As Mother aged, her defenses gradually let down and she started sharing her hurtful deeds. “Your Father was a genius and I didn’t know how I was going to discipline you.” Mother solved this dilemma with repeated beatings, beginning from babyhood.

One such example, often retold at family gatherings, complete with giggles from others, continued into my adulthood. These multiple events occurred before I was a toddler.

Mother’s retelling of this event came complete with excuses. “You were being stubborn and held your breath because you didn’t get your way. So I kept spanking you until you ‘came to’ even though the doctor said to leave you alone or throw water in your face. I just couldn’t do it.” This was said with what I later came to identify as a mischievous, evil gleam in her eye.

In the beatings, I was not alone. My siblings received their share of Mother’s inconsistent wrath, similar, but less frequent. All except the youngest, whom we were told, “she punishes herself, I never needed to punish her.”

I was an adult escaping from an abusive relationship when my therapist pointed out, “baby beating isn’t funny.” It was in fact horrendous, nothing as a mother I would ever come close to doing with my children.