwear to bare my bottom. Then the wooden spoon was brought down on my bottom for the first time, with a loud smack. I winced at the sting. Aunt Janice raised the spoon again and administered another smack, and this time I let out a whimper.
She proceeded to give me about ten or 12 good, hard spanks – and by the end, I was really in tears.I was allowed to pull my pants up and rub my bottom for a few moments, then I was sent to the naughty chair.
After that first spanking, I made more of an effort to overcome my habit of wetting my pants – but I was not successful right away. I continued to have accidents about once a week, and each one resulted in a stinging, red bottom and a trip to the naughty chair.
Aunt Janice was a consistent believer in spanking children ‘the old-fashioned way’ – over the knee, on the bare bottom. She was also very creative in her choice of implements – I remember being spanked at different times with a wooden ruler, a spatula, and a fly swatter. I even got spanked once with a plastic toy shovel, the kind kids play with at the beach.
However, my story ends on a positive note. On my last day at Aunt Janice’s house that summer, she pointed out to me that I had managed to go a full two weeks without once wetting my pants. She even gave me a hug and told me she was proud of me. Then she added: “I guess all those spankings did you some good!”
Contributor: Mike