AITAH for letting my children try the punishment my parents gave me as a child after my parents said I was being too harsh?
Mt teenage kids were being assholes to their cousins today. Not friendly banter between family. It was bullying and it was abusive. I caught them red-handed and made them apologize and I took their phones away for a week.
They acted sullen for the rest of the day. My parents were over at the time and they asked the kids why they were upset. The kids told on me for punishing them. My dad said I was too harsh and my mom told me to give them their phones back.
I told my parents that they were welcome to their opinions but that in my house I would discipline the kids as I saw fit. They insisted that they were in the right. I was tired of their bullshit by this point so I asked them if they thought their form of punishment was better. They quickly shut up.
I called my kids over and asked them if I was being too hard on them. They said yes. I asked them if they wanted to try the kind of punishment I got at their age. My parents were trying to shut this down the whole time. My kids said yes. I told them that I would never whip them with a belt so that was completely off the table.
I went into the house and got a handful of uncooked rice. I threw it in the ground and told them that if they wanted my experience they had to kneel on the rice until I thought they learned their lesson. Both declined and looked at my parents. My dad said he never did that. I pulled up my shirt and showed my kids my scar from a particularly exuberant display from my dad. Then I called my sister over and showed her the rice on the ground. She literally shook and told me she would call CPS if I dared do what our parents did to us.
I told her that I was never going to do that but that our parents were denying having ever done that to us. She looked at my parents and just walked away.
My kids are now upset that their loving grandparents were abusive and my parents think I was an asshole to say anything because “it was a different time”. Their words not mine.
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