During the mid-1980s I was a member of an evangelical house church in the north of the UK. The church had very conservative values, including on the subject of bringing up children.
The church emphasised the teachings of the book of Proverbs, including the use of spanking in disciplining youngsters. Corporal punishment was thus quite openly discussed, especially when young parents met, and although I was still single and childless at that point, being just out of university, I did overhear several spankings, and on this one memorable occasion actually witnessed one (or part of it).
The church had several ‘house groups’ which met at various times midweek as an addition to Sunday worship. These mostly consisted of Bible study and prayer. Each house group had two leaders (usually a husband and wife pairing) and met at their home.
Although it wasn’t a common occurrence, when married couples who were members of the house group couldn’t get a babysitter they would occasionally bring their children with them. This could be difficult, as the kids were expected to be quiet and attentive even at quite young ages, and I’m sure that lack of attention often resulted in a sore bottom for the child in question.
On this particular night, a couple who I won’t name had brought along their six-year-old daughter. She was a bonny little girl, with flaming red hair like her mum, but she was a bit chubby for her age. At first she was good as gold, but as the evening wore on she became more fractious, wriggling in her seat on the sofa next to mum and interrupting the conversation and teaching. Eventually, she became tired of the lack of attention and let out quite a high-pitched scream.
That seemed to be it for her mother. She rose from the seat and hauled her daughter out of her seat. “That’s quite enough of that,” she told the little girl. Then she turned to our lady host. “Please may we use your bathroom for a minute?” “Oh, feel free to use our bedroom – there’s more space in there for what you need to do.”
Of course, every adult in the room – myself included – knew that the girl was about to get her bottom smacked by mum, and there were a few approving nods from among the other house group members.
For myself, my heart began to race. Secretly, I was really ‘into’ spanking and even the mention of it at church would cause something to happen in my underpants. I made a snap decision – after waiting for a while after mother and daughter had ascended the stairs, I excused myself to the toilet and followed up cautiously.
Things were even better than I’d hoped. Mother had taken the girl into the master bedroom but not quite closed the door. and through the crack where the hinges were attached, I was able to clearly see mum sat on the bed with the little girl in front of her. Mum was delivering a long telling-off and her daughter was already crying, presumably guessing how this was going to end.
Then, without warning, the mother took hold of the waistband of her daughter’s jeans, unfastened them and took them down to her knees, revealing two chubby cheeks encased in a pair of pale yellow pants. I struggled to catch my breath as mum now took down these as well, baring the little girl’s bottom for punishment.
She placed her daughter over her knee and brought down the palm of her hand with a firm smack. The girl screamed at the smart, and as she did so mum raised her head for a moment and seemed to look straight at the crack of the door. To this day, I don’t really know whether she saw me or not, but it was enough to send me scuttling into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
There, I stood listening as the smacking went ahead. Time after time a sharp slap rang out and the wails of pain soon became continuous crying. Eventually the smacking stopped and amid the child’s loud bawling, I saw my chance to escape. Pretending I had done a poo, I loudly flushed the toilet and washed my hands.
Once more by the door crack, I didn’t dare linger, but I did catch a fleeting glimpse of the girl crying into her mother’s bosom, pants still down and her bottom now a blaze of red.
I returned to the group and eventually things quietened down, and mother and daughter came back into the room. The mother shot a kind of knowing glance my way and I looked away and tried my best to pretend I was concentrating on the scripture. Looking back, she had probably noticed an absence of smell coming from the bathroom and maybe put two and two together.
This is the first of two ‘close-up’ experiences of spankings I had while a member of that house group – I’ll tell you about the other time in my next story.
Contributor: Matt