I would like to share a memory that happened in the early 1980s. My parents divorced when I was six years old. My Mom had been a stay-at-home mother since I was born, but after the divorce she went back to work, and needed to find someone to watch me over the summer.
She arranged for my Aunt Janice, who was actually my Mom’s first cousin, to take care of me. Aunt Janice was an attractive woman of about forty at the time. She had a husband and a couple of teenage kids of her own, but when I stayed at her house it was usually just her and me. Aunt Janice always acted very friendly and upbeat when my mother was around, but with children she was very stern and strict.
The first day that I was at her house, she sat me down to give me a list of rules. These included things like always play quietly, never change the channel or turn up the volume on the TV without asking, never take food or drinks outside of the kitchen, and her most important rule, do as you’re told, and don’t talk back. Aunt Janice then informed me that she had an understanding with my mother that, so long as she was taking care of me, she could punish me any way she saw fit.
I was quiet boy, and usually obedient, so I didn’t get punished much at home or at school. I wondered what kinds of punishments Aunt Janice might use. However, I was determined to follow her rules so as not to have to find out. But it wasn’t long before an issue came up that got me in trouble with Aunt Janice. I was a shy, slightly anxious kid, and for some reason I had this weird fear of using the bathroom away from home. I was shy about asking, and I felt self-conscious about the idea that someone might overhear me in the bathroom. It had been an issue when I was in Kindergarten. I had several accidents in school, until my teachers solved the problem by putting me on a bathroom schedule that allowed me to use it at designated times without other kids around.
If I needed to use the bathroom at Aunt Janice’s house, I would usually wait until she was in the basement doing laundry. But around the third or fourth day that she was watching me, the first incident occurred. I was playing outside in the back yard, and Aunt Janice was watching me from the kitchen table. I felt a very strong urge to pee, but was too shy to go back inside and explain that I needed to use the bathroom. After maybe an hour of trying to hold it, I ended up wetting my pants. I tried to hide it for a while, but when Aunt Janice came to check on me and saw that I had wet myself, she angrily ordered me inside. She threw my pants and underwear in the laundry and gave me a bath.
While I was in the tub, she told me that I would be getting punished for wetting myself. After drying me off and getting me into a change of clothes, she took me to the kitchen and told me to wait there. She took a small wooden chair out of the closet and placed it facing a corner.
“This is your naughty chair,” she informed me. “Any time you do something wrong, you will sit in this chair and face the corner until I tell you that you can get out.”
I continued to have these accidents once or twice a week over the next couple of weeks. With each incident, my time in the naughty chair got longer. Aunt Janice also introduced other punishments; no TV, no toys, no dessert, no going outside, to try to break me of my habit. Around the third week, after discovering that I had wet my pants while watching TV and left a stain on the couch, she had had enough.
After getting me changed, she sat me down and said, “I have tried every other punishment I can think of with you, and they are clearly not working. There is only one option left; a spanking!”
I felt my heart skip a beat when I heard the word ‘spanking’. My Mom had swatted me on the behind a couple of times, but my mental image of a spanking, which came from TV shows and movies, was of a child draped over a grown-up’s lap, getting his bottom smacked with a hairbrush or a paddle until it was red and sore.
Aunt Janice took me to the kitchen where she retrieved a wooden cooking spoon from a drawer. She took one of the chairs from the kitchen table, placed it in the middle of the room, sat down, and motioned for me to come near.
When I was face-to-face with her, she said, “Does your mother spank you?”
I shook my head.
“She should,” she said. “Do you know what a spanking is?”
I nodded.
“Take down your pants.”
I hesitated a little, but after she gave me a stern look I complied, dropping my pants to my ankles but leaving my underwear on. I was afraid that she would tell me to drop my underwear as well, but instead she patted her lap to indicate that it was time to lie across it.
Once I was across her knee, my heart skipped another beat when I felt her peel back my underwear to bare my bottom. Then I felt her bring the wooden spoon down on my bottom with a loud smack. I winced. She raised it again. Smack. I let out a whimper. She proceeded to give me about ten or twelve good, hard spanks and by the end I was in tears. After being allowed to pull my pants up and rub my bottom for a few moments, I was sent to the naughty chair.
After that first spanking, I made more of an effort to overcome my habit of wetting my pants. But I was not successful right away. I continued to have accidents about once a week. Each accident resulted in another ‘good, old-fashioned spanking’ and a trip to the naughty chair.
Aunt Janice also became very creative in her choice of implements. I remember being spanked at different times with a wooden ruler, a spatula, and a fly swatter. I was even spanked once with a plastic toy shovel, the kind that kids play with at the beach. Her spankings were always given over the knee, on the bare bottom.
The story ends on a positive note, though. On my last day at Aunt Janice’s house, she pointed out to me that I had managed to go a full two weeks without accident. She even gave me a hug and told me she was proud of me.
Then she commented, “I guess all those spankings did you some good.”
MSi