Considering it hurt so much at the time, you may think it odd that I remember my mom’s spanking spoon with such affection, but it taught me and my siblings a great deal about morals and love.
Mom had many spoons in her kitchen which were used for mixing and stirring – but one with a particularly wide head stood on the counter on its own, standing up in a little ceramic pot. This was the spanking spoon, and on it, Mom had written a Bible reference. It was Proverbs 23:13: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.”
Well, I can assure you there were times when I was over her knee that I felt I might die all right – that thing could burn a hole in your butt with absolutely no trouble, even through pants. We were very rarely spanked bare bottom – you had to be really naughty for Mom to decide you’d earned that – but the sting that spoon could produce was more than capable of chastising a misbehaving child, believe me, even through a couple of layers of clothing.
In that respect, I think my sisters always felt they had a disadvantage to us boys when they were spanked. We were a very traditional Southern family, as you might have gathered, and Mom didn’t allow the girls to wear pants. I guess she felt that it wasn’t too easy to spank the girls through a skirt or dress, so when they were put over her knee, she turned up their nether clothing and whacked them over their panties. These offered much less protection, especially because there were plenty of bits of bare backside and thigh that they didn’t necessarily cover!
When we got it bare bottom, that’s when we really feared the spoon. It stung like you’d sat down on a wasps’ nest. We weren’t too crazy about the humiliating aspect of having our bottoms and privates bared for it, either, though as we were a large family, all the children born close together, we were relatively used to seeing each other’s naked bodies at bath time and getting ready for bed etc. But there was something about the ritual of having your pants and briefs taken down by Mom which made it a lot more embarrassing, I guess because you were going to get a spanking once your clothing had been adjusted.
This was the 1950s and my mom commonly wore a soft cotton floral apron around the house most of the day, and I distinctly remember, when bare bottomed, the feeling of the warm fabric brushing against my tummy and privates as I twisted around on her lap under the spanking. Mom was a highly efficient spanker and she showed no mercy when it came your time to be chastised. Boy or girl, you were left with a very sore butt and in floods of tears.
However, there would be so much love shown after the spanking that in some ways you didn’t mind so much that your bottom was on fire. Mom would sit you on her lap and cuddle you close to her warm, soft bosom, stroking your hair and gently talking to calm you down. If we had been given the spoon bare bottomed, she would leave our underwear down for a while after the spanking and lovingly cuddle your smacked butt with her hand as you had your cry.
The feel of my mother’s hand on my bare bottom after she spanked me is a memory I will always treasure, and I’m glad of all the important life lessons that spoon taught me.
Contributor: Don