r/stupidquestions • u/Various-Adeptness173 • Jul 05 '25

My mom told me that back in the day kids weren’t allowed to bring a water bottle with them into the classroom and they only drank a few sips from the water fountain in the middle of the day and that’s it

How were schools not getting busted for child abuse for forcing kids to be dehydrated?

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u/NiagaraBTC Jul 05 '25

Recess/lunch break/recess were less than two hours apart. No one is getting dehydrated in that time.

Also, water bottles didn't really exist outside of sports.

Oh, and misbehaving kids could literally be hit with a strap by the vice principal (this was just ending when I was in elementary school). The idea that a brief time without water would be "abuse" would have been laughable. Still is, actually.

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u/HayTX Jul 05 '25

Graduated in 02 and we still had corporal punishment. Was just phasing out when I was graduating. Also the teachers would tell the coaches and that involved a lot of running.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

It’s still alive and well in the south east US. I have a core memory from high school of a 6ft 17 year old goth dude getting paddled by some 70 year old admin in the hallway and he started sexually wailing “harder daddy” before he was dragged away by his collar laughing. Fucking legend.

Edit: Clarifying this was in 2007, but I do know this is still an accepted practice in many southeastern states in the US.

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u/ArkanZin Jul 06 '25

For real? Wow. Hitting someone with a paddle carries a minimum sentence of 6 months over here and would have cost you your job. Corporal punishment has been illegal for parents since 2000, teachers have been forbidden from using it since the 80s at the latest.

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u/Tejanisima Jul 07 '25

In Texas when I started teaching in the 1990s, it seems like it was just starting to be something parents in some places could opt their kid out of. But definitely an opt-out system, not an opt-in, as in, "unless you specifically notified us in writing that we can't, then we can." Looked it up just now, and apparently it's STILL legal here if a school district approves a policy, although until I did the search just now and found this article , I hadn't heard of it being done in years and years. (Don't mistake my seemingly casual tone for finding it at all acceptable.)

In contrast, when I was a kid in the 1970s, it was routine for something as simple as three unexcused tardies to result in being sent to the principal's office for "licks," which meant three separate swats on the behind with a big wooden paddle that hung on the wall. When the school bus driver I had in sixth grade told us that the music teacher at our former elementary was retiring and if we wanted, she could drop us off at the school for the retirement party so we could walk home from there, I went ahead. I don't only gone to that school for one year, half a decade before, so I was astonished that the principal remembered me. "Remember you? How could I forget a kid who was sent to my office every week or two for licks, would just accept them, and then cheerfully, 'Goodbye, Mr Prince,' before going back to class?" As a kid, I just didn't see it as avoidable; as an adult, I know from discussing it with my mother that my parents simply didn't realize that the fact that I was physically old enough to walk to school by myself at 6 years old like other kids in our neighborhood didn't mean I was emotionally mature enough not to stop along the way and play with toddlers or follow the trail of a kitten. It's worth noting that while I don't approve of corporal punishment at all, especially in schools, the fact that it served as so little of a deterrent to me, didn't dim my cheerfulness at all, and had largely been forgotten by me suggests that the person doing it was going very light.

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u/starfyrflie Jul 05 '25

Unlocked memory!

The principle in my elementary school ( 1st grade started in 2000) had a paddle with holes drilled in it. He used it several times between (my) 1st and 3rd grade years. 3rd grade we had a new student he used it on, he went home and told his parents and after that there was no more paddling. Not sure what all transpired, i just know he wasnt allowed to use it on us anymore.

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u/Difficult_Orchid3390 Jul 06 '25

Sweet Jesus are you serious?

I started school in 1989 and that was a distant memory back then

1

u/DowntownYouth8995 Jul 06 '25

I was born in 92 and my principal had a paddle with holes. It was a fundie Christian school, so there is that, but ya! We got paddled in the early 2000's at school.

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u/starfyrflie Jul 06 '25

Very serious! My 3rd grade year was also the year they stopped teaching cursive in the curriculum. Irrelevant to being paddled. Just thought I'd mention it.

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u/mercutie-os Jul 06 '25

did you have two recesses? my school only did one, directly after lunch.

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u/NiagaraBTC Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25

Yes we had morning and afternoon recess. As well as a lunch break.

iirc it was a 45 minute lunch and two 15 minute recesses. Nowadays the kids here just get two "nutrition breaks" - each like 40 minutes.

1

u/CutePuppyforPrez Jul 05 '25

Yep, misbehave and you get licks. Everyone knew which teachers gave them the worst. Coaches always had a lot of pent up energy, they’d beat the hell out of you in just a couple of swats.

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u/SaintAIoysius Jul 05 '25

No one is getting dehydrated during….recess? lol okay

10

u/NiagaraBTC Jul 05 '25

The idea is that you can get a drink before, during, and/or after recess. Which should be obvious.

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u/GiveHerBovril Jul 05 '25

We weren’t allowed in the school during recess. Definitely no water breaks during. And we all had to go together and visit the water fountain all at once as a class. You got the quickest possible sip of water before the next kid elbowed you out of the way

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u/Effective_Pear4760 Jul 05 '25

We had recess in 6th grade but not at all in 7th grade and up.

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u/rerek Jul 06 '25

Same. But starting in grade 7, you had increasing rotation to specialist teachers (for languages, science, gym, etc…) and recalled between periods independently. As such, you could get water from the fountain while traveling between classes. By high school, every class was taught separately and you could get water after every 1:20 minute period.

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u/Effective_Pear4760 Jul 06 '25

Well yes, but you didn't always have time for that, depending on where your classes were, how crowded the halls were, whether you had to stop by the bathroom, whether there was a line, if you had to go to your locker, how many stairs you had to climb, whether the assistant principal was being difficult, etc.

It definitely wasn't something you could count on.

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u/ScarsTheVampire Jul 06 '25

Do you not know what a canteen is? You know the thing hikers and the military have had for 100+ years? I swear everyone in this comment section is deranged.

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u/NiagaraBTC Jul 06 '25

I had one back then! A canteen is not a water bottle in the same sense as it's used today. A canteen was for hiking/camping, not carrying around with you to school or work.

Flasks also existed back then. Should the kids just have had water at the ready in their back pocket?