In an earlier story, I described how our three daughters – Katherine, Lizzy and Andrea – had a very clear rule set out for them regarding corporal punishment in school. Namely, if they were smacked at school, they must tell Mum and Dad, so we could then apply a follow-up spanking at home.
Furthermore, it was made plain to the girls that if they did not tell us about being smacked at school, and we subsequently found out about it, they would be in much greater trouble back home. As parents, our ‘secret weapon’ when they were in primary school was close contact with their deputy headmistress, who was in charge of discipline.
All spankings in school were recorded in punishment books, which the deputy headmistress would examine at the end of each week. We had asked her to inform us if the girls’ names ever appeared in these books – an arrangement of which the girls were unaware at the time.
One Friday evening, close to 10pm, our phone rang. It was the deputy headmistress. She apologised for calling us so late, explaining that she had been out for dinner, but wanted to speak to us before the matter slipped her mind. She informed us that Lizzy, who was then nine, had been given the ruler by her class teacher on Wednesday for being cheeky, and had received four smacks on each hand.
On one level, we were naturally furious that Lizzy had not told us about her punishment. However, on another we were not altogether surprised. Lizzy was the impulsive risk-taker among our three girls – a trait which didn’t always work to her advantage.
The girls had long been in bed and it was clearly too late in the evening to deal with this misbehaviour, so we decided to leave it to the morning and give Lizzy one last chance to confess.
On Saturday mornings we always had a big cooked breakfast around the kitchen table. Despite my underlying anger, I breezily steered the conversation to school issues, which would obviously give Lizzy an opportunity to admit to what had happened. Sadly, she ignored the opportunity, chatting away merrily with no hint that anything was on her mind.
I could see hubby was growing increasing annoyed with this. Finally, he raised his voice slightly and turned to his daughter: “Elisabeth, answer this next question very carefully – were you smacked in school this week?’
The atmosphere was suddenly very tense, with all eyes on Lizzy. I could see on her face that she was still calculating whether she could brazen things out, but ultimately she must have deduced that she had somehow been rumbled.
So she told us that yes she had, adding that she didn’t tell us because she thought the school smacking had been unnecessary! Naturally, that attitude was not the one I wanted to hear, and I could see hubby was boiling up too.
The night before, we had already decided that there were two separate offences which required two distinct punishments – one for the school offence and one for attempting to deceive us, the latter obviously being more serious.
I dismissed Katherine and Andrea from the table, and my husband began scolding Lizzy for her insolence and deception. I joined in and our daughter finally began to look penitent as I promised her that she had a good, hard spanking coming.
That was hubby’s cue to bare Lizzy’s bottom, sliding her pyjama trousers and knickers off before tipping her onto his lap. He began to administer a firm and thorough hand spanking on her bottom and upper thighs as I continued to scold her – though I doubt she was taking in much of what I was saying as her father reddened her backside.
I could see that my husband was coming to the end of his portion of the punishment, so I went to one of the kitchen drawers and retrieved ‘The Spoon’. This was a stout wooden spoon we kept for smacking bottoms – it was ever used for cooking!
For someone who has never used a wooden spoon to spank, or experienced one across their own bottom, it might not look like much. It’s smaller than the back of a hairbrush and visually less daunting than a strap or cane. Nevertheless, it is outstandingly effective in correcting misbehaviour – because of the spoon’s curved striking surface, all the force of a smack is painfully concentrated on one relatively small area of the child’s bottom.
I pulled out another chair and as hubby finished his hand spanking, he stood Lizzie up and sent her over to me. She wailed as soon as she saw The Spoon.
I spanked her slowly and carefully, until my daughter’s already red backside was adorned with a dozen deeper red ‘kisses’ from The Spoon, each one of which evoked a howl of protest.
After Lizzy had performed the customary ‘spanky dance’ that most children do, I sent her upstairs to take a shower and reflect on her misbehaviour. What we hadn’t yet told her was that that was only her first punishment.
So it was that at lunchtime, hubby and I went to see her Lizzy in her room, where we found her lying on her bed (face down, of course!), reading a book. By now her attitude was much improved and as we questioned her, she acknowledged that she should have told us about the school spanking.
You can probably imagine the look of pure dismay which spread over her face when I told her: “Because you were a naughty girl and didn’t tell us what happened at school, you are going to be punished for that too. We’ll give your bottom a little time to recover but tomorrow evening, you will be strapped.”
I told you in my last story about our ‘family strap’ – an old belt we used for more serious punishments when the girls were little. By this time, however, they were older and things had moved on, and we had acquired a proper, heavier school strap. It’s perhaps ironic that in this day and age, when spankings are frowned upon, that parents can acquire a whole variety of straps at the click of a mouse (obviously sold for ‘bedroom’ use!) but in our day, proper punishment straps were harder to come by. In the end, we were helped out again by the deputy headmistress, who was able to get one for us through a school supplier.
We got the strap the year before when Katherine entered grammar school, deciding that was an appropriate time to introduce a more severe implement. It became known as ‘The Big Girl Strap’. By the time of the incident I’m describing, only Katherine’s bottom had experienced it. The plan had been for Lizzy and Andrea to be ‘promoted’ to it only once they too moved up to secondary school.
However, in this case, we decided that Lizzy’s deception was enough to earn her an ‘upgrade’ two years early. So, when she was called into the living room on Sunday evening, the brown leather school strap was waiting for her on the sideboard.
As always in our house, a hand spanking came first. As I positioned Lizzy’s bare bottom over my lap, I could still see the marks from her encounter with The Spoon. That didn’t deter me in the least from giving her a very sound warm-up, however, which soon had her in floods of tears.
Hubby then positioned Lizzie over the arm of the sofa and held her firmly in the punishment position. It was only at this point that I told my errant daughter that she was going to be getting The Big Girl Strap. As you can imagine, that provoked a flood of new tearful protests, all to no avail of course.
On a technical note, I have to say that the extra weight of the proper school strap, compared to the belt we had originally used, made it much easier for the parent, with gravity doing a lot of the work. Lizzy flinched as I rested the leather across her already well-beaten backside, and howled as I delivered the first of nine firm strokes.
That would be the last time Lizzy would ever try to deceive us about a school spanking – but, sadly for her, it would not be the last time her bottom felt The Big Girl Strap.
Contributor: Nicola