We Were Taught to Obey, Not to Feel: Breaking the Cycle of Spanking

By Lisa Valeus

Breaking the cycle of spanking starts with understanding why our parents hit. A therapist raised in a Haitian home on what survival-shaped discipline costs our children, and how to choose softness on purpose.

Picture this. Your child talks back — honestly, the way children do when a feeling outgrows their manners. And before your brain catches up, your hand is already in the air. In that split second, you see two faces: your child’s and your mother’s.

If that moment has ever stopped you cold, this is for you.

I grew up in a Haitian home, and hear me first: my parents loved me fiercely. In our house, love and discipline were braided too tightly to pull apart. Obedience wasn’t requested; it was required. A belt, a switch, a slipper — preparation, not cruelty. My parents were armoring me for a world they knew wouldn’t be gentle with their Black daughter.

I honor that, because too many conversations about our parenting turn survivors into villains. Haiti was born of the only successful slave revolution in human history — then punished for it with crushing debt, dictatorship, disaster after disaster. When survival is the family business, parenting becomes a survival project. The strictness had a reason. I will never let anyone tell you otherwise.

But love with a reason can still leave a wound. Nine years into sitting with Black families, here’s what that wound looks like:

When obedience is everything, children learn to be silent instead of expressive. They learn to perform goodness instead of feeling safe. And physical punishment — even wrapped in love — teaches a child’s nervous system that the people closest to you can also be the people who hurt you. That lesson doesn’t expire at eighteen. It shows up in your relationships, your conflicts — and eventually, your own parenting.

The numbers back this up. A landmark meta-analysis by Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor found that 71% of the measured effects of physical punishment were statistically significant — and 99% pointed the same direction: unfavorable outcomes for children. More aggression. More antisocial behavior. Poorer mental health. Weaker parent-child relationships. The belt gets immediate compliance, and the research is clear about what it costs.

This pattern lives in our homes specifically. A study co-authored by researcher Elizabeth Gershoff, covering 20,000 kindergartners and their parents, found that 89% of Black parents said they have spanked their children — the highest of any group in the study. I know somebody’s typing “that’s just our culture” — but this didn’t start as culture. It started as survival. Enslaved parents beat their children so slave owners wouldn’t kill them for the smallest defiance. The danger is gone. The discipline remained. What was once protection is now just habit — and our children are paying for a danger that no longer exists.

Our children don’t need perfect parents. They need the generation that chose softness on purpose.

Mothers of daughters, hear me: in many of our homes, daughters were handed adulthood at twelve, thirteen, fourteen — cooking, cleaning, raising younger siblings, managing adults’ emotions — all of it wrapped in obedience. A daughter who pushed back wasn’t independent. She was disrespectful. So many Black women I work with entered adulthood already exhausted, already fluent in silence. Then they wonder why rest feels like guilt. My love, that didn’t start with your partner. That started in childhood.

So what do we do? I’m not here to shame anybody’s mama. I’m here to hand you what healing taught me.

You don’t have to throw away your culture to break this cycle. Keep the closeness, the respect, the devotion. Just set down what wounds. In my book, I write: what was learned can be relearned. Your parents did what survival taught them. You get to do what healing teaches you.

The next time your child tests you — and they will — pause before you react. Get on their eye level. Ask what they’re feeling before you tell them what they did wrong. Choose words over the belt. Let your daughter be a child longer. Let your son cry, and stay with him while he does. That’s what breaking a cycle looks like. One soft moment where a hard one used to be.

Here’s my call, parent to parent: tonight, do one thing differently. When the old script rises in your throat — your grandmother’s, your mother’s — catch it. Replace the reaction with a question. Replace the punishment with a conversation. Our children don’t need perfect parents. They need the generation that chose softness on purpose.

Mindset shifts after trauma. Repair. Rebuild. Reinvent yourself. It starts at home — with the next child who talks back, honestly, the way children do. This time, let the feeling be safe.

Illustration may be AI-generated.

More on Breaking the Cycle of Spanking

To Spank or Not to Spank · Why Grandparents Are Ruining Your Discipline · How Parents Can Break Generational Trauma