Were you ever Switched?
 

I was reading that when Oprah was a little girl the grandmother would switch her with some kind of tree branch called a switch. They called it "switching".

Sometimes I wonder if I was switched at birth.

A switch is a small tree branch converted to a weapon for use in disciplining children. I do believe it's a southern thang.

My mother used to use a wooden spoon. I remember one time she whacked me with it and it broke (but it didn't hurt at all). I laughed so hard and so long. She wasn't pleased with me at all that day.

Our mothers must have grown up in the same town. :D

Another time, I pulled my hand away at the last minute and she hit her thigh. That...was a mistake. ;)

Heh...I remembered when my grandmother broke her large wooden spoon - she whacked it on the table as a threat (one more time and you're going to get a beating) - well...this time a cm wide piece came right off the side.
Both of us were silent for a split second - then I laughed and she, although annoyed, giggled a little as well.

I can only imagine.

My mother, too, used a wooden spoon. And she broke one on me one time as well.

I was.. They gave me to the wrong mother in the hospital and when they brought my mom "me" she said that they brought her the wrong child since she had a boy and they brought her a girl. I wonder who I was given to for that short stint.. I wonder if they are rich.

I wish I got it with a wooden spoon. I went to a Catholic High School for 2 years. They used a "Board of Education". A good Christian Brother would use both hands while administering the Board of Education and teaching brotherly love.

Switches were horrible.

Ruler. Stick. Hand. Whatever. It wasn't the pain, it was the embarrassment. Back in the old days we didn't have A/C and sealed houses so everybody was in everybody else's bidness all'a time.

Porches used to be for sitting-on in the evening. Parents would talk about their day while the kids caught fireflies. There was a certain unwritten etiquette about strolling by somebody else's home. You'd say howdy to each other. If no invitation was issued to come to the porch then you'd pass a few pleasantries and move-on. You'd invite somebody to the porch for a lemonade, iced tea of water. If you had alcohol you knew better than to invite non-drinkers up to the porch. That's when you'd invite the Catholics, Jews and Episcopalians to the porch.

B

X2

I can still here her, 45 years later, saying "Do I have to get the wooden spoon?"

oh yeah the switch was used up north,too.

i cannot remember ever getting it myself, but i can remember mom asking my older sisters..."do i have to go cut a switch?"

it was the ultimate punishment for years.

tom w

I went to Catholiic elementary schruel, and remember the board of education, the handle was wrapped with tape, like a baseball bat. Plus, there were air holes drilled in the contact end.

I remember getting it for "gambling", or shooting marbles(and dice :D )behind the school building after school one day, and then they called my parents... boy was I sore the next day.

No.

Can't you tell?

:D