Aunt Betsy Part 1 by Randy

Moving to a new school is always difficult, especially when your mother is leaving to work abroad for a year. Aunty Betsy lived in the north and I was to stay with her and my cousin Tommy until my she returned.  

My cousin Tommy and I were both small for fourteen-year-olds. We looked about two years younger - and were unathletic in a school which placed an emphasis on sports, we found ourselves somewhat excluded from the rough and tumble clubbiness of school. This situation along with many common interests and family ties drew us together and we were quickly inseparable.

About two weeks into the term, Tommy got a D on the first maths test and fretted for the rest of the day as if he had failed the final exam. At some point, I finally asked:

"What's the problem, Tommy? It's just the weekly test, you can easily make it up next week by swotting up."

He mumbled something about how he was, "really going to get it at home" and changed the conversation. Since my mother had still spanked me once or twice a week and frequently mentioned how her sister used the same methods, my curiosity was instantly aroused. Eager to find out more, I pressed Tommy further. But he only put me off with more vague answers.

"It's nothing, Billy. It's just that my mum has my teachers call her whenever I get anything less than a C- and then I get in trouble."

Knowing there was more to it than that, I asked him as innocently as I could:

"What do you care if you can't watch TV tonight or lose this week's pocket money?"

"Never mind, Billy ... it's not a big deal." He said evasively.

"Only after you tell me what happens to you at home when you get bad grades. Come on, Tommy, you can tell me. Since when do good friends have secrets?"

"I suppose they don't... but really... it's not anything. I'd just rather not talk about it."

Since he was obviously embarrassed, I realised the only way to get the truth out of him was to tell him about my own experiences.

"Tommy, I get the feeling your mother still uses the same kind of old-fashioned methods that my mum uses at home. My mum warned me to mind my manners when I came north or your mum would handle me the same way."

At this, Tommy's eyes widened.

"What do you mean handle you the same way? What are you talking about?"

Realising I would have to spill the beans first, I looked around to make sure no one was nearby and lowered my voice to a whisper.

"Tommy, cross your heart and swear to die you won't ever tell anyone?"

After Tommy gulped and nodded nervously, I continued,

"I think I know what happens to you because it still happens to me. I'm talking about getting punished like little boys even though we're fourteen,  I'm talking about... you know... about... about... getting spanked. You're the first person up here I've ever admitted this to. Now fair's fair, Tommy. I've told you my secret. You've got to tell me yours?"

After looking around nervously and swearing me to absolute secrecy in return, Tommy nervously admitted he too was still spanked at home. After further prodding encouraged by additional disclosures on my part, he even admitted that spankings were a regular occurrence at home.

Like Tommy, I was just as eager to keep my own mother's methods a secret from my school classmates once I had arrived at my new school. I had long since taken for granted that naughty children of all ages were spanked and it was only in recent months that I began to realise just how embarrassing it really was for a boy of my age to be taken over his mother's knee like a little boy and spanked on his bare bottom.


Once we got over the initial embarrassment of admitting we were both still spanked, our mutual confession led to a whole series of whispered discussions after school. We compared notes on spankings we had received, the different methods used by our mums, and the prominent role of a demerit chart tied to a regular, weekly spanking time. We also swapped stories about our most embarrassing spankings such as the times when we were punished in the living room with family friends present or the spankings received from babysitters. Like my mother, Aunt Betsy believed an extra witness or a surrogate disciplinarian added to the humiliation of a spanking. Over the years, many of my mother's closest female friends had witnessed my spankings including neighbours and school teachers as well as cousins and playmates. While Tommy and I had both been spanked by babysitters, no one else had ever spanked him. Consequently, he took a special interest in my accounts of being spanked by the school nurse, Sunday school teachers, and even the Akela of my Cub pack. It was, perhaps, no accident that all of these women were good friends of my mother and regular visitors to our home.

Fortunately for me, my weekly experiences across my mother's lap had ended with her departure, I supposed I was completely safe as long as she was away. I adored Aunt Betsy for her loving yet firm manner and the way she always kept a cheerful disposition. Even when she scolded Tommy, a real gentleness came through. No wonder Tommy worshipped her and seemed genuinely disturbed when he let her down. We also liked her because she spoiled us so with delicious meals, funny stories, and lots of outings. 

While it was clear most boys our age would have been horrified at the idea of regular spankings, it did help knowing that my best friend was disciplined the same way.

Unfortunately, all of his mum's friends seemed to know he was still spanked, especially since Aunt Betsy talked about it so openly. Some of Aunt Betsy's friends seemed to go out of the way to embarrass him by asking direct questions about his last spanking. If that weren't enough, there was the demerit chart and paddle his mother hung conspicuously on the kitchen wall (again, just like my mother). If any visitor inquired, they always got a detailed explanation. 

Demerit charts linked to a weekly spanking hour seem to have been more common in the sixties. In many ways, the chart was a special monthly calendar, with a page for each month. Descending on the left was a long list of chores and behaviours covering everything from housework and homework to obedience. Before putting us to bed each night, our mums would mark a plus or a minus on the chart for that day with a number next to every minus for the number of spanked earned. When Sunday came, we fetched the chart and the paddle after dinner so they could tally the spanks earned and enter the number of spanks earned. Attentive visitors to our homes could see exactly how many spanks we had earned the previous two or three weeks, and if they flipped the pages, for other months as well. This tended to generate more embarrassing comments and questions at home.

Needless to say, with so many categories for misbehaviour, we almost always faced a spanking on Sunday nights. The worst effect of the demerit chart then was to create what was basically a permanent spanking sentence which hung over us every week. Even before the sting of one Sunday spanking faded, we both knew the ritual would be repeated in seven days, if not before. And over the years, each Sunday night spanking would revive memories of all the preceding spankings going back years while promising an infinite series of future lessons. Though we got older, the Sunday night ritual created a firm tie to our past and reminded us we were still in some ways treated like little boys.

Despite such embarrassing routines, Tommy and I accepted our punishments because our mothers always spanked out of love and made that clear whenever they put one of us over their laps. According to Tommy, Aunt Betsy never spanked hastily or in anger and never without a good reason. If she felt his correction couldn't wait until Sunday night, she informed him in a firm tone that he had earned an "extra bedtime chat" and left it at that. Tommy knew he would be put to bed early on those nights and that his mother expected him to take his evening bath directly after doing the dinner dishes.

Despite ten years of such bedtime chats with his mother, Tommy almost always got butterflies in his stomach while taking his bath. After drying off and brushing his teeth, he reported to his room wrapped in a towel. By then, Aunt Betsy was always sitting on his bed with his special "naughty boy jammies" laid out beside her, the jammies he always wore on Sunday nights. This was a light blue, one-piece, sleeper outfit his mum had made especially for him with enclosed feet and a button-down flap in back. Except for its size, it was identical to the kind of pyjamas he had worn as a toddler.

Aunt Betsy believed spankings were more effective if they came with additional reminders of what happened to little boys who didn't act their age. For the same reason, she usually took his temperature rectally after she changed him into his jammies and before his spanking. Tommy absolutely hated this since it really made him feel like a toddler. And indeed, while she lubricated him with Vaseline, inserted the thermometer, and held it in place for five minutes, Aunt Betsy always scolded him thoroughly for needing to be treated like a little baby. To make matters worse, she always insisted that his babysitters put him into his "naughty boy jammies" right after dinner as a reminder of what to expect if he misbehaved. And she always left the Vaseline jar and thermometer out on the bathroom sink in case the babysitter needed it.

As for the spankings themselves, Tommy said she always spanked slowly and patiently, reinforcing the spanks with a lengthy series of questions and sharp verbal reminders using language normally reserved for younger children. Methodical and thorough, her sessions usually lasted twenty to thirty minutes including the post-spanking time lying over her knees until any real crying subsided. Sometimes, she made Tommy stand in the corner afterwards with his jammies flap down, his reddened bottom on display for another fifteen minutes. 
Whether he did corner time or not, she always sat him on her lap at the very end for a final cuddle and kiss. Aunt Betsy would remind him again of how much mummy loved him, what a good little angel he was most of the time, and why mummy had to spank him whenever he was naughty. He, in turn, had to promise mummy to try to be good in the future. Only then was he put to bed.

Except for Tommy’s special, “naughty boy jammies”, my mother had similar ideas along with a few special twists of her own. She often combined spankings with punishment naps, early bedtimes, and rectal temperature taking. (She had a strange theory that boys misbehaved when they were sickening for something.) Additionally, she reviewed my behaviour once a week in addition to giving out extra spankings which couldn't wait until Sunday. 

Like Aunt Betsy, she postponed most extra spankings until just after dinner. That way, she rarely spanked in anger. After I finished my dessert, she led me to my spanking corner in the living room and lowered my pants and underpants to mid-thigh before returning to the kitchen to wash the dishes. After ten or fifteen minutes of leaving me waiting bare bottomed, she would return and take me by the hand over to the couch and spank me right there in the living room. In the summers, the windows were always left open so that the neighbours and their kids could hear everything.

If I was being put to bed early, she would lead me upstairs to my bedroom instead, moving slowly because my half-lowered pants forced me to waddle childishly. Keeping hold of me from start to finish, she would sit on my bed and stand me in front of her while she finished undressing me and putting on my pyjamas. As she often explained, any boy naughty enough to earn a spanking was not allowed himself to undress when he was about to be spanked. Only then would she take me over her lap, pull down my pyjamas and begin my spanking. Afterwards, I was always put straight to bed so I had extra time to, "to think about the lesson I had just learned." 



When I was particularly naughty, she would sentence me to a "pink bottom weekend". That meant I was confined indoors and dressed permanently in my pyjamas. On pink bottom weekends, each day began with a spanking in my bedroom. After lunch, I was usually spanked in the living room, even if mum had a visiting lady friend. Of course, I was always put to bed early after dinner with another spanking. By Sunday night, I was always one very contrite and well spanked little boy.


On those occasions I had earned an extra spanking for misbehaviour at school, mum felt it was fair that the teacher in question should know exactly how a "pink bottom weekend", operated, so she would then invite the teacher over for Sunday dinner. 

"Would you like me to invite Miss Billings for dinner this Sunday so she can see firsthand how mummy takes care of bad little boys in this house ... would you?"  She would ask.

There's nothing quite so embarrassing as sitting through dinner, wearing your pyjamas, chatting about various normal subjects with your mum and a female teacher from school knowing full well you will soon be kicking and crying over your mother's lap with a red bottom with your teacher sitting watching on approvingly. 

Before the spanking took place mum would ask me if I deserved my punishment. I always knew what answer she expected.  "Please, mummy, I know I've earned a good spanking and I’m very sorry for being a naughty little boy. I'm ready to be taught a lesson, mummy."

Finally, once my pyjama bottoms had been pulled back up,  I had to say to my mother through my tears. "Thank you, mummy, for spanking me and I promise I'll be good from now on".