When my two oldest were 16 they decided to get into the liquor cabinet late at night during a sleepover they were having with a friend of theirs. The next morning I plodded down three flights of stairs to check on them. They were right where they were supposed to be. Sleeping on the den floor in sleeping bags. As I was turning to leave the room the bar on the far side of the room caught my eye. Something was out of place, but I couldn't register what.
I crept closer in the dark, trying not to wake the sleeping teens. As I approached the bar it became clear that there were three liquor bottles sitting there, one with the lid off, and three shot glasses.
I roared for my sleeping mate 3 flights up and charged back up the stairs. I was nine-and-a-half months pregnant and past my due date, so this was quite a lot of excitement for our house at the time.
Instantly the teens were on their feet and muttering 'oh shit, oh shit'. My husband called the visiting teens' parents to let them know what had happened and asked them to come to be witnesses to the public humiliation of our teens as their punishment.
It wasn't about the spanking. It was about that they had broken our trust and so they needed to submit to punishment for the crime they had committed. They had been given a choice between two weeks' groundation or two swings of the belt. Two swings of the belt had been decided upon.
Our two teens ran upstairs and put on several pairs of jean shorts to prepare. We encouraged the visiting teen to do the same, offering to let him borrow clothes for this purpose. He declined, sure that his parents would not make him participate.
We waited for the other parents to arrive.
When they arrived, our teens lined up dutifully to receive their punishment. We asked them to choose who would be administering the swings of the belt. They chose me.
I was not happy about that, but I stood up and positioned myself behind one then the other and gave each two swings of the belt firmly to their bottoms. They yelled as if it hurt. But, I don't believe it did; not with all the clothing they had on.
I then offered the belt to the other parents and asked if they would like to administer similar punishment to their teen. They quickly declined but asked me to do it for them.
I argued my unwillingness to spank another person's child, but they insisted. I argued that their teen had opted out of the extra clothing that was obvious on our teens and was only wearing silk shorts. Still, they were adamant.
They instructed their teen to assume the position. I positioned myself behind him and took the first swing.
I didn't swing as hard as I had with the others because of the clothing issue. But, as my arm came forward the buckle end came loose from my hand and made the belt wrap around him and hit him right in his private parts.
I was mortified and dropped the belt and started apologizing over and over again. His parents were laughing, but I began to cry because I was so upset by it.
I never again used corporal punishment on any of my children and instead was forced to come up with more imaginative ways of punishing them when they needed it. I always let them be a part of the process of choosing the appropriate punishment; often going with an idea they had as a form of punishment.
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