I am a 40-year-old woman who lives in Buffalo, NY, where I grew up. I am the oldest of four. I have a sister two years younger and brothers five and eight years younger.
Though spankings were less in fashion during my childhood, my parents were definitely firm believers in their effectiveness and all four of us were spanked into our early to mid-teens.
Dad spanked, but Mom was the primary disciplinarian in the household. She had been a classroom teacher for several years until the older of my brothers was born and then she became a stay-at-home mom. Spankings were not an everyday event at our house but they were not rare either. I would say I earned one a month on average in my peak years from 10 to 14, then a handful after that until my last.
Spankings were never given in anger but were very measured and controlled, and Mom had a set procedure that turned a spanking into an ordeal. Usually we would be dispatched to my parents’ bedroom to stand in an empty corner for 15 minutes or so until she came upstairs. This was to give her time to get her emotions under control and ensure we were not being spanked in anger.
Once she came into the room, she would call us out of the corner and send us to fetch whatever she was going to spank us with. I was never spanked with her hand. She favoured the wooden spoon when we were younger and a wooden hairbrush or ping-pong paddle when were older. If a lie was involved, we could also count on an additional spanking with an old leather tool belt that we called The Strap.
Mom would sit at her vanity bench and tell us to pull down our pants. All our spankings were given on bare bottom after a lecture while we stood at her side. As I got older, the embarrassment of standing there with my pants and panties at my knees was excruciating – almost as bad as the spanking I was about to receive.
After the lecture we would be instructed to go over her knee and the spanking would commence, again not rushed or in a flurry, but in a series of even, measured swats that we were expected to count our loud. She usually spanked in groups of 12 swats and a typical spanking when I was in my teens could run to 36 or 48 swats – enough to turn my bottom a deep shade of red.
After the spanking was over, we would be sent back to the corner with bare bottom showing, usually for 30 minutes or so, before we were allowed to pull up our pants and go on about our business.
Though the spankings were both uncomfortable and embarrassing, the upside was that once it was over, it was over and it was very rare that there were groundings or other restrictions attached to them.
Most spankings were given in my folks’ room, door left open so everyone could hear. Occasionally, when mom wanted to make a point or make an example out of one of us, she would spank the unlucky party in the kitchen in front of the other siblings.
I saw all of my brothers and sisters get it from time to time, and a few of mine were witnessed by them – including my last one, a hairbrush spanking on my bare behind when I was past 16. But that is a story for another time.
Contributor: Lauren