A Poll: Were you spanked as a child?

I think that cover you're referring to is the famous Norman Rockwell painting one with the exasperated mother looking at a "child rearing" book with the boy sprawled over her lap. He hasn't been spanked yet. It's been parodied numerous times. I was fascinated by that cover too, though I didn't see it until later.

If you search on CHILD PSYCHOLOGY Post Cover - November 25, 1933 you might find that drawing. The Norman Rockwell facebook site describes it as:

This young mother is struggling to make up her mind between the options of enlightened child rearing and traditional discipline. The debris scattered on the floor suggests that the child has behaved in an entirely traditional manner when given access to a hammer and breakable objects. Since the Rockwells had become parent by this time, we might wonder if this cover drew upon personal experience.


Copyright © 1933 Saturday Evening Post & Curtis Publishing Company

Number 4 for me but only because corporal punishment was very much part of the daily routine when I attended school in South London back in the mid 50's – 60's. I think I was around 13 when I got my last caning at school. I was never spanked by my parents.

Interesting poll. It will be interesting to see the results.

I think the answer to the first question is probably 1, although I do remember being slapped around the legs by hand once by my mum when I was about 12.

I was also caned once on the hand on numerous occasions by a female teacher who seemed to have it in for me when I was aged 7. I don't know if she was reprimanded by someone, but the cannings suddenly stopped. Other teachers had a cane but I don't remember any of them ever using it on anyone.

I remember having spanking fantasies when I was only 5 or 6. In these fantasies the object of my desires would be captured by 'bad men' who would be just about to spank her when I would rush in to rescue her. Nowadays, of course, I would be more likely to help the 'bad men'.

#1 is a 3 occasionally spanked at home, sometimes a few smacks on the bottom, other times with my father's belt. I do not remember any spanking from him after I was 8 or 9.

My Irish mother had a hot temper and if irritated, she might take off her shoe, grab my arm and administer enough swats to make me dance and plead. None of us took her spankings seriously, though. She also threw shoes and was accurate enough to gauge the speed you were running up the staircase to calculate the precise moment you would reach a certain stair and could land that shoe between the the upright posts that supported the bannister to deliver a significant smack.
I attended Catholic school and was spanked all the way up. When we were very young- 5 , 6, 7, sisters used heavy rulers on our hands; those were very painful and made us dance in the front of the room while she held our wrists and whacked away. Later, those changed to paddlings until I was about 11. But sister never lifted my skirt; our uniforms were blue plaid pleated skirts made of wool, so school spankings did not hurt at that age. but they were pretty embarrassing. There was one sister that favored a white birch pointer, but her spanks never approached the severity of the canings or other punishments I read and write here.

#2 My mother's shoe throwing continued through high school. Her temper never cooled. Since I was the oldest, and there were four other siblings, her aim continued to improve. I do not remember feeling the belt from my father after aged 9 or so. He was more comfortable punishing with restrictions and believed there should be an age limit for physical punishments. By the time I was 12, I was fantasizing about being spanked...

Islandcarol

Q1) 3
Q2) 10

I'll be interested to see the results. Are you looking for a certain threshold of responses before you consider the poll to be an accurate representation?

-LK

I was spanked rarely as a child - very mild hand spankings by my father. Never at school

Answer to question 2 - I got spanked so rarely that I don't remember. However, I think no older than age 10.

I'll keep tabulating the results until the topic drops off the first page of the forum which would indicate that almost everybody who is going to respond has done so. Then I will post the results.

It seems unlikely that the magazine cover that Catmama saw at 5 years old came from 1933 unless Catmama is 85 years old. I do have a picture that came from a popular magazine, possibly the Saturday Evening Post, that shows a mother spanking a boy of about 5 years old with a hairbrush. I don't know what magazine as I only have that picture that was cut out however on the other side is a partial auto ad that looks to be from the early or mid 1950's. If Catmama or others would like to see it send me a pop-up with your email address and I will scan it and send it to you.

#1 Never. My parents didn't believe in it and at school it was rarely used. I remember only one incident when four or five boys got a few raps with a ruler on their palms for ganging up on another boy.

But, I spanked my first female when I was 9 and got hooked on it till today.

At home it was definitely 1. My parents never believed in it although one of the women my father lived with after he had separated from my mother threatened to spank me on my bare behind if she ever caught me lying again. I felt I was slightly odd in not being spanked at home when every other child I knew was. Back then, not spanking your children was cranky. It was even worse than being a vegetarian!

At the pre preparatory school I attended up to the age of seven the most common method of punishment was two or three meaty slaps on the back of the legs. You would go home with finger marks clearly visible on the back of your calves. I was regularly smacked for talking and other minor faults. Really badly behaved children would be escorted across the road for a caning from the headmistress. Of course I wasn't that badly behaved, just an idle chatterbox. Usually it was boys that were sent for a caning but I remember one mischievous little girl called Minnie being sent over the road almost every other week. Her parents must have named her after Minnie the Minx!

At both my preparatory schools caning was, whilst not rare, hardly a daily event in our lives. Though you had to be a paragon of virtue to avoid it altogether during your schooldays, at least if you went to the schools I attended. A far more common punishment was a slippering. I think I must have been fifteen on the last occasion I was slippered, by which time I was completely obsessed with the subject of corporal punishment. Although sadly, instead of a stern but pretty schoolmistress, I had a bald, neanderthal ape-like creature, who provided vigorous instruction in physical education, whacking his size 12 plimsoll across my backside. Never mind, I survived my education and here I am...on a spanking fiction forum, which is as we all know, an excellent place to be!