I will never forget the time I saw a woman beating her son in public. I had just finished grocery shopping. My son was about 10 at the time. As we were walking to the car we heard what sounded like a man crying. This woman had taken off her shoe and was beating her teenage son with it. It was quite a scene. He was much taller than her and crying like a baby. He kept trying to block the blows while his mother wailed on him with that shoe and cursed him out in front of everybody. There were other people in the parking lot watching and laughing. My son was horrified and frightened. I grabbed him and told him that he doesn’t ever have to worry about being degraded like that. Some times I think about that young teen and wonder how he turned out. I wonder if he hates women.

Cecily J.
Franklin, VA

I don’t understand why my mama expects me to stop crying right after a beating. It hurts. Why does she always tell me to stop? She always tells me to shut up or she will give me something to cry about?

Barron W.
Philadelphia, PA

The worst kind of whuppin is the kind when they wake you up in the middle of the night because you forgot to do something they told you to do. They pull back them sheets and wear you out. You don’t even have a chance to say nothing. You don’t have time to defend yourself. You can’t run. You feel like you are having a bad dream.

Shontelle
Detroit, MI

My mother used to make me go pick a switch off a tree. It had to be a big one too. She would whip me so bad that it would break up into little pieces. When she was done I had to pick up the leaves and the broken pieces. I couldn’t cry or she would do it again.

Andy M.
Norfolk, VA

I remember one time my older sister did something bad and was about to get a beating. When our mother came into the room with the belt my sister fainted on the living room floor and played dead. Me and my other siblings started to laugh because we knew she wasn’t dead. Our mother laughed too. All of us laughing at the same time actually kept her from getting a beating. But now when I look back on the situation, I still laugh, but I also think about how scared my sister really was. She was so scared that she thought that the possibility of her dropping dead would save her from the pain of a beating. In the end, my sister was lucky because my mom didn’t beat her. But I know of other people who tried the same playing dead tactic and their parents still beat them while they were laid out on the floor.

A. King
Brooklyn, New York