“The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life [...] the stronger the daughter.” - Anita Diamant, The Red Tent.
Hello all. Welcome back to The Forum - our weekly gathering of men and women in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships. I hope you had a good week. Mine was involuntarily restful. Meaning we are slow at work, which is never a good thing for my mental and emotional health. While I may be a "bottom" in my relationship with my wife, in the rest of my life I am a top (warning, bad pun about to be explained). Not in the DD or D/s sense. Rather, I'm thinking of the child's toy top that spins and spins. It stays upright and in position as long as momentum keeps it spinning. But, once it slows down, it falls down. So far this week, I have merely slowed but not fallen. Here's hoping things stay that way. However, my track record is not good when it comes to staying well-behaved in the midst of a work slowdown. I get restless, bored and anxious. But, my wife has learned that pattern well and hopefully will nip it in the bud.I was hoping that a week off from blogging would yield a flood of new topic ideas. By that measure, the week was a failure. But, the family commitment that led me to take a little pause did get me to thinking about at least one Domestic Discipline topic. It's probably not new, strictly speaking, but I don't recall addressing this particular angle.
But, the impact on the couple isn't really what I want to focus on this week. Instead, my question is, does the desire to maintain the secrecy of the DD or FLR aspects of your relationship change once the kids grow up and become adults themselves? More to the point, should it? Particularly if both parties feel that DD or FLR has been a benefit to their own marriage, isn't that the kind of helpful hint you might want to pass along to your progeny as they go out into the world and face their own marriage and relationship challenges? And, I'm not limiting the possibility of such communication to moms passing on a bit of relationship advice to their daughters. While most of the art that I've found on this topic depicts mothers advising their daughters on the benefits of being a spanking wife in a DD relationship, if you had an adult child who was challenged when it comes to personal behavior, or one who might profit from some enforced boundaries, wouldn't you want to pass that along? Many of the men in these relationships took an honest look at their own behavior and decided to ask their wives to use DD to help them improve. While I don't think I have ever once seen a DD story or drawing with this as the context, it is not hard for me to imagine a caring parent taking their misbehaving adult son aside to counsel him that perhaps he could profit from a strong wifely hand?
Up to this point, I've been more open than my wife is to letting our kids in on the DD aspects of our life, whether my telling them about or or just being more open in her displays of control. While there have been flashes of such openness here and there, as a whole she has not been very open to it. But, we and our kids are points in our respective lives where nothing we do is very likely to damage a developing and largely unformed psyche. And, my wife is very close to our kids. It really wouldn't surprise me if, at some point in the future, one of them might be facing a relationship or personal behavior challenge, and she might decide to impart some words of maternal wisdom. Or, mothers and daughters sharing in the way they often do, maybe someday a few years from now they are out having a nice lunch and a couple of glasses of wine later she decides to spill the beans. Stranger things have happened.
What do you think? Can you see yourself telling one of your adult children about your DD or FLR lifestyle? Why or why not? What would your reaction be if your wife did so on her own?
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This is a rather sticky topic about which I have often wondered. It is possible that your wife wishes to spare you the embarrassment of having your kids know the full extent of your FLR. Of course, once they (especially any daughters) reach the age of consent, it might be another matter. How would you feel about becoming your daughter's practice dummy?
ReplyDeleteI think that is part of her concern, i.e. that knowing about it might cause them to have less respect for me. Of course, that works both ways, right? Should kids have less respect for their mother than she deserves because they don't see the power or authority she supposedly have been given?
DeleteNo, I have no interest whatsoever in having kids, adult or otherwise, participate in that way. Or any way.
I think in many/most families the kids are used to the mother making the household decisions.
ReplyDeleteI'd be reluctant to get more intimate than that with almost anyone - think how long it takes many long-married women to understand their husband's emerging desire for discipline and authority. (Or even for how long it takes the husband!)
Plus, kids can be really bad at keeping secrets!
CrimsonKing
Hi CrimsonKing. True on both your first and last points, though I would think that letting them know only once they become adults might address most of the problem with them keeping secrets.
DeleteNo doubt in my mind it should remain private between both of you.
ReplyDeleteI see not benefit or reason whatsoever for a couple to share such intimate details of their relationship with their children , or anybody, irrespective of age.
Thanks.
DeleteRound my area, the fathers are gone long before the children are at such an age where they will understand it anyway. However, all women, including my wife, plan to explain things to their children shortly before they get married themselves.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteA heavy grade tawse as a wedding present with an explanation of its benefits and use are part of my plan.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great plan!
DeleteThat should earn an interesting "thank you" note.
ReplyDeleteDan
ReplyDeleteAs our boys hit their very early teens there are very strict rules about phones at dinner, texting etc. Phones are to be left in their rooms. What goes for the boys goes for Peter. Last week he brought his phone to
dinner and during dessert read a text. I took the phone from him and locked it up. That is what I have done a few times with our sons. No phones at home for a week.
When Peter didnt trim the hedges and clean the pool on Saturday as he said he would do, He did it on Sunday and wasnt allowed to watch the golf match he wanted to watch. When the boys see that their are consquences to even Dad's actions, it sinks in.
All three of my boys live by my rules. They may not know that often while they visit their grandparents on Friday that their dad is being disciplined.Or that many times his quiet trip to the bedroom to do some work is Peter kneeling in a corner, nose to the wall as a punishment.
It works!
Anna
Hi Anna. That is a very good point, that a wife can demonstrate her authority without necessarily revealing the disciplinary aspects of the relationship. Now, as I said, my wife really struggles with displaying that she is, in fact, in charge. So, I will copy your comment and give it to her as part of my next journal entry!
DeleteDan
DeleteOften the easiest way for me to get control of things was to sit with him and outline a list of things that i want done my way. Once we agree on that then he must follow the rule or accept three will be punishment. Not ever on his terms on mine.
anna
Anna, I like your style.
DeleteIf you are in a truly FLR with your wife (as yours certainly seems to be), the manifestations of that must be apparent to your children, even though as you said, your wife is not open in her displays of control. Even with the maximum amount of discretion being exercised, the subtleties of conversation and decision making would not be lost on the kids. Growing up in an environment where the woman of the house is held in high regard and given respect cannot be a bad thing. After they are adults themselves, they may ask about it. That would be an interesting conversation, if your wife and you decide to have it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that growing up with a mother who is held in high regard can't be a bad thing in the long run. But, I can see how it can be confusing or lead to misimpressions. Here is a concrete example. Last year when we started exploring more of an FLR, we started having me take my wife's plate after dinner. When they aren't around, she tells me to do it. When they are there, I just do it or she simply leaves the plate on the table for me to clear. One night one of the kids basically challenged her on why she gets away with making me clean up after her. She said something innocuous like, "Oh, he doesn't mind." To which my kid, being a fairly typical teenager, replied: "No way I would put up with that kind of nonsense from my [wife/husband]." Now, my wife's way of dealing with it is to be even less open about displays of control. Mine is to just let them continue to be puzzled, to the extent they really are and to wish we would have been more open from the outset.
DeleteDan
ReplyDeleteKids know or suspect if you are in a serious disciplinary relationship even if no spanking is involved and for sure if regular spanking occurs.Living in the same house you cannot not know a spanking is being administered or that one has been administered. Even if you don't hear it you know from the way everyone acts. ( I will admit boys are a little dense about this as I knew well before my brothers did.) My mother was probably more open than most woman and probably spanked more often than most. But ALL spankings were in private and as far as I know she never talked about it until well after we were grown.Before my marriage in my case and after marriage in the cases of my brothers and their wives.
Holly
Hi Holly! I was hoping you would weigh in, since you are one of the few commenters who came to DD via a disciplinary mother. My wife and I have a split opinion on this. She is sure that our kids don't know that she spanks me, but I am not nearly as confident. We have always been pretty careful about doing it only when they were in bed, but that hardly means they've never heard one despite our best efforts. Or, they could have seen a text about it on one of our phones. Or Googled the sender's business name when I've ordered a paddle or other instrument and it has been delivered in an oddly-sized package. There are all sorts of ways they could find out. And, if they do know, I think my wife vastly overestimates the likelihood that they would let it slip that they've found out. I can envision it happening once they are out on their own and married or getting married, as happened with your mom, but not until then. Or, maybe they truly don't know.
DeleteDan,
DeleteAs you have described your wife she actively uses her authority, gives you orders, expects to be obeyed and more and more acts in charge. A woman is not a disciplinarian only when she is holding a strap. Your kids are aware of that relationship between you even if they are not aware that you are punished with spanking. She is in charge. I grew up knowing that and believe I chose a husband who allowed me to behave much as my mother.( actually he chose me but his knowing my mother spanked had a big impression on him)Your wife may be correct that the kids don't know about the spanking. But the physical discipline is only part of "passing it on". Its the presence or absence of real DD in the relationship. My three brothers also choose women who controlled them. Two of them are spanked by their wives while I am not sure about the third. But they are all happy (so are their wives)
Holly
It is interesting that you and three brothers all chose people who allowed the wife to dominate and control after seeing your mother in that role. It goes to show how impossible it is to draw general conclusions about what drives this as a lifestyle choice, as the dynamic for my wife and I was different from yours to the point of being almost the opposite. Her father was basically in charge in her house, but sort of by default and not by taking command. He was selfish and just did what he wanted. She didn't obey or concede. Instead, she pouted and went passive aggressive by denying sex and/or giving him the silent treatment. He would try to outlast her, but seldom could. My parents, on the other hand, were both incredibly strong-willed and volatile, with neither of them really willing to give an inch on anything. So, my wife had no one who was clearly at the top of the chain-of-command, with the power to enforce it. My parents, in contrast, both thought they were (or should be) in charge. Maybe the net result was we both gravitate toward DD because we recognize the problem with not having someone in charge, but we also have a hard time implementing it consistently because of lack of a real world role model??
DeleteHolly, it occurred to me that you didn't weigh in on whether you yourself would pass along the DD aspects of your relationship to an adult daughter or son.
DeleteDan,
DeleteI believe strongly in DD, but not at all in female supremacy (an absurd idea). So it may well be that a daughter will do better accepting the authority of her husband and spanking if needed. For a son it might be the reverse. So letting adult children find themselves is a better way, answering any questions they have as frankly as possible.I would support any adult child's decision and probably would take some pride especially in a daughter who took charge. But my own mother strongly encouraged me to take charge long before I did. I had to get to that point myself and may have gotten there earlier if she had not pushed so hard
Holly.
PS, Dan these Google robot screens are becoming insane. I have not commented much lately but they are a great nuisance.
Thanks, Holly. I agree it is wrong to assume that the woman should always be the disciplinarian, and I too don't have any use for the whole female supremacy case. Though when you look at the trends for men these days in terms of Darwin Award stupidity, college admission and graduation rates, etc., it's not that hard to make a case that men certainly seem to be, on average, more prone to being major fuck-ups. But, seriously, I do agree with your point and can easily apply it to my own kids.
DeleteI'll see what I can do about the robot screens, if anything. I agree the latest ones are awful.
Speaking only for myself I won't be explaining or sharing either side of my spanking tastes to my daughters unless they ask about it and then only to explain its benefits. Cheers Good Life Mickey.
ReplyDeleteThanks, GLM
DeleteInteresting question Dan. Tim and I have a boy and a girl who are now grown, married and have their own young children. While they were living at home I was very careful not to discipline Tim if there was the slightest chance that they would hear. Why – because I did not believe that they would have the emotional maturity to understand the consensual aspect of DD. The papers and TV are full of domestic abuse stories and the last thing I wanted was for my angels to believe that I was abusive to my best friend and lover. However at one stage we discovered that our son had found a pile of our DD magazines and, since they had plenty of pictures of naked women, he had smuggled them to school and shown them to his friends. We were in a dilemma – he was too young in our opinion for us to try to explain the content of these magazines and we were really apprehensive wondering who he had shown them to and if the other boys had taken any to their homes. We decided to make up a story about how Tim had bought the contents of a storage container and was sorting through to see if there was anything of value or unique. He discussed this at dinner with our son and said that one box was missing and he thought it was magazines. Our son went red and admitted to borrowing the box and instantly returned it. We opened it in front of him and expressed our dismay at the contents which seemed to satisfy him. Now years later we were staying at his house and he volunteered his bed for us. As we were turning down the sheets we noticed restraining straps on each bed post and with aroused interest we glanced under the bed to find a riding crop and leather strap. We smiled and laughed together but decided not to discuss it any further with our son or daughter in-law. They seem to be quite happy in their relationship so if they did not want to raise the subject we felt it may embarrass them if we did. To my knowledge our girl has never been exposed to our DD. She is also in a happy relationship so we believe it is not our place to pry into, or try to give advice on their private lives.
ReplyDeleteHi Tina. That's really great! I have never bought that familial relationships are built on total honesty. BS. There are lots of things involving my older family members where my philosophy is, "What I don't know won't hurt me. So, feel free not to share." Plausible deniability among friends and family is what enables polite society. :-)
DeleteWhile I obviously am being more than little glib, I think lots of this comes down to (a) timing; and (b) necessity, and your post illustrates both. You didn't open up to your son even after he found the magazines, because at that age doing so probably would have been inappropriate or confusing. And while he is older today, the relationship seems to be on solid ground, so why bring it up?
By the way, when I was in grade school, I too liberated a box of dirty magazines, but not from my parents. Several of them turned out to be biker-oriented magazines. To this day, I have a love of fast motorcycles and naked women, though I think I would have developed those interests even without the nudie magazines!
I know this is out of place but I thought this would be nice to share. In your blog of two weeks ago you posed the question about if a man accepts physical discipline at home does it affect his strength of performance/character outside of the house. Well we have been traveling for the last few weeks on business and pleasure. We get on the plane early because of our frequent flier status and we were sitting enjoying each others’ company looking at each other, holding hands and laughing about silly things when a lady in the aisle leaned over and said with a lovely smile “Now that is what I call true love”. It was delightful and so unexpected but I thought “if she only knew what I do to him to create this intense love”. As for the suggestion that my husband is a lesser man because I beat him well you should have seen how he held his audience in the palm of his hand as he stood on the stage delivering a riveting presentation. He was powerful, dominating and sexy as hell. I could hardly wait to get him back to the hotel, tie him face down on the bed and play with him.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tina. Great stuff!
DeleteTina
DeleteDan is right ! Great Stuff! So often we are writing about one specific question. I would not be married to Peter nor he to me if I was behaving like some sad porno type Domme. We have found the way that works for us and I think if you spoke to the men and women who work with Peter the last thing they would think is that he had been turned into some weak creature.
anna
Believe me, Anna, I too get frustrated or bored with the blog's topical format. It definitely has its constraints, and I think it does inhibit more free-flowing discussions among the regular contributors. I've thought about other solutions, like starting a Facebook group. But, that is hard to do with this group, as Facebook makes it pretty hard to join anonymously. And most of the commenters here don't even use profiles with an email address, which makes it very hard to invite them to any more private forum.
DeleteDan
ReplyDeleteLots of insightful views have been expressed on "passing it on" I would like to add the perspective of genes and heredity, specifically the possibility that DNA is involved.The predisposition to erotic themed adult spanking may be a part of the "make-up" of many people,( certainly not all) waiting to be triggered by experience or environment. ( seeing mom control dad would count as that experience as would finding out that mom spanks dad) That experience may come early in life or later but it is key to actually acting on the predisposition to spanking.This is where theory runs into this conversation, picking up especially on issues both Anna and Tina discussed. Adult children,maybe especially males are more likely to be attracted to an F/M spanking relationship if they grew up in an FLR household just as that same male would likely become a disciplinarian and seek a submissive female if growing up in an M/F home.This would explain for example why Tina's adult son apparently discovered DD even though he had no definite knowledge that Mom disciplined Dad.In the end as others have said, letting the adult child find their own way seems good advice to me.But we disciplined males should know we may be opening that door through our submission to female authority at home.My personal view is it doesn't matter because in this age of the internet if you have a spanking gene you are going to end up a spanker or a spankee.
Alan
Hey Alan. You know I am skeptical regarding your theory about a spanking gene, but I suspect we will both go to our graves without resolving that one! But, I agree it is an interesting angle on whether/how we "pass on" these things. With Tina's example in particular, did her son take up spanking because he had a spanking gene and it was triggered by finding out about mom and dad's interest in spanking, or was it because he saw spanking oriented magazines and it created an interest that otherwise would not have been there? Or, was it totally independent? Maybe his wife suggested it to him or imposed it upon him, even though until then he had no interest in it at all. As they say in the sciences, "correlation does not equal causation." It would be hard to determine under the best of circumstances, but even more so since we don't know who those straps Tina found are used on -- her son, his wife, or both.
DeleteI also wonder, if a genetic predisposition does exist, is it for dominance, or for spanking? Is it a desire to be under someone's control, or is it a desire for that one specific act of control? When Peter talks about the extent to which the strapping he received from an uncle really stuck with him, that totally resonates with me even though I had no interest at all in spanking until well into my 30s. And, I understand that need for being controlled more than I really get wanting to be spanked. But, honestly, I doubt there is any one single answer here. If three years of discussing this stuff proves anything, it is probably that we are all very, very complicated creatures, each of whom confronts different stimuli and reacts to those stimuli in different and even opposing ways.
Now my kids are still way too young to know of any if this heady stuff of DD or D/s, but I wouldn't rule out telling them later on, when they are adults, that such things as DD, D/s and consensual spanking exist and can enhance a committed relationship.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of power dynamic, it's already clear to them anyway. My 3yo once asked why Daddy was the boss, and I just said, "Because he's good at it, and we both want and like it that way."
The other reason is that while we do not let any of our spanking on and don't spank them either, they have discovered butt-slapping all by themselves and are obviously enjoying it... So if they are wired that way, I'd rather they could find out about consensual spanking before they are 40... ;)
Hi Willow! My wife has made a similarly mild comment to our kids when one asked how she gets away with being bossy. She told them something to the effect of "He has a job where he spends all day bossing people, and he doesn't want to at home."
DeleteI think communicating the "want" part — that it's a conscious and deliberate choice to interact in this way — and subtly pointing out how it makes life easier/better is key.
ReplyDelete