Bizarre punishments as children

[Lencoboy]

You ever catch Monty Pythons British birth vs Irish birth lenso? Absolutely hilarious. The Irish mom drops the baby in the kitchen while making dinner and never skips a beat 🤣. Of course there's about 15 kids in the kitchen with her already lol.

That would no doubt be considered non-PC by today's standards.

[Lencoboy]

On one occasion back in late March 1985 I was standing on the sofa in our living room with the Sooty Show episode 'Super Star', where Sweep became an overnight pop star, and laughing at him singing, and my mom suddenly burst into the room and started having a mega hissy fit at me for standing on the sofa and screamed at me 'If I ever catch you standing on the furniture like that again I'm gonna take you to the POLICE STATION'!!

I know she probably never really meant it, and was no doubt said in the heat of the moment, but said threat has haunted me for the remaining 36 years since.

I reckon had my mom literally acted on said threat and drove me down to the local nick they would have no doubt given her a right ear-bending for wasting valuable police time over a seemingly trivial matter, and over a kid who was nearly 8 years old at the time who had hardly even committed the crime of the century!

[Lencoboy]

My mom's sister (my 'maternal' aunt) was far worse in terms of harsh discipline and was very slap-happy towards my cousins back when they were kids, and often used to dish out hard smacks willy-nilly, with the 'hit first, think about it later' mentality, sometimes even for relatively trivial misdemeanours, or not even 'misdemeanours' at all!

Having said that, my maternal grandad had a bit of a screw loose and was a bit of a sadist, fisticuff-happy barsteward himself, who even pushed my mom down the stairs as a punishment when she was a child, let alone her and my aunt being on the receiving end of a few beltings and slipperings by him as children!

My paternal grandad was very similar and treated my dad in similar ways when he was a child.

Hardly surprising both my mom and myself have turned out a bit disturbed, though fortunately, my dad has always been a bit more resilient and has managed to rise above many of his childhood treatments that would no doubt be considered abusive by today's standards, and rarely ever whacked me and my brother back when we were kids, except whenever I really provoked him.

[Lencoboy]

I remember when I was about 4 my mom warned me that shop managers would take me into the back of the store and smack my bum really hard if I touched anything or misbehaved in said shops.

Probably would have been really embarrassing for the store manager to be expected to physically chastise misbehaving little kids coming into his premises and inadvertently be portrayed as a potential bogeyman unless he was some serial nonce case, which of course doesn't even bear thinking about!

Seriously, was there ever a time when store managers literally had the legal rights and powers to physically chastise naughty little kids on their premises when it was (and still is) really the responsibility of the parents to discipline their misbehaving kids?

It kind of backfired, as I went on to develop fears of the shops concerned, especially in case a big hulking (male) manager came bursting out of the back room in fits of rage about to snatch me into the back and brutalise me for even breathing on his premises!

I've just remembered about the man who was the manager of the local Co-op store in the 'ward' of our town that we lived in when I was a little kid. His job (IIRC) also doubled up as the in-store butcher and he used to wear a white coat and I remember being scared of him as he was another one of those 'bogeyman' shop managers whom my mom used to warn me about him taking me into the back of the store and giving me a good hiding if I touched anything or simply played up in said store.

One night when I was about 4 1/2 I recall having a nightmare about him snatching me into the back of the store and setting about me with his meat cleavers and other bladed instruments he used to carve up the meat with.

In reality he was probably far from being the perverted 'bad man' who revelled in chastising naughty little kids for misbehaving on his shop premises, and actually a decent bloke.

I think some parents simply have addled minds themselves when they tell their kids such scary (and false) fairy tales!

Also another typical example of all men being stigmatised when there are also women who can be just as cruel to children, men and other women just the same.

[Lencoboy]

Although this was fictitious, there's an episode of Brookside from January 1983 on YouTube where Damon Grant (who was probably about 14 at the time) returned an anorak that his parents had bought him for Christmas and spent the refunded money on records instead.

Sheila found out about it through Damon's sister Karen, and they both went out to a market where they sold the records Damon bought with the refunded anorak money while Damon, Barry and Bobby were at a footie match that afternoon, and Sheila bought Damon a girl's coat instead and demanded he wore it as a punishment!

Talk about parental humiliation?

However, the Grant parents did seem to come across as rather abrasive and very 'black-and-white' about things at times, especially Bobby, who appeared to disown Barry umpteen times. He also disowned Sheila just over 5 years later when she and her neighbour Cathy went out clubbing one night, and chucked all her possessions out into the middle of the Close, which he also did to Barry whenever they had an epic fallout!

Hardly surprising the Grant boys were a bit off the straight and narrow with such an abrasive, rage-happy dad!