(gap: 2s) My childhood unfolded in Buffalo, New York, a city of snowdrifts and steel, where the wind off Lake Erie could rattle the windows and make the radiators clank in protest. I was the eldest of four—a position that felt both like a crown and a burden. My sister trailed me by two years, always eager to follow in my footsteps, while my two brothers, five and eight years younger, seemed to exist in a world of their own, their laughter echoing down the narrow hallway of our modest home.
(short pause) Our house was a small, sturdy place, with faded wallpaper and the comforting hum of the old furnace. The living room was the heart of our world: a threadbare tartan settee, geometric wallpaper, and the ever-present scent of my mother’s baking mingling with the metallic tang of the city outside. In winter, we’d huddle by the electric fire, our cheeks pink from the cold, listening to the radio as snow piled up against the door.
(pause) Discipline was a fact of life, woven into the fabric of our days as surely as the Methodist hymns my mother sang while she worked. Spankings were less in fashion by the time I was growing up, but my parents—especially my mother—held fast to the old ways. All four of us were spanked, though never in anger, and always with a sense of purpose that made the experience both dreaded and oddly reassuring.
(short pause) My father, a quiet man with calloused hands and a gentle voice, would sometimes be the one to mete out punishment, but it was my mother who truly set the tone in our home. She was a devout Methodist, her faith as much a part of her as the plain dresses she wore and the careful way she pinned her hair. She thanked the Lord for every small mercy, and believed, with unwavering conviction, in the old saying: “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Yet, she never used a rod—her hand, or more often, a wooden spoon or hairbrush, was enough. She saw it as her duty before God to raise us right, and her sense of responsibility was as heavy as the snow that blanketed our street each winter.
(pause) Before my youngest brother was born, my mother had been a classroom teacher, and she brought that same sense of order and routine into our home. Spankings weren’t everyday occurrences, but they weren’t rare either. I remember, during my peak years—between ten and fourteen—I’d earn one about once a month, sometimes for talking back, sometimes for squabbling with my sister, and sometimes for reasons I can’t even recall now. After that, the spankings became less frequent, but each one left its mark, not just on my skin, but on my memory.
(short pause) The ritual was always the same, and that predictability made it all the more daunting. If we’d crossed a line, we’d be sent to my parents’ bedroom to stand in the empty corner, the wallpaper pattern blurring as I stared at it for what felt like an eternity—usually fifteen minutes or so. The house would be quiet, the only sounds the ticking of the hallway clock and the distant clatter of dishes in the kitchen. That time in the corner was meant for my mother to cool down, to ensure she never spanked in anger, but for me, it was a time of mounting dread, my mind racing through every possible outcome.
(pause) When she finally entered the room, her footsteps measured and deliberate, she’d call me out of the corner and instruct me to fetch the implement she’d chosen. I was never spanked with her hand; when we were younger, it was the wooden spoon, and as we grew older, the hairbrush or the ping-pong paddle. If the offense involved a lie, she’d reach for the old leather tool belt we called The Strap—a relic from my father’s days as a handyman, its presence enough to make my stomach twist with anxiety.
(short pause) Mother would sit at her vanity bench and would issue a repremand while we stood at her side. As I got older, the embarrassment of standing there was excruciating – almost as bad as the spanking I was about to receive.
After the lecture we would be instructed to go over her knee and the spanking would commence, again not rushed or in a flurry, but in a series of even, measured swats that we were expected to count our loud. She usually spanked in groups of 12 swats and a typical spanking.
After the spanking was over, we would be sent back to the corner, usually for 30 minutes or so, before we were allowed to go on about our business.
Though the spankings were both uncomfortable and embarrassing, the upside was that once it was over, it was over and it was very rare that there were groundings or other restrictions attached to them.
Most spankings were given in my folks’ room, door left open so everyone could hear. Occasionally, when Mother wanted to make a point or make an example out of one of us, she would spank the unlucky party in the kitchen in front of the other siblings.
I saw all of my brothers and sisters get it from time to time, and a few of mine were witnessed by them – including my last one, a hairbrush spanking.
