“I burn with shame,” Jenni Murray on her guilt over punishing her sons

Saga’s columnist argues that child punishment should be illegal and reveals why she’s haunted by her past experiences and actions

Saga columnist Jenni Murray has admitted that she is racked with guilt over punishing her sons when they were little.

“There were occasions when I was tired and impatient and failed to keep my hands to myself,” she admits.

The broadcaster and journalist tackles the subject of child punishment in her column for June’s Saga Magazine.
In it she writes that some of her treatment of her boys echoed what was handed down to her by her own mother – a strict disciplinarian.

“I recall one occasion when I must have been 15 when she got annoyed because I was being disobedient and cheeky,” she says. “She hit me so hard I fell backwards across the sitting room, banging my head on a table.

But she admits to “walloping” her sons at times, despite harbouring “resentment” from her own mother’s violence against her.

"As I look back now, I know that some of my methods when I became a parent echoed those of my mother,” the former Woman’s Hour presenter admits.

“I now realise, except that violence is not how you deal with problems, I burn with shame now I look back on how stupid I was.”

”Smacking must be banned”

Murray shares her experience to call for a rethink on the laws on child punishment in the UK, where it’s illegal to smack a child in Scotland and Wales, but not in England and Northern Ireland.

“In 2024, we’ve reached a time of sensitive humanity where everyone has rights. Well, everyone apart from the smallest, weakest members of our society – children.

“If I’m hit, there is a law to protect me. Children have rights and the law should protect them too.”

Read Murray's full column on the subject in the June edition of Saga Magazine.

By Jenni Murray