I grew up in Ohio in the 80s and by the age of 11, my best friend and I had grown curious about being cool like our fathers, both of whom smoked cigarettes and loosely knew each other from work. We had begun sneaking butts from our fathers’ ashtrays and saving them for when we […]

I was all dressed for Sunday School with my younger brother Jeff. My father gave us each a quarter for the collection basket in Sunday School, and off we went. Mom was home with the new baby. I was seven and Jeff was six. I told Jeff I had an idea. “Why don’t we go […]

Several summers ago. my siblings and I were at our subdivision pool, swimming. At the time, we were aged 10 to 14. Mom had told us to be home no later than 4pm, but we were playing with a bunch of our friends and lost track of time.  At 4:45, Mom showed up at the […]

Mom was rather strict. She was a firm believer in ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. Her chosen instrument of punishment was the belt – it was kept hanging on the back of her bathroom door, a silent threat for all to see. I remember one time, at age 14 or so, I had […]

This story happened when I was in the third grade. We had just moved from Atlanta to south Georgia, and Mrs Dixon was my new teacher. We were at recess playing tag. I had been tagged, so it was my turn to be the person to tag people. I was chasing the other boys and […]

My mother believed in firm and strict discipline. At first, she seemed to prefer the ‘instant response’ style of immediately dealing with any inappropriate behaviour, naughtiness, disrespect etc. But later she shifted to scheduled sessions, both more ritualised and more severe. She felt these enabled her to better ‘demonstrate her love’. A typical session would […]

Even growing up in the 90s, spanking was far more common than you might think. Most of the kids I knew got their bottoms warmed when they pushed their parents too far. Mom did nearly all the spanking in our family, mostly because dad was a big softy. I was given my first at an […]