Punishment

My parents believed in hitting their children. 
It was a different era, that's for sure.
I was hit with my father's belt up until the time the buckle left a welt on my leg and he never would touch me again. He told me this when I was around 18-19. 
I remember the event but I never knew why we were never hit again. 
Now slapped....another story.

I had a sassy mouth. Can't imagine that can you?
We always had to eat everything on our plate and if we hated it we still had to eat a tablespoon of it. I sat staring at my food and my father said to me, "eat that or you're going to bed with nothing. There are starving kids in India."  I said,"cmon name one." 
I got slapped and sent to my room with no more dinner. 
I wasn't upset. I hated beets and still do.  (and I still find that funny)

Once when I was 6 I said a bad word in Italian that I heard my mom say. Yep, slapped and soap in my mouth. But I didn't understand why that was wrong when she said that...all the time. 

Another time when I was probably 13 or so  I remember when my father came home late from work already angry about God knows what.  He walked into our house yelling, " Why hasn't the lawn been mowed?"  My mom of course at this time had died so I had no one to cover for me anymore.  I walked into the kitchen and said I just didn't get around to it today Dad, maybe we need to get some goats.  I laughed and he slapped me. Guess he thought that was disrespectful. Guess who had the lawn mowed the next day? Yep, me and my pride.

As my father grew up there was no more slapping or hitting. My 4 younger sisters missed out on all of that. Lucky them. Looking back my father was very young and since his family dynamic was so messed up he had no father figure to really learn from. My mom's father I had never met because he died before I was born, but from what my mom and dad told me, he was a mean SOB and I never knew if he struck his children but my mom was adamant about not doing that.(Slapping apparently to her was not hitting.)

But just because I was no longer slapped or given the belt doesn't mean I was not disciplined.  Oh boy, I was grounded so much I thought I'd never see the light of day outside my house.

When I was 14 I got caught smoking pot with my cousin. I had to spend the whole summer in my house. I was not allowed to talk on the phone and the tv in my room was removed. He also took away my bike.  My bike was my freedom before I could drive. I think that was the worst.  No beach, no friends, no life.
I could read, help my step mom clean, do laundry etc, help with the children. oh yippee.

That was to be all my activities for June,July, and August. 
I remember a couple of things during that period. 
One was the dreaded phone call.
Since I wasn't even allowed to answer the phone, my father answered it.
I heard him say, "Peggy can't talk on the phone until she goes back to school. You can talk to her in September."  And he hung up. 
OMG. I began to cry. I was so damn embarrassed that he would say this to a friend.  I asked who it was. He said he didn't know and walked away. I wailed, "I am going to be an old maid" Where that came from I have no idea but I remember running down the hall after saying that and throwing myself on my bed crying. Oh so dramatic like only a hormonal teen can be.  It was the longest damn summer of my life.

One time while grounded I was to clean his cars and do all these other extra chores from my own regular chores. I was normally grounded for sassing them. Now that they didn't hit, something was taken out of my life to make it pure hell for me.  Why did I keep doing it?  because if I wasn't snarky my head would explode. The day of car washing and edging the grass around the driveway I went to my back yard when I was finished. I was in my bathing suit which I wore to wash the cars.  I sat on a chaise and put baby oil all over me to get some sun. (remember when no one used sunscreen?)
My neighbor Mark stood at the end of his property line in his backyard and screamed to me. We both just screamed back and forth because he knew I was grounded. My mom opened the window after seeing this and said, "Mark can come over before your dad gets home"  So Mark hearing this walks over.
We were just hanging out and talking when my mom opened the window and said, "Your father is coming"  You would never have seen a human move so fast as Mark did. He was lightening. He was afraid of my father. Which I find pretty funny, but not at that time. I was certain my father was going to drive all boys away forever. 

Once when sitting out around our little pool in the backyard in my bikini with some neighbor kids and my sisters my father came home. He saw me outside and came out with a t-shirt and in front of everyone he told me to put it on. It felt like the world stopped. It was silent and I was mortified. But, I did as told and he went inside. I was 14 or 15.  Now as an adult, I know why he asked that. I had big boobs. He wanted 110lb me with DD's to be covered. Seriously Dad? Won't the boys see them in my shirt?  God my father made me so self-conscious as a young woman.  He was a person one would watch to know what NOT to do while raising a daughter.  But he had 5 of them and I was the first. He got better...not by much but my sisters had it pretty easy in comparison.  

As an adult at age 40, he told me he felt badly for me because I didn't have children. You're not a real woman Peg if you aren't married and having children. This career of yours will eventually just make you a lonely bitter woman.
That was the last time he ever talked to me like that. I had just turned 40. I told him that I was an adult and he can't come to my home and disrespect me like that. How would he have felt if his mother told him how to live his life?
I continued with the fact that he is so stubborn and has deliberately done the opposite at times when told what to do.  I told him if he ever spoke to me like that again, he could stay away. He never did. He hugged me then. Did not say he was sorry because I knew he wasn't. But I never forgot that crazy ass thinking of his.  I am not sure a slap could have hurt any more.