[Tandem mama]

I had lots of non-spanking friends who told me why they didn't spank. I was spanking "right" and it wasn't frequent so I thought to each their own.

Nothing anyone said changed my views. It was when our family was in a high stress situation and sunshine was acting oppositionally. I spanked her. She did the behavior again. I spanked again. Harder. Repeat another time. I had this sort of revelation. "this is not working!!!" another time, during that same period, I was yelling and screaming and spanking her and I had a sort of out of body experience where I saw myself. I was terrifying!!! My poor baby. I looked like an abusive parent. I was not spanking hard but wow I was so scary. That's the moment when all my defenses of what I was doing flew out the window. I broke down and cried and apologized to my little girl and prayed and swore i would not spank again. At first it was difficult because I didn't have the tools. At first I wanted to spank. I may have slipped a couple times, I can't fully remember. But I've worked hard and it's been over a year since she's been spanked. She doesn't cower in fear when she makes a mistake anymore. Before that stressful time I'd only spanked a couple times. We are doing better and better. I still struggle with yelling but I've come a long way from that day when I looked like a monster.