As smacking is banned in Wales, one writer reflects on how being smacked as a child has left lasting damage to her relationship with her family
Last month it was revealed that Wales had joined Scotland and 62 other countries in introducing a ban on people smacking and slapping their children, removing the defence of ‘reasonable punishment,’ that has been around since the Victorian era.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, older generations were more likely to have been smacked or slapped – which could go some way to explain why people of my parents’ generation, who are now in their early seventies, thought it was acceptable to hit their children. Being smacked hurt both physically and emotionally and it left me with a visceral dislike for both of my parents. While it was fairly common within my friendship group and at the time widely socially acceptable, I was aware it wasn’t something everyone’s parents agreed with and therefore I spent much of my childhood bitterly jealous of people whose parents seemed calmer and kinder than mine.
Maybe if people start questioning it – or openly admitting to smacking their children – they would struggle to justify why they don’t educate themselves on better ways to resolve conflict and smarter ways to teach their children.
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