Child Raising - Discipline issues

[RustedCorpse]

This issue is one reason I think I will never have children.

I'm 28 and my parents beat the living hell out of me. Both my mother and my father, my father not as often but when he did it was pretty severe (cracked hip, ruptured cornea, broken rib) My mother on the other hand would torment a little and often use anything from tennis rackets to wiffle ball bats.

Eventually, as I left home, my father was diagnosed with severe depression and diabetes. Once getting treated for that he mellowed out considerably, my younger brother and sister as a result never ever really got beaten.

The strange thing is on a comparable scale I'm far more socially balanced/disciplined than my brother and my sister. My brother has had multiple run in's with the law on a level that borders on stupid. My sister is a complete trainwreck in almost all aspects of her life, including child abandonment and two failed marriages.

Looking back I figured I deserved some beatings, probably not to the level of severity that occured, however I don't really harbor animosity to my family over it, I think raising children is hard and they probably did the best they could for them.

I think if I ever had children I'd do a better job, yet at the same time I often wonder if many abusive parents think the same thing. I think the right answer is probably somewhere in the middle.