One of my earliest memories of being spanked by my mother was as a three-year-old (in the 1930s). I was an adventurer, and one day I decided that it would be grand to ‘run away’. I didn’t know much about it, but had heard from other children that it was something kids were supposed to […]

This is a true story, and a memory and lesson that lasted. I was about eight years old and I stole some cookies that morning out a of jar that sat on the kitchen counter. Early that same afternoon, I was taking a bath. I remember the water was warm and I didn’t have a […]

My mother was an old-fashioned lady of British descent, and a strict disciplinarian. She did not take lightly her perceived obligation to see to the proper and moral upbringing of my sister and me as young ladies. And so when we misbehaved, we would unfailingly find that a cane, a strap, a tawse or my […]

As a child of the 1970s, I was the product of many spankings. Although I wasn’t a bad kid, my bottom felt the sting of a hand or hairbrush at least a dozen times a year. Since my father travelled a great deal during his climb up the corporate ladder, my mother tended to the […]

Disrespect earns a sore bottom My sixth grade teacher, Miss Anne Faron, was so beautiful that I had a crush on her. At the end of each day, she would dismiss the class and as you walked by her, she would say ‘goodbye’ or ‘have a nice day’ to each student. They would respond with […]

I grew up at a time, and on a street, where corporal discipline was a given. Spanking was the accepted means of correction from toddlerhood to mid-teens. The attached ‘rowhouses’ were close together and in the summer, windows were wide open – air-conditioning was common enough in public theatres and malls, but not in homes […]

The following is an extract from Shirley Temple-Black’s out-of-print autobiography, Child Star. That afternoon, Mother had summoned me into the front hall, where I was confronted by a clot of self-conscious strangers. When she asked me to give them a little song-and-dance routine, I stuck out both my chin and lower lip and shook my […]