Cai was sixteen years old when she came to stay with us. She had been in and out of children’s homes since she was around eleven. To be honest, we had picked her out as our first foray into foster parenting because we rather foolishly thought that she would be so grateful to be out of that situation and in a caring, nurturing home environment that she would be easy to handle. How naive and wrong we were!
She was a wilful young miss from the get-go, forever testing our boundaries. In fact, after only the first week with us, she had been late home at least twice, she was sullen and taciturn, and even outright rude on occasion. We informed the foster agency, but they just said that these sort of problems were to be expected with teenage girls and not to give up, explaining that she was perhaps challenging us to establish some authority.
Anyways, about the third week she was with us, she claimed that she was going on from school to a friend’s place. We said OK, but she should be back by six o’clock because we knew she had homework assignments. Six o’clock passed and no sign of her. Eventually she rolls in, round 10.00, trying to sneak in without us hearing. I’d never seen my husband, Noah, so furious. He told her she was grounded for two weeks.
“I hate you!” she screamed, stomping up the stairs.
How many times had we heard that! But if that wasn’t bad enough, the next day she was late home from school again, without even a curtesy call to explain why.
“Something needs to happen with that young lady,” Noah said, as we sat at the kitchen table that evening to discuss how we were going to move forward with Cai.
“Well, we’ve tried grounding her. What do you suggest?” I replied.
“The lady from the foster agency told us we need to establish some authority. We’ve tried the modern way. Maybe giving the old-fashioned way a go would be worth a try.”
“What, you mean?”
“I mean a spanking. And one she won’t forget in hurry.”
I knew that Noah had been brought up in a large family, with six brothers and sisters and I know his mom had administered regular spankings to all of them growing up, even using an old leather belt she’d kept hanging on the kitchen wall for that very purpose, whenever she believed that their behaviour warranted it.
“Do you think that would work?” I said.
“Well, nothing else seems to be working.”
I pondered the idea for a moment, not speaking.
“Who would do it?” I eventually asked.
“I’ll do it if you don’t want to. But I think it would be better if we were both there.”
From there, we moved on to the ins and outs of what this would entail, such as where it should happen, whether it should be done by hand or whether some implement should be used, even whether it should be over Cai’s clothing or on the bare backside.
I must confess that the more we discussed it, the more intriguing I found the prospect of taking this young lady down a peg or two in this way. Eventually, we resolved to administer the discipline the following evening, definitely with a good hard hand-spanking, possibly followed up with a wooden spoon or hairbrush if needed. Never having thought we would need to employ these kind of methods, there was nothing in the house specifically designed for such purposes.
We didn’t see Cai again until the morning, when she eventually shuffled down to breakfast in her school uniform, tie askance, being her usual monosyllabic self. Before he left for work, Noah reminded Cai that she was grounded and also that we both wanted to talk to her this evening, to which she responded with an exaggerated sigh and a bored, “Whatever.”
I gave her a hard stare, thinking, ‘Just you wait, young lady, you have no idea what’s coming your way. You are finally gonna learn some mannners.’ And a long-overdue lesson it would be, too.
After school, Cai actually arrived home on time, and as usual disappeared immediately upstairs into her room. I busied myself with chores for an hour or two, and then watched some TV, waiting for Noah to get home. It surprised me that I found myself feeling a kind of nervous excitement thinking about what we were going to do, still not entirely sure that it was the right course of action to take. I particularly wondered how Cai would respond to such methods. Unlike Noah, I’d never been spanked as a child, or, come to that, as an adult, but I must admit that there was something about the ritual of it that I found myself drawn to.
I’m sure Cai had boys buzzing around her at school, especially with her being somewhat exotic to them. I wondered if she had a boyfriend, and that was the reason she’d been staying out late recently. Cai was a typical, pretty teenage girl. They grew up so fast these days I could understand how she would attract their interest. She did look pretty in that school uniform, and in her free time she liked to go around in shorts and those tops that revealed their belly buttons that all her friends seemed to wear.
We had agreed that Noah would administer the spanking. Would he make her bend over a chair or across his knee? We hadn’t discussed that. If she struggled, would he want me to hold her in place? Noah was sturdy and strong and he had large hands, so she was certainly going to feel any spanking he dished out, however it was done.
Finally, I heard Noah’s car pull into the drive and his key turn in the lock. As always, he was pretty tired and hungry after work and he said he wanted to have his supper before we dealt with Cai. We didn’t talk much over supper, he just asked me where she was and if she’d been insolent again, and then asked if I’d said anything to her about our decision to punish her in a ‘new way’, as he put it.
When he’d finished eating, he pushed his plate away, patted his belly, and said, “OK, then, go fetch her down.”
As I headed to the stairs he said, “I’ll go fetch one of the wooden spoons from the kitchen.”
So, he’d decided on the question of how. This sent a shiver of anticipation through me. Those wooden spoons would be capable of delivering a very painful sting if used to spank someone. I entered Cai’s room without knocking, which brought forth the customary petulant admonishment from her. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, listening to something on her phone. She’d changed into a white t-shirt but had obviously been too lazy to change out of her school skirt and was still wearing her white ankle socks.
In my sternest tones, I told her to remove the earbuds and stand up. She looked at me quizzically, and then, albeit with her trademark heavy sigh, did as I had told her.
“You’re coming downstairs with me, Cai. Noah wants to speak to you.”
Cai looked at me with some confusion, but before she could say anything, I placed my hand on her back and ushered her out of the door.
“Let’s go, young lady!”
She twisted away from my hand, but started walking in the direction I wanted her to go, out onto the landing and down the stairs. When we reached the bottom, which led directly into the living room, Noah was perched against the back of the sofa, arms crossed, eyes boring into Cai. I noticed that Cai was still trying to look defiant, but something about Noah’s demeanour had added a nervous uncertainty to her usual insubordinate glare. Noah allowed a foreboding silence to hang in the air for a while before he spoke.
“We have tried our best with you, my girl. We’ve tried kindness. We’ve tried understanding. We’ve tried setting rules. We’ve tried grounding you when you break them, which is pretty regularly. But nothing seems to have worked. You still think you can show us zero respect, and do whatever you please.” Noah took a step towards Cai. “So, now we’re going to try something else. When I was your age, if I’d acted the way you do, my momma would’ve whooped me so good I wouldn’t have sat down for a week. We’ve both decided,” he looked at me, then back at Cai. “That you need to know what that feels like, too.”
There followed a moment in which the reality of what Noah had said sunk in. She suddenly didn’t look so bold and defiant, as she realised what his words meant and also that he was absolutely serious about them. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded small and no longer quite so sure of itself.
“You can’t do that.”
“Oh, I can, young lady. You’re in my care and under my roof. What we’re going to do now may seem harsh and unfair to you at first. But me and Mrs Greenwood have talked this over, and we both agree that this will be for your own good, and it is going to happen. Now, unhook that skirt and place it on the table. Don’t make me tell you twice.”
A foreboding silence hung in the air like a thick fog. Cai’s hands moved to the zip of her skirt, and then hesitated. She looked at me and then back at Noah.
“I said, don’t make me tell you twice. If this disobedience continues, it’s going to be a lot worse for you, Cai.”
Noah’s words were slow and deliberate. Her brief flirtation with the notion of disobeying Noah over with, Cai’s fingers were fumbling at her hip, locating the skirt’s fastener, clumsily unhooking and unzipping it. She bent at the knees, stepping out of the skirt and placed it on the table as she had been instructed, alongside the wooden spoon that Noah had placed there, which she now regarded with undisguised fear.
“OK,” Noah said, his voice still low and steady. “Now, I’m going to sit on the sofa and you’re going to lay across my knee, and I’m going to spank you with that spoon you can see. You’re going to feel it and I know you’re not as tough as you make, out, so I expect you to cry. That’s OK, that’s part of the learning. When I’m done, I’m gonna explain the new rules of the house to you. We’re going to help you learn those rules. Are we ready?”
Clearly, Cai still couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
“I’ll be better,” she said quietly, but quietly, not with her usual petulance. “You don’t have to spank me, I’ll, my behaviour will improve.”
“Oh, I know it will,” Noah said. “Now, are we ready?”
She turned back to me for one last plea for mercy.
“You need to start doing as you’re told, girl, and you need to start right now,” I said.
Cai fixed her eyes on the floor in front of her.
“OK.”
“No,” Noah’s voice was as firm as a judge delivering his final verdict. “You will call me sir from now on, and you’ll call Mrs Greenwood ma’am. Now, are we ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Get your butt over here, young lady.”
Noah walked around and positioned himself on the centre of the sofa. Cai and myself followed, after I retrieved the spoon. The girl slowly lowered herself across my husband’s knees, her arms outstretched, gripping the end of the sofa. Noah tugged her legs in towards him and raised his legs a little, so that her hips were jerked up, presenting her bottom for what was about to come. With his left hand, he hiked her t-shirt up her back a little and I handed him the spoon. He gave her a few gentle pats on her bottom with it.
“We’re going to start with ten, then we’ll see where we are,” he said. “I hope this helps you focus on how your behaviour needs to change.”
Noah raised his hand high above the girl’s quivering little bottom, bringing it swinging down in an arc, the loud whack echoing around our living room. I heard Cai gasp and then a muffled whimper, as she buried her face in the sofa. Noah rested his hand on her leg.
“It might be nice to hear a thank-you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Cai’s voice was barely audible, but Noah seemed satisfied. He raised his hand again, bringing the heavy wooden spoon down even harder. This time, Cai bucked, kicking her legs up and twisting her hips. Noah grabbed her ankle and shoved her leg back down.
“I’m waiting. You make me wait too long and I might forget how many you’ve had.”
Cai sucked in her breath and murmured, “Thank you, sir.”
“That’s good.” Noah raised his hand again, and this time when it came down there was a piercing yell. Although I couldn’t see her face, it was clear that she was now crying quite freely. I realised that Noah must have understood from experience just how much worse a slower-paced spanking was than one delivered in quick succession. The discomfort in Cai’s tender backside would be building exponentially, to an intense, burning pain.
“Thank you, sir,” she managed to say between her sobs.
“Stop wriggling, girl. You keep still and take your punishment. You only move when I tell you too. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
I stepped forward then, and crouched down beside her, brushing some strands of hair from her face. Truth is, I was curious to see up close how she reacted when that wooden spoon connected with her bottom again. I turned to Noah and gave a little nod. His hand swung down, and Cai’s head rocked back, her eyes scrunched tightly shut, with another high-pitched shriek.
“Ahhhhhhh! Owowowowow!” and then, eventually, a whimpered, “Thank you, sir.”
“OK, we’re almost halfway through. I hope you’re learning.”
Noah raised his hand again, bringing it firmly down on her butt, which was now turning crimson. Cai screeched, frantically moving her hips from side to side as if she could wiggle away the searing pain that was setting her bottom alight.
“Thank you, sir.”
It was taking longer for her to compose herself sufficiently to even be able to utter the words, but she finally manged it. While Noah’s hands were large and his palm itself would have undoubtedly produced a vicious sting if he’d only hand-spanked the girl, the whacks Noah applied with this implement produced a more concentrated level of pain, leading the girl to buck her hips, and hiss and yell each time Noah used it on her by now crimson little tushy.
I have to say, I was impressed that she didn’t forget to say her ‘thank you, sir’ after each one. Given the obvious distress and discomfort the teenager was in, that must have been a task in itself. Perhaps she was learning. Noah delivered the tenth whack and waited a while, still holding her in place, until her sobbing and air-gulping had subsided.
When she finally raised herself off his lap, she did indeed look like a very well-punished and sorry girl, from the brassy little miss she had been not much more than thirty minutes earlier. It wasn’t over for Cai quite yet, however. Noah took her arm and led her across to the far side of the room, where he positioned her facing about three inches or so from the wall. Taking her wrists, he guided her arms up so that her hands were on her head, elbows pushed back.
Noah then took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and fixed it to the wall directly in front of Cai. It was a full A4 page of handwriting.
“This, my girl, is a list of 10 rules I have drawn up. They spell out nice and clearly how we expect you to behave while you’re here with us. I’m going to give you twenty minutes to read and remember those rules. That’s two minutes for each rule. You will not move from this position, and you will not speak. If you do, rule number 10 explains quite clearly what the consequences will be for you.
“After twenty minutes, you will recite back all ten rules exactly as they’re written here to me and Mrs Greenwood. For every rule you forget or get wrong, you will be spanked again with the spoon. You’ll then be given another 10 minutes and tested again. The same thing will happen if you forget again. Is there anything I’m not making clear?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Now, I know that your bottom is probably still humming, but you better focus and memorize those rules. You have twenty minutes.”
I could see that Noah had given Cai’s punishment a lot of thought and planning, and I admired him for that. I loved the way he was taking control, and the way Cai was responding to his authority. Not surprisingly, she was not quite able to recite all ten rules back perfectly after the first twenty minutes, and so Noah, true to his word, did have cause to re-acquaint her with the spoon that evening, twice across the palm of her hands and three times across her tenderised bottom before she finally managed an error-free recital.
I would have been prepared to spend the whole evening dealing with this girl, if that’s what it took to get the job done, and I know Noah would have, too. Although we had cause to discipline Cai a few times over the next six months she was with us, the improvement in both her behaviour and attitude was nothing less than remarkable. She became polite and respectful, and spent far less time cavorting around outside to all hours, and we spent more time together as a family. Often after supper we would even sit together as a family on the sofa, the one she had been disciplined on that evening, and watch some TV, and have a chat.
Rule number 10 on Noah’s list read; ‘I will accept whatever punishment Mr and Mrs Greenwood choose if I break any of the above rules.’
As a reminder of the consequences of not respecting those rules, Noah purchased a leather tawse and hung it from a hook in her bedroom, some ‘visual motivation’ he called it, but it was hardly ever used.
The End
© Winston Rust 2025