He hung himself when I was 16. No guilt for getting him back, horror or maybe ptsd from seeing him crawling, mewling up the passageway bleeding everywhere after I smashed him over the head with an iron bar while he was raping my mother, when I was around 14. And that was only one of many, many incidents. The police would wait around the corner until the screaming stopped before coming to tell him he was a bad boy. Grief for what could have been. (silly, right?) Horror at myself, perhaps slightly exaggerated but the older I get the more I deeply regret the hurt I went on to cause to others until I learned better.

@Cyklone Adequately explained. Thank you. That your youthful years were so awful saddens me.

@yvilletom Thank you, past history for me now, the truly sad thing is that my story is so common and keeps happening.

Perhaps it's institutionalised because it's accepted as okay within families or is hidden within families. The chicken or the egg. It needs to be addressed at all levels of society.

@Cyklone I don't disagree that all levels need to be addressed, but the low hanging fruit is the public schools. Banning corporal punishment at the hands of teachers and principals in the public schools would seem less of challenge than banning such in private or parochial schools and churches. To ban corporal punishment in the home will be the last and most difficult hurdle.

@p-nullifidian true...

Agreed.

My father was an atheist. He did us the favour of killing himself when I was 16, which probably saved me from a murder charge. I went to his funeral to make sure it was him in the coffin and that he was dead.

My father spanked me, but my mother never did. I paid him back. If I'm like that then others are too. There are better methods than spanking. Spanking just sends the message that it's ok to hit people you love. Current research shows that spanking dramatically increases anxiety in children and that increased anxiety inhibits learning. In effect you are knocking the lesson out of them

@Cyklone Paid him back? How did you do that?

@barjoe When I was old enough, in my teens, I paid him back in kind with my fists, the first time I would have been 13 and he was drunk and assaulting another. A couple of times when I was a child, 8ish, I tried to poison him. Once I stole acid from school chem lab to use against him, but it didn't work. Thankfully for my wellbeing I was unsuccessful. Violence is transactional and just creates more violence, regardless of age. Violence may have its uses, but never as a "teaching aid". The only time I've ever found it justified was in defence against violence.

@Cyklone My old man was like 6'5" 260lb, so even the year he passed away, he was not someone most people would wanna fuck with. He never put his hands on us, he was a gentle giant. My 5' tall mother used to beat us pretty good when we were little, specifically me. I would never raise my hands to my parents. Mom use to smack me as an adult lol. She was a sweet lady, don't get me wrong. I loved her so much.

I was her caregiver the last few years of her life, she had dementia. I was basically the only person she hit until her Alzheimer's got the best of her. She "beat up" a couple caregivers and the agency wouldn't send people to her place anymore. She felt they were invading her space.

You're right about violence breading more violence, my aunt once told me their mom used to beat the crap out of all of them. Raising kids to think that violence is normal behavior.