I know a broad section of protestant fundamentalists believe the bible commands parents to punish their children that way.Is it widely practised among mormons?

Mine did. Mom kept a stick next to the fridge like a Biblical rod. Dad was a hands on beater and would keep going till I was screaming. They had to hit me because I was bad. I can't remember a time in early childhood without frequent beatings, so I must have always been bad. He only stopped when I fought back at fifteen. Then he sent me to a boys ranch.

It's impossible to impress me with Mormon family values.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2017 09:33PM by donbagley.

I was about the same age when my dad started hitting me with an inner tube. It didn't really hurt, but I'd had enough. I turned around, postured so that it clear that I had grown bigger than him and was ready to take him down. He walked away and never hit me again.

Well, from my experience from staying with Mormon relatives, none were as mindlessly out-of-control, stupid about beating/torturing children as some of the fundamentalist Christians I have known or read about. None of my cousins (in Mormon families) were abused, as far as I know. Sadly, not true for some of my cousins in fundamentalist Christian families.

Don, your father probably wins some kind of special prize for worst parenting ideas imaginable. My parents were horrible, when I lived at home, but at least they were slightly controlled by relatives who let them know that people outside the house knew what was going on. I wish that you had had someone to make life easier for you, back then.

My father purposefully separated us from our relatives by frequently moving. He told us that his brothers and sisters were bad, because they left the church. One of his sisters once told me that he was a person who couldn't share or be told he was wrong. I wish I would have talked more with her, but he discouraged it. At the time I was still trying to get along with him (my late thirties).

My parents did. Quite often. I had hands to my face, my hair pulled, my neck squeezed, and hands, feet, paddles, yard sticks, wooden spoons and coat hangers on my backside. My mother would get angry when she broke a yard stick on my butt. It would be my fault, of course, for being such a bad kid. I can't remember what egregiously bad things I did, but I sure remember the beatings for doing them.

I'm ashamed to say that when I became a parent, I started to do some of those same things. I was raised that kids obeyed their parents, or else. Adults ruled, and kids better respect. Kids were somehow an inferior species, not quite human, not quite worthy of respect. I remember my brother getting beat because he called an adult by his first name. I thought that was the way kids were supposed to be raised. That's how they learned to make good choices--bad moves resulted in pain, so you'd better make good ones. I quickly realized, however, that kids will do kid stuff whether you spank them or not, and that teaching with patience was a much better way to go. I remember looking at myself as an adult, and realizing that I was the same person that I was when I was a kid, and that my own kids weren't any less deserving of respect than I was. It makes no sense to violently punish kids for every mistake. Years of patient teaching and loving guidance yields a far more positive environment for kids than years of violence. I wish I would have learned this sooner.

My first child got it the worst, with a wooden spoon. The next two hardly got spanked at all. The last one never experienced any abuse. It's taken years to make amends with my oldest.

Forgive yourself; it's all you knew.

Mine didn't.
I got "the belt" (three swats with dad's belt) only once.
I certainly merited some punishment -- I'd thrown a baseball through the front window, breaking it. After I'd been told not to throw the ball in the front yard because I might break the window. I was 6.

I've never spanked or belted or hit mine. I never would. The only thing that teaches kids is that physical violence is how to respond to anger or disappointment.

And I'm with the Boner on men who hit their wives...

Yah, I will be back to comment on this.

My mother was an angry, frustrated, TBM housewife who more often than not took her frustrations out on my ass. When she would start in on me it seemed like that was the cue for my father to run from the house. Later in life he apologized to me for not sticking around and stopping her. Times were different back then. If there were a CPS I would have had their number on speed dial.

I remember keeping track of the frequency in which I was hit, smacked, spanked, beaten, etc. The all-time record was 33 consecutive days. Perhaps the most confusing thing for me at the time was that I was a GOOD KID!! Hell, I was too afraid to be otherwise. At school nights when my mother would meet my teachers, she would tell them that they had her permission to beat me at any time. That usually brought some strange looks from my teachers.

Her weapon of choice was a wooden spoon and occasionally a rubber spatula (stung like hell!!). She even kept a wooden spoon in her purse for easy access when we were away from home. Many a wooden spoon was busted on my ass which just seemed to infuriate her more. The other day I found this website online...I might have to get me one of these t-shirts - http://www.badideatshirts.com/Wooden-Spoon-Survivor-T-Shirt-P3250.aspx

Years later she confided in me that it was BECAUSE of the beatings she gave me that I turned out to be such a good person. I just shook my head and wondered how different I would be if I were raised in a house of love instead of a house of fear. I am comforted in knowing that she suffered in death and if there is an afterlife, she is now looking up at me and seeing that her "legacy" of child beating ended with me. That was something I certainly did not pass along to my children.

I doubt that many of us would have gone to church each week if it wasn't for the constant threat of physical violence against us.

"

I was afraid not to attend church my entire childhood. Dad was unpredictable at times but not on Sunday.

I didn't grow up LDS, but my dad was a Christian and spanking/beating was his main discipline method. The last time he struck me, I was almost 21 years old. He was drunk and angry and he hit me in the face. By that point, I'd had enough and I told him that if he ever hit me again, I'd have him arrested. It worked, although there were a few times when he came close to hitting me again. He seemed to think he was entitled to do that, no matter how old I was.

at the tender age of 8 or 9, my elder brother and myself were 'bad' and we needed punished. my mother was so cross that she gave us a choice of the beating of our lives (with her slipper), or she would kill us if it happened again. Mother always kept her word so we willingly chose the beating as we could not be sure our sister would never sneak away again, and we grew up in the sure knowledge that our mother was willing to murder us. It is no wonder that, like other posters, we grew up angry and resentful.

Our terrible sin? Mother was shouting a lot somewhere in the house (must have been at our father) and we were to 'keep an eye' on our youngest sister, a toddler, who obviously left the house due to all the shouting and a neighbour had found her and brought her home. She had run away from our mother's tantrum and we were punished for it.

Relating the incident as an adult only brought reams of laughter from mother and sister involved. No sympathy, no understanding of why we were terrified of mother and grew up angry with our parents, just hilarity that we would choose a sound beating. Mother progressed to a bamboo cane when elder brother reached age 12 - dad's trusty leather belts that he used to beat us with when mother told him we deserved it kept disappearing. Funny that - obviously my elder brother was making them disappear.

Beating children used to be acceptable behaviour but society is changing. Here in scotland it is now illegal to beat a child; leaving a bruise is enough for the school to call in social services, repeat offending carries the possibility of a criminal conviction and losing custody of kids. Emotional neglect and abuse is now recognised by law but is very hard to prove so I don't know how exactly that law is going to be enforced, only time will tell.

I think that religious types like to use the bible verse 'spare the rod, spoil the child' but it does not literally have to be a physical rod, cane, belt or whatever. Rod's were commonly used for measuring when that verse was written, not as a weapon with today's meaning attached.

Bible literalism is so obviously wrong. Sparing the rod would mean, in context, bending the rules or ignoring the measuring stick; it would not mean letting the child away with their wrong doing without consequence, and it certainly does not mean beat a child black and blue til you break them into obedience, like a wild horse.

My parents have changed. They are gentle and loving now, but they beat me as a kid. As a result, I did the same with my oldest child. Thought that was the way to be a parent.

My next child got spanked, but less. Didn't seem right. Probably a result of my maturing. Didn't spank my next three children at all. I came to understand that spanking was a statement about me. Spanking is a simple answer to fixing right now, but it takes away from the bigger and more important role of a parent. That is to teach a child how to work through today and keep life in perspective.

All of my children are successful adults. Great careers. One runs the largest construction company in the Pacific NW. One is on the new design team of a major truck mfg company. One has a world-wide job for a company that uses a 'swoosh' as their logo.

The funny thing is, the one who got beat, even though he has a wonderful career, still has fear of being un-worthy. He is the best dad. Travels the world. Loved and respected by all. Yet, doubts himself. Spanking is not the answer.

Don B, I really want to meet you some day.

I'm not sure, but it was called "fatherly duties" by my grandparents' church. When my grandmother tried to stop it she was criticized by the church, her friends, and family for getting in the way of my grandfather's parenting. They also told her she deserved to be beat because she wasn't being a good subservient wife.

It was terrible! I've heard that there still continues to be a huge domestic violence problem in Mormon communities due to the culture and also the pressure of young couples getting married way too early and having too many kids before they are ready. It's so sad! It's like LDS sets its people up for dysfunctional families.

My parents used to spank my sisters and me. Other times they would pull our arms and dish out a good heaping of "you're spoiled, we should be respected despite our disrespecting you." Not on the same level as Don Bagley's P.O.S. dad, but worked well enough to keep us in line as kids and mess us up later in our lives.

Yes, with a badge of self-righteous honor.

My handicapped sister and I were beaten with belts and switches. I used to have to go outside and pick out the switch.

I can remember having to wear long pants to school to hide the bruises and marks. They were so proud of their good parenting yet had to hide the evidence.

To this day, I hate belts and never wear them. I wholeheartedly disagree with spanking children. I can remember not feeling the least bit sorry for whatever I did. I only felt rage at being hit and powerless to hit back.

Around the age of 4, my dad had an accident at work and ended up losing a finger. I still recall standing at the end of his hospital bed looking up at his raised bandaged hand and hearing him say "I can still beat your butt."

Over the years, I've realized that spanking was used in their uneducated homes and the cycle just repeats. They didn't know any other way. We grew up in the religious south where these methods are celebrated and mandatory for good child rearing (gag). In college, I came to terms with it somewhat as I studied human development and the effects of spanking on children. I could see some of those effects in myself and sister. None of us talk about it, and we all love each other, but this is one point we will forever disagree.

Fortunately, neither my sister nor I had children. No more kids to beat.

I'm a nevermo, but I was spanked a lot as a child--once so hard I really couldn't sit for a week. I was the younger of two girls--my older sister was never, ever spanked or hit. The difference was this: personality. If my mother told my sister to "Sit on that chair and don't move until I come back," and she left, and the house caught fire and burned down around her, my sister would still be sitting in that chair, burned to a crisp. She was always a "rules" person. I, six years younger, was the "anti-rules" person--the adventurer. If my mother told me not to get off the chair, I was out of the house before she was, and off exploring. When I was born, we lived with my grandparents in a big 2-story house. As a baby/toddler, I loved to climb the stairs, even before I could walk. Instead of buying a baby gate (hell, maybe they didn't even make them back then), I was spanked every time I got on the stairs and started to climb. I knew full well what would happen when I got on the stairs, but I was driven to do it--I had to see what it was like to climb on them and maybe get to the top. To me, it was worth the spanking I knew I would get just to have the chance to climb up all those pretty stairs. They used to tell the story about the time I was squirming in my high chair and my granddaddy said, "What's wrong, honey, does your tummy hurt?" And I said, "No, my BOTTOM hurts." But my mother truly didn't know what else to do with me. Her only other experience with kids was my sister, who was perfect. Then she got me, and I was the "wild child" from Day One. She broke her hairbrush on me the day we moved into our house from my grandparents' house. We moved to a small house that was a block from the large city park. I had heard there were animals at the park, including goats. I wanted to see those goats. I had never seen a goat, and I was mad to actually SEE them. I was about 5, maybe still 4. I asked my mother to take me, but she said she was too busy with the moving, cleaning unpacking, etc., and it would have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. Surely I could understand that? Yes, but she did not understand how desperately I wanted to see those goats. GOATS, didn't she understand that there were GOATS there? So I set off for the park to find the goats. I thought I could find my way home. I walked and walked, but I could not find the goats and I could not find where I came into the park to go home. So I went up to a man who was tending a large flower bed and told him my name, and said, "I want you to take me home, please, but first I want you to take me to see the goats." Instead, he called the police. (My dad was a state police officer, but the city police knew him so when the park guy told them my name, they called my dad and he gave them the address.) They took me home, and did NOT take me to see the goats first. My mother was so sweet to the policemen--she had been so worried--frantic--and thanked them and thanked them. Then she took me by the arm and took me into the house and put me across her lap and beat the living hell out of me with her large, flat ivory hairbrush. She broke it on me and then continued with the flat of her hand. It was a LONG time before I could sit.

I have forgiven her--she just didn't know what else to do with me. But it didn't work--it didn't stop me. It didn't change me. All it did was make me realize my sister was the "good one" and I was the "bad one." When I was six, my mother took me to a department store to see Santa Claus. We waited a long time in line until we got very close and I could hear what Santa was saying to the kids, and I tugged her hand and said I changed my mind, I didn't want to see Santa. Why? Because he was asking the kids if they had been good, and I didn't want to have to tell him I had been bad. She told me I could tell him I had been a good girl, but I knew better. You don't beat good girls, and even I knew, at 6, that you can't lie to Santa. So we went home and that was that.

I never spanked my kids, not ever. And I had the same situation she did--first kid was sweet little boy, second kid was hellion girl. But I never spanked either one of them, because I didn't want either one of them growing up thinking they were bad. I can't say it "ruined my life," but it sure didn't do my self-confidence or self-esteem any good. And I put up with things from men that I should NEVER have put up with, and I'm thinking that knowing I was "bad" might be part of the reason why.

boileuv, loved the story.

I think this is the reason I got punished so much growing up. I was/ am curious, (rebellious?), inquisitive, [non-moron at heart and mind and soul] open to adventure.

I'm the oldest boy and I got in trouble 100 times more than my older sister, 110 times more than my younger sisters, twice as much as my brother and a thousand times more than the new youngest kids when my mom remarried.

My mother (and 'stepdude') took it all out on me and there was nothing left when they grew up. They may have gotten "restricted"/ grounded but not hit, kicked, spanked, whipped, switched, banished, screamed at, humiliated, talked about, scorned, tortured, embarrassed, throwned out, hated, or whatever it amounted to that felt like it.

My mother encouraged my teachers and the princiPALs (no pals of mine, at the time) to whip and punish me, and tell her, so she could do it again when she saw me again. I think she wanted me to get in trouble do she could lash out at me, because it made her feel better.

I reminded her too much of my father. The lds 'church' encouraged the rage - and outrage - through its teachings, examples, scriptures, etc. I hated growing up Mormon (and in that Mormon family) and got out as soon as I could.

Once, because it is a SIN to cook (WORK) on Sundays, we usually had cereal. Not just any cereal, but the cheapest, most bland, tasteless cereal in the 'plan it': puffed (up) [what?] wheat. I didn't eat my bowl one morning before church (it made me sick). Guess what I was forced to eat that evening (when the others got a heated/ normal, microwaved, [surely] less/ no "work") meal? You guess it. My cold, mushy bowl of cereal from that morning!

I didn't eat it, naturally. I got no dinner that night. Monday arrived and breakfast was served, everybody else getting a fresh whatever it was and guess what was put before me? How did you guess? You must have been looking. Yep, Sunday morning's - and Sunday night's - cold, soggy cereal. They wonder why I don't eat it now. I still hate it! That's punishment.

M@t

donbagley wrote:
> n/t

Totally!

It was the combination of my mother ignorantly becoming lds and then marrying a lds man. The two of them really blanked up my would-be decent, normal, proper upbringing.

To this day they are dragged down by this cult. Given so much (time: thousands of hours; money: hundreds of thousands of dollars; thought: away from family and things that are important, on cult worship, not learning for themselves, not growing intrapersonally). There is hope - though it's little - that they will someday come around, learn the truth, before it's too late (to relate normally to others, apologize for such terrible examples of how to live and treasure the family and get some of the rest of the family some relief by assuring them it was all a mistake).

The LDS "church" PUNISHES by inserting itself so intrinsically in personal and family thought, growth and potential as to FORCE it's servants to punish one another. That way it won't have to (directly), except by omission and example.

Parents shouldn't punish their children like mine - and many others - did but Mormonism encourages it. Joseph Smith punished the early worshippers and members have been punishing, even torturing (as well as being tortured) themselves - and others - every since.

I was spanked and beat

I've met a few hot girls I would like to turn over my knee and spank

The first time I went to a therapist she asked me if my parents beat me. "My reply "didn't everyone's?" Ummmmmm no.

When I was a mormon child, it was common for parents to take their noisy kids out of sacrament meeting, and out on the front steps to spank them. You could hear them yelling clear in the chapel. Because of that, I took my beatings in silence which just pissed the abusers off even more. How dare I not show suffering!

I was 17 the last time my father was beating me with a belt. I stood there with my arms folded and told him he could beat me until I was dead, I didn't care. I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of yelling, crying, or begging him to stop.

His last swing stopped in mid-air. That was the last time he hit me. It could be because I left home shortly after that.

I spanked my oldest once. The look on his face was enough that I never hit any of my kids ever again. It only serves to make them fear and hate you. I didn't want my kids to grow up feeling like that. It gives you nowhere to turn when you get older and need to have an adult to talk to. My parents would much rather beat their kids than talk to them. They're still that way to this day, and they're in their 90's. I have nothing to do with them.

I was spanked occasionally as a young child. As I got older, I was regularly slapped across the face by my mother. She required perfect obedience and didn't take being "mouthy" as she called it.

My mom was a convert, so I'm not sure I can blame it on Mormonism. She's told me stories of how she was spanked as a child, so it was probably more that she parented how she was taught.

I was yelled at more than I was hit, however. Nearly every day that I lived in my parents' home I received a verbal beating. I was yelled at for waking up late, for forgetting to feed the dog, for not completing my chores exactly right, for not offering to help when I should have, for crying when I shouldn't have, for having terrible hair, for whatever. The emotional scars remain decades later. My parents have changed their ways in their older years, but still joke about my perfectionist tendencies and wonder where they came from. Gee, I wonder...?

I don't hit or yell at my kids.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2017 09:13PM by want2bx.

I'm fairly certain some of my fellow hell raiser cousins got smacked....but the worst was my Catholic cousin and his oldest son. My cousin was an abusive monster to that poor kid. I was only 10 or 11 at the time but it made me very angry but I wasn't big enough to intervene. I told my dad about it though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2017 10:13PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

I'm curious about your moniker? Purpose?

Mom was the spanker in the family. She used a good belt. Sometimes, I deserved it, but I agree with those that say parents would rather beat than listen to a child. I remember wanting to explain why indoor plants were dirty and needed to be pulled out of their pots to have their roots cleaned. I really got a good belting for killing a dozen indoor plants.

Dad never touched me. He used guilt and disappointment to dole out punishment.

Did anybody ever get spanked at members' homes?

Dad always intervened and wouldn't allow it, but Mom sold me up the river. She even encouraged them and if I wasn't tearful enough when she arrived, then I would get the 2nd spanking at home. This was a result of some cub scout activity.

I remember that we had just been served some punch and cookies. We (scouts) had been told to run outside and play until our parents arrived. This small boy fell and made a mess. It was funny to me to see red punch everywhere, but Sister Manred wasn't laughing. She grabbed and pinched my ear and told me to clean it up, but I refused. By this time, the small boy had jumped up and ran out of the hallway. She grabbed a wooden spoon and said that I needed to be spanked for tripping the other boy. So I agreed to her spoon beatings. It didn't hurt compared to the beltings that I later received at home from Mom.

Then there was Brother Hack. He was the Scoutmaster with a lot of silly sayings. For instance, if you tried to be funny he would give you a watermelon. He would mimic eating a watermelon then mimic spitting out the seeds.

He seemed very laid back until some of the scouts knocked something over in the backyard. It made a tremendous crash and must have been darn important because he immediately ran into the front yard demanding to know who was responsible. I had been standing in the front yard watching regular kids playing tag across the street.

All it took was for one those honest "Mormon" scouts to lie and accuse Messy and a second one to bear false witness. Since Mom was one of the "Den Mothers" of the troop, she had no trouble giving permission to Scoutmaster Hack to spank me with his belt. I was spanked in front of the other scouts which was beyond humiliation.

Later, I would get spanked by Hack a 2nd time because I hit his house with a baseball after being told not to play outside. That one was rough because I had just been promoted due to silver/gold arrows. He gave me extra whippings because I had set a poor example.

Finally, the worst abuse came from an older sibling. It has taken me many years to acknowledge that the physical torture that I endured for 6 years (not simple horse play) destroyed my childhood.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2017 04:09AM by messygoop.

Thanks for sharing that, messygoop. From a fellow traveler.

The question is "many". How can we know how Mormons compare? Not like the rest of the world doesn't spank. In the 70's my elementary school in mountains of Washington, still used a board for giving hacks, of which I received 3 or 4.

While beatings are bad, I think the pendulum has swung the other way. My wife taught elementary school a few years ago until she quit, partly due to lack of discipline.

Certain kids would go through the school destroying everything in site, like going in the teacher's office and throwing all their mail on the floor. One kid in a classroom one day decided to throw everything out of file cabinets. And nobody would lay a hand on them - just had to watch.

Eventually one trouble maker finally qualified for a special class in which they could use physical restraint and he finally became a decent kid. Before that he would act up in my wife's class and she was told she had to empty the classroom. Several of those incidents and the kids eventually complained to parents who went to school board and finally after years of coddling, put the kid in a special class.

Oh boy, school days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2017 02:48AM by moremany.

You're talking about creative, intelligent, inquisitive kids right? Or good little Mormon kids that don't ask questions about their weird "church" upbringing and why so much is being asked of them by their family, or the CULTure ('church') they belong to?

Do Mormon parents care about anything but church attendance, family lame evening, (faux) scripture reading and family prayer these days?

My mother had rheumatoid arthritis. It was the worst in her hands. If she wanted to smack, slap, or beat the crap outta me for some offense like trying to be me, and was in the midst of a flare where her hands were too painful to give me the wallops I deserved, she would summon Perfect Superior Male Brother and have him knock me around under her tutelage, and a good time was had by all. 'Cept me... and who cared about that.

I got punched occasionally and was more embarrassed about going to school with a black eye. My favorite was having my grandmother shove soap up my ass to cleanse the inner man (boy)

I guess I would fall under the mantle that some would call Fundamental Protestant? (Southern Baptist).

Sounds like Proverbs 13:24.

"Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him"

Not so sure that is condoning child abuse though.

I think children need discipline...but that isn't necessarily beating the child. Grounding a child or having them sit in a corner are other ways of disciplining.

Someone mentioned "uneducated" people....

My TBM father was a college professor, and my RS President mother was a college graduate. Upper middle class.

Most of my "misbehavior" was forgetting things--I was a spacey kid, and would lose track of time, and wander off. I would leave my shoes outside, and forget to do my chores. My mind and heart were always elsewhere. I did very well in school, however. My mother would call me names, like "slob", "skinny little nothing" and "G--damned brat." When I did something she didn't like--or didn't do what she ordered me to do quickly and expertly enough--she would tell me I was going to be punished, and she would send me to my room. There, I would wait, sometimes for hours, until my father came home. For some reason--some pact between my parents--my father's duty was to administer the punishment. He would pull down my pants and spank me, with his hard, rough hands. He could crush an apple with those hands. It hurt! I had and have extremely low self-esteem, which led me to marry unsuitable men. Both my husbands were Mormons from BYU. The first one beat me. The second one cheated on me.

A lot of times, I would be spanked for kicking my older brother. It was the only way I could defend myself. My brother usually went unpunished, because he was 6 years older than I, and very large, and very violent and destructive. My parents were afraid of him, and he was allowed to beat me, whenever he felt like it. He sometimes would torture me right in front of my parents, and I would scream for help, but they would say, "You know we can't control your brother." I got the message that I was not worth rescuing.

On Sundays, they would put me in a pretty dress, and I would go sit on that church bench next to my brother, and we would all smile. It was all about appearances. Some of the people would comment that I looked like I had rickets, and my mother should take me to see a doctor. I was very thin, with dark circles under my eyes, from lack of sleep. I got sent to bed without any dinner so many times, that I would get stomach aches, that would last almost all night. My parents thought I was making it up, for sympathy. I see pictures of me, and I cry.

We can only hope that, now, people are more aware of child abuse, and more likely to step in.

Mormon abuse is alive and well, however. If a boy was late or absent from priesthood meetings, the leaders (grown men) would go into the boy's house, and throw him out of his bed, and force him to get into their car, and take them to meeting. During the process, the boys usually fell to the floor from the bed, and the men kicked the boys on the floor. The men pushed and shoved the boys around the room, forcing them to get dressed. My boys were literally butt-kicked up the stairs, and into the car. This happened to my own sons, several times, over a period of two years! The deacons and priests were threatened not to tell. It was several years later, when my boys finally told me--and I was so upset that I said, "You kids never have to go to that church again!" And we didn't! We resigned together. This was SOP, and happened to almost all the boys, at one time or another. They thought it was funny. My boys said that the kicking and shoving really hurt, and they were sore the next day, too. My youngest boy was horrified, to be wakened out of a sound sleep, by a strange man yelling in his face! We were new in the ward. He never got over it.

A primary teacher used to spank children in his class. He taught for many years, and was still teaching when we left, 9 years ago.

My sanctimonious SIL used to berate us for not being religious enough, because our family sometimes would go to a restaurant or a movie on Sundays. She was a high-strung, impatient woman, and would scream at her little girl, and yank her arm, for her to "hurry-up". At church, no one thought this was odd, at all. I used to make my SIL stop, whenever she did that in my presence. The daughter (my niece) grew up with a deformed elbow, and it was the arm that was constantly being pulled by her mother. Of course, no one mentioned it.

Mormons are strict, authoritarian parents.

My GA relative would say, "It's more important for you to respect me than to love me."

Wow. I'm feeling your story. My father had an EdD in education, but he was a beater and an idiot who claimed the entire Bible was literal. Cruelty and a lack of empathy defined the man.

These child beaters who take pleasure in beating their children are sick mf'ers. They will hopefully go to the Hell they may believe in. I am so regretful that children are subjected to torture and abuse, it's an UTTER DISGRACE upon those who do this.

Wife beaters are to be worn, not coddled.