"Robbed around the house with a rope": Adults remember how their parents punished them

Recently, producer Yana Rudkovskaya in an interview with the TV channel "Rain told how she brings up her five-year-old son Sasha to grow up"a champion" and"real man". A boy nicknamed Gnome Gnomych - as the child is called parents Yana Rudkovskaya and figure skater Yevgeny Plushenko - is engaged in figure skating, leads the same name instagram (in fact, the page is supervised by his parents) and participates in fashion shows. Rudkovskaya says that she is punishing the child with a “little thin belt” and “dark room” and there is nothing terrible in it - her parents did the same and this did not prevent her from “growing up a person”.

Some of us only realized many years later: the way they were treated as children was real violence, and this experience partly shaped their fears and problems. We talked to adults who have experienced parental abuse. They told why they were beaten, how they gave up and whether it all affected their relationship with their own children.

Outwardly, our family was very good: dad - professor, mom - engineer. But they beat my sister and me for everything. Somehow on a walk in late April, I fell into a pond, climbed out and ran home to warm up. As a result, they stripped me and dad drove around the house with a rope. There were stripes on his arms and legs — such purple bruises from a rope one centimeter thick. Then I was ten years old.

They beat me for any reason: she didn’t do something, she hindered someone, mom or dad are nervous. Once at the dacha I forgot to put the basket of vegetables in the cellar, and I was put this basket (a real peat bog) on my head. Squat gave every day, I guess. As a result, my sister also began to beat me, because in the family it was in the order of things - she is nine years older than me. At the same time, it is impossible to say that I was a problem child - I didn’t play a big deal. When dad left the family, the beatings ended - I was thirteen. Episodically, my mother tried to do it further, but once I twisted her, locked her in the toilet and forbade her to raise her hand. She probably realized that I was stronger.

When beaten - very scary. From mom and dad expect another. Dad still does not understand what was wrong. Mom just says that life was hard, but now she realized everything. I do not know why the family of parents collapsed, but we do not have close relationships, only formal communication. There is no violence in my current family, and I will try to ensure that it never exists. I would not wish such an experience to anyone, but I was able to break free.

I remember one episode from childhood. The remaining cases were quite light-wise - sometimes I was lightly slapped on the bottom of the pope, - and this was a natural beating, almost kicking, with terrible screams. I do not even remember why they beat me, and my mother does not remember either. But the worst thing is that after the beatings, she got up and offended went to the neighbors, pretending that she was leaving me. All the time, while mom was not, I continued to hysterics.

When mom returned, I was in tears at her feet, begging for forgiveness and begging not to leave. We must pay tribute to her: when I, as a teenager, wanted to discuss this topic, my mother did not recall the details, but listened to me and asked for forgiveness. Then she remembered a couple of times and very much regretted. Probably, since we talked about this incident, and my mother admitted her guilt and from a certain age could be my friend, I went through this experience without loss.

It seems to me that now it is easier for us to choose a way of raising children than our parents. A lot of psychological literature, written in an accessible language, is full of articles on the Internet and generally useful information. It is somehow embarrassing for me to talk about the dangers of punishment - I really want it to be obvious to everyone.

Before school age, I grew up with my grandmother in a Cossack village, it was she who taught me love and kindness. Then my parents took me away - first my mother, later my father joined, who was in graduate school and soon graduated from it. My father was a candidate of pedagogical sciences, but he understood very little in raising children. I can not say that he beat me often or was a bad person, but sometimes he gave the cuffs so that I flew around the room head over heels. It lasted until adolescence - until I could give change.

My father did a lot of good things for me and was a kind person in general, but because of the beating, I never loved him. He died long ago, but it is still difficult for me to remember something good about him. Violence cannot be applied to a person, especially if it is a child who is dependent on the parents and can neither leave nor give up. Therefore, I decided to never raise a hand on my children - I have three daughters. My wife and I immediately agreed that if one of us would scold the child, the second should take his side - even if the daughters do something bad, they should feel protected.

I was not systematically beaten, but it happened periodically. I remember a case when at the age of five I was with my dad on a hill and severely hurt my finger. The next day I could not stand in the garden, of course, could not walk either. My parents interpreted this as a simulation, they yelled at me, beat me with a belt and dramatically dragged me to the emergency room to bring me to the clear water. X-ray showed a broken finger.

More recently, I fed my little daughter soup, she was naughty, and I felt a strong desire to dip her face in this soup. Of course, it was kept, but the desire was simply wild, as if being pushed under the arm. After a couple of days, my mother, in her own way, told me how, at three years old, she dunked my face into the soup, so that I knew how to bring her whims.

I believe that the sometimes feeling of self-worthlessness and the involuntary belief that the stronger has the right to crush me is from childhood. The inability to defend their borders, the lack of confidence in the very right to defend them - also from there. It’s almost impossible for me to deny requests to anyone. I find it hard to resist violence against my own children, and this has to be worked out with a psychologist. I often break down and shout at them, although I realize how bad it is, and I suffer because of feelings of guilt, because I understand that it is simply mean to punish a defenseless creature. By the way, in our family, ignore was actively used as a punishment, that is, the child was simply not noticed, did not react to his requests and requests, any of his needs. This practice broke into my relationship with my husband. I know how effective it is, and I use this technique often, although I know how it hurts and offends. True, trying to deal with it.

My father died before I had a conscious approach to this problem. And at first mom either devalued her or denied it, but over time she began to recognize and even apologize. I think I forgave them more or less for that.

I had a normal, by all standards a prosperous family, in which, however, corporal punishment, or rather, a belt, was practiced. It is difficult to remember how often I was beaten - it did not happen regularly, but not many times. The peak of beatings fell on 9-13 years.

My mother was mainly involved in my upbringing, so she punished. Toward ten years I had teenage symptoms: I lied, skipped school, studied poorly, Hamila, was lazy, and so on. There were regular scandals at home, and the last argument was a belt. It seems that I flew hard enough, even traces remained. Dad and grandmother did not intervene, apparently believed that this is not their territory.

It was humiliating and very, very disappointing. It seems that even now I can cry when I think about it. It’s hard to say if I feel this as a trauma - I don’t like the state of resentment and the position of the victim. But maybe, if it were not for this, I would have grown more open and confident. And we would have a more trusting relationship with mom. By the way, now they are good - we can talk for a long time, share something, consult. With all the above, mother always knew how to be affectionate and loving. But my habit of shutting myself away from her has been since that time.

I can not say that my mother and I talked to the end of this topic, but I told her about my insult. And in some conversation she admitted that she simply did not know how to influence me. That is, her attempts to educate me with the help of a belt are from powerlessness. She was a very tired woman who had drowned in domestic problems who could not cope with her teenage daughter — I now also understand this.

And yet the worst thing is that I, like my mother, do not have an internal barrier to physical punishment. Now I have a little daughter who, like all children, sometimes brings to white heat. And with great difficulty I overcome in myself the desire to spank her. Frankly, it does not always work, but I try very hard to control myself. Of course, we are not talking about any belt - these are seemingly harmless slaps on the bottom (although, of course, they are not harmless). But I have to constantly fight with myself so that my hand does not reach for the belt. Moreover, my attitude towards corporal punishment is sharply negative. I really do not want to hurt my child and dream that he was completely open to me.

They hit me with a belt when my parents thought I deserved it. As a rule, it was a question of lies. Every time they told me that they beat precisely for a lie, and not for misdemeanors. To get hit with a belt, I was asked to lie down. I ran away, so my father had to chase me around the house. It ended when I was able to give my dad my change - I was about fourteen.

When I moved to Israel, I realized that here my father would still be sitting for such treatment of a child. In Ukraine, of course, everything was different, and none of the neighbors paid attention to my cries. Periodically, we discuss this with our parents - they believe that this happened no more than five times. And I remember about 2-3 cases a year. Now mom and dad say that it was written in some Soviet magazine: children with my character cannot be corrected by talking, but can only be beaten.

In the ninth grade, having walked a lesson and received a note in the diary, I drank all the pills I found in the house. Fortunately, there were not many of them: at that time everyone was healthy and I got off with tachycardia. Parents have not learned about it.

Mom beat me for any wrongdoing. If she didn’t like my answer to her comment, she could hit me in the face with her hand. Once, with a wedding ring, she broke my lip — she was bleeding, but she didn’t apologize. Sometimes she prepared for beatings. If I was late home from a walk, she had already prepared a hose from the washing machine. One day my mother beat me with papa braces, they had metal clips, and I had all my ass and legs in the abrasions. From time to time she locked me in an apartment without keys for the whole day. I complained to my grandmother, grandfather, father, mother's sister, they considered it unacceptable, they told her more than once about it, but the situation did not change.

It ended when I was about seventeen years old. One day, when my mother wanted to hit me in the face, I grabbed her hand and twisted it. After that, she said that she would never do it again. My mother and I have had a tense relationship all my life. I fulfill my daughter duty, I care about her, but I do not feel love. I do not discuss this story, because I do not want to aggravate relations. In addition, she is already elderly and weak.

As a result, I categorically do not accept any violence, including moral and any infringement of my personal freedom. It seems to me that I grew up to be a very freedom-loving and independent person and have never in my life hit or slapped my children.