Curious about the 40's and 50's.

So I was perusing the web, looking for spanking pictures and videos, of course, when I came across a short clip from an old Blondie (the comic strip Blondie, not Deborah Harry (who I would still beg to sleep with, no matter how old she is)) movie called Blondie Hits The Jackpot. I have never seen that particular movie, but I know who Penny Singleton (Blondie) is because she's the voice of Jane Jetson (for the kiddies and those from other countries on the list, that's a Saturday morning cartoon character from my childhood). So I watch the clip and it's pretty much straight out of my fantasies. In fact, my Mrs. Daggett story is pretty much a more elaborate and extended version of that scene...a thought that floored me when I saw the clip. For anyone who wishes to view it, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=latCDvJTLmI

So my question to those alive in those times is this: Was this a common thing back then? I mean, teen girls probably didn't ask the mothers of their friends to give them a good spanking, but did the parents of your friends seem to have no problems giving someone else's kid a good walloping? Even parents who weren't anything more than passing acquaintances?

To clarify, I grew up in the 70's and 80's. While I have heard stories of how my mother's friends would give me a spanking (I was too young to remember those) and I had been threatened a few times that I can remember, also by friends of my mother, the parents of my classmates and the parents of my own friends didn't do that to us (or to me, at any rate). More often than not, I was just sent home and had to explain myself to my own mother.

Yes, I saw that one and I loved it. I can only imagine. I always wanted to see the comic strips with Blondie spanking Dagwood or Cookie and Alexander. Thanks for the memory.

I was a kid in the 50s and early 60s and lived around military camps. No problem there with one's teacher or neighbour whacking your butt if you deserved it. One had to run very fast if they only wanted whacks from their parents, which they got if the neighbours ever got hold of them anyway.

That was an addition to the movie. The studio head didn't like the idea that a teenage girl could endanger a man's job so insisted that she be punished for it. They couldn't arrest her without ruining the "everything's better" happen ending with its "She's not as bad as I though" moral, so they stuck that scene on the end.

Shirley Temple was filmed getting a spanking for the same "people have to know that you can't get away with things" reason, but it was left on the cutting room floor. In that case, Shirley said that she was okay but was afraid that the actress playing her mother must have a very sore hand.

I read Shirley Temple's autobiography and she talks about that scene. It's a great story.

If you watch movies from that era (especially the B movies that were rushed through), you can see scenes like a strange woman walking up to a boy with a runny nose, giving him a handkerchief, and telling him to blow.

From what I've heard from older people, the idea of communal parenting was much more developed then. Most neighbourhoods were communities where you knew everyone and everyone knew you - and many times they didn't hesitate to step up when some "parenting" was due. Putting a bee in your ear (i.e. smacking you along side your head) or giving you a boot to the bottom were far more common than someone taking time out of their busy day to hand out a spanking.

That sort of thing died away as communities became more urban and less connected. Where once you knew everything about your nieghbour, now you're lucky to know the neighbour's name. But you still see some communal parenting, mainly among mothers whose kids are all on the same team. They'll hand out water and otherwise act as parents for the team - but the days of them handing out smacks are long gone. They'd be arrested. Or worse, sued.

Goodgulf

When I was growing up in the 60's such things were often threatened but rarely carried out. However, I do remember hearing of one incident where a boy was given a spanking by a neighbour after being caught vandalising the neighbour's allotment. The man and the boy were said to have become friends afterwards, and I'm sure most people would have approved in those days, but as Goodgulf says, it would be very different story today.

I was a little kid in the sixties in Oklahoma and it wasn't at all uncommon for a friends parent to give you a few good swats if you got into trouble while playing at their house and teachers could smack you around any time they felt like it.

I grew up in a small town in a rural part of Ohio in the sixties (and late fifties) where neighbors knew neighbors. I don't remember any spankings (or threats of spankings) given by neighbors to kids other than their own. I do remember threats from aunts and uncles when nieces and nephews stayed over, though no actual spankings.

I remember only two spankings given by teachers (to other kids) in elementary school - one with a ruler in my kindergarten classroom by a frustrated first-year teacher to girl who was literally retarded and probably was next to incapable of following directions, who wound up in a special school the next year; and one in the hallway with a paddle to a fifth grade classmate. There was knowledge, though, up through high school, that certain teachers had paddles, and that a trip to the principal's office could result in a paddled butt, at least for a boy. I do not recall that being a common occurrence, and know myself of only one case it actually happened (again, to someone else).

I recall childhood events in great detail, and with my interest in spanking dating from my early years, I'm sure I would remember even a hint of spanking going on around me.

The forties and early fifties were before my time.