The Woodshed..

For my American friends, was a trip to the Woodshed really a thing? What was your experience? I got sent to my my room sometimes before a whacking, but the Woodshed doesn't have an equivelant in the UK.

I have heard of the woodshed before, but do not know anyone who had that.

How did your whackings work in the bedroom?

Woodsheds disappeared from the American landscape as central heating replaced wood stoves. But the phrase “trip to the woodshed” survived with garages, basements, etc. providing the same purpose; a separated area for discipline. Our house had no garage or basement so my bedroom served that purpose. My uncles' house had both. The basement was used in winter and the garage in the summer.

My woodshed was the spare bedroom where i had to wait for Dad .

@sweetyounglady

I was sent to my room, had to remove my trousers and underpants and wait. I never got spanked in anger. After a few minutes, my mother came in and either put me across her knee or had me lay over the bottom of the bed and I received a spanking or slippering .

Yes, but as others have said it was replaced with other places. Growing up for me I was sent to my room for a spanking. The door was not usually closed, but it was usually done when it was just me and my parents at home. Most of my friends got the same treatment that I knew of. My stepdad said he got spanked in the woodshed growing up, however.

In todays vernacular - to punish, reprimand, or reprove someone, especially discreetly, secretly, or in private. A special place for punishment.

WIKI: "Probably derived from the previous term "horseshedding," meaning to take a person privately (such as to a horse shed or woodshed, separate buildings away from the house) for private cajoling or reprimand.[1]"

There used to be a BBS back in the day called Bethany"s woodshed. Was quite a good board from what I remember. Lots of stories on it. Aparently there is a podcast set-up now.

Yes a Wood Shed was a real place here in America, it was an outer building a shed where firewood and tools were kept. It also was was a place away from the house where no one could hear your screams when Mom or Dad took a birch switch to your bare backside as a punishment for bad behavior. My cousins lived on a farm and this is where they got punished. For me I lived in the Sub Burbs and we got punished in our bedrooms. Usually Mom or Dad would put us over their laps and spank us with their bare hands, but sometimes Dad would use his belt. Either way did didn't sit down for sometime!!

To woodshed means to practice your instrument to many musicians

“Taken To the Woodshed” (for a paddling or spanking)..was fading out after WW2. The "Woodshed" was primarily a rural and/or farm scenario. Houses in cities no longer needed Woodsheds, horse barns or a wooden structure to store miscellaneous farming equipment. However..the word “woodshed” has survived many decades and continues to be recalled as place where usually Dad would escort his disobedient son(s) to…for a bare bottom disciplinary session with a flat wooden paddle….

My senior neighbor would take me into his woodshed that was loaded with a winters worth of wood when he decided that I needed some correction,I was corrected many times that summer!

Still a synonym in ‘ my neck of the woods ‘ for disciplinary activities duly administered . Seems ’ back in my day ‘ there was a sense of ’ privacy ‘ out in ye olde’ wood shed away from the home where a much needed and often as not much deserved ‘ thrashing ‘ was administered ’ with gusto ' in a lively fashion to the full satisfaction of the administrator and the painful regret of the misdeeds done by the receptor and yet …………… I survived !!!!

How did the woodshed come to be associated with spanking? Most of the garden sheds in my neighbourhood were pokey little things, especially my dad's shed. There was hardly room in there for two ants to have a dance, let alone room for my dad to spank me in there. Most of my spankings took place in my bedroom.

How did the woodshed come to be associated with spanking? Most of the garden sheds in my neighbourhood were pokey little things, especially my dad's shed. There was hardly room in there for two ants to have a dance, let alone room for my dad to spank me in there. Most of my spankings took place in my bedroom.

I suspect the phrase implies being punished away from view of others. A woodshed would be set away from the main house and out of ear shot from the rest of the family. Back in the day woodsheds were probably bigger than today's garden sheds, especially in farming communities.

I'm talking about the sheds 50 years ago, and I don't mean farming communities, I mean in urban residential areas.

You asked where the phrase “came to be associated with spankings”. It “came from” the old woodsheds that were used as a place for punishment - not the smaller garden sheds in urban environments of 50 years ago that you reference. Today it is more of a euphemism for being punished in private, or severely beaten (e.g. The LA Lakers took The Clippers to the woodshed and beat them 117 to 85).

I doubt parents punished their children in the undersized garden sheds in an urban environment.

”taken to the woodshed“ is an older term not used much anymore. I remember my grandparents using it but not since.

Up until around 12 or 13 my stepmother would take my pants and underwear down and then put me over her lap. She mainly used her hand or a hairbrush. Then as I got older I had to take them down myself and either bend over and grab my ankles or lean over a chair and she had switched to a belt.

I'm sure some trips to actual woodsheds took place sometimes, but even in their heyday I doubt that was ever as popular an actual mode of punishment as the popularity of the expression would suggest. It was just a way of saying someone got a proper hiding, regardless of whether it involved that actual structure.

As far as the dimensions of the woodshed, they were normally bigger than toolsheds today but that wouldn't really matter because they were normally stocked with wood! A father who wanted to make use of a woodshed to punish a kid privately would take him behind the woodshed, not into it.

Thanks for the answers. It makes sense, it is a place to take a miscreant to apply a spanking or thrashing, away from the house. I also imagine it added a bit to the punishment as mentioning the woodshed emphasised a spanking was to be applied.

As far as the dimensions of the woodshed, they were normally bigger than toolsheds today but that wouldn't really matter because they were normally stocked with wood! A father who wanted to make use of a woodshed to punish a kid privately would take him behind the woodshed, not into it.

Woodsheds could be pretty big, holding 5-10+ cords of wood even recently, and would likely be over 100 square feet. I know my grandfather's was probably about 200 sq. ft, but as noted it was usually filled up with wood - one side seasoned, one side green. I don't see it as very practical for punishment because not only was it full of wood, but it also was pretty open to allow the wood to dry out. My parents have a lean-to type thing off the barn, again pretty open.

The only woodshed I ever saw was at the camp my father rented in the early 40s. It was built where a house had been and the woodshed was quite large because it needed to hold enough wood to heat the house in winter plus fire the cooking stove year round. It was usually close to the back door so the father didn't have to carry the wood too far. The term must date back to the mid 1800s or earlier and can be interchanged with “out behind the barn” although that was where sex ed usually took place also.

Woodshed: "shed for keeping wood as fuel," 1799, from wood (n.) + shed (n.). Sometimes a euphemism for "outhouse." Figuratively, as the place for private punishment, by 1907, American English colloquial.

Etymology — ... Probably derived from the previous term "horseshedding," meaning to take a person privately (such as to a horse shed or woodshed ..

If you google either word (woodshed or horseshed) you can get a lot of images. I'd post the links but they are 8 lines long each!!!

When we had a house there was some kind of garage for the car, but I don't recall mom ever using it for spanking, though it may have happened. Mom just used a nearby place where she could be alone with culprit, out of sight of third parties, though not necessarily out of earshot. Most times it was just a bedroom.

To be “taken to the wood shed” was to take the “offender” to a more private place to give the appropriate discipline. Sometime over the years that way of discipline changed to have it happen in the moment to now physical discipline is a bad thing.

Wood sheds were big enough to hold enough wood and kindling to heat the home and supply the wood for the cook stove. As wood heat was phased out and replaced by other methods of heating, coal, LP, and electricity, the space became unneeded. The buildings torn down.

When I was a boy, my family had a large “out-building” about 30 yards behind the main house (I grew up on a small working ranch).

This multi-purpose out-building was larger than the house. Part of the building was a barn. Part was a woodshed area. Part was my father's workshop area. Part was a garage area for the family automobiles. Part was a garage area for ranch vehicles. Part was general storage for ranch equipment.

The workshop and the woodshed areas were right next to each other (like dining rooms are always next to kitchens). This was because we sometimes did the final cutting and splitting of firewood in the workshop area, and the firewood was then easily stacked into the adjacent woodshed area. Also, we stored other categories of wood/lumber in the woodshed (not just firewood), including plywood and 2x4 studs, etc.

Corporal punishment from Mom usually meant going over her lap for a bare bottom paddling with her hairbrush. If Mom's discipline did not produce a repentant attitude and improved behavior, she would ask Dad to deal with us (me and my sisters). Usually, this meant calling him at work to let him know that one (or more) of his children required his attention. After speaking with Dad, Mom would usually inform the naughty child/children that, “You will have an appointment with your Father in his workshop after dinner this evening.” Dad had a carpenter's ruler and a razor strop hanging on the wall in his workshop…

😱

A tanning from Dad usually required that I would undress and drape my naked body over one of Dad's sawhorses. But, there were occasions when the sawhorses were somewhere else (at a job site, in the back of a ranch pick-up truck, etc). When this happened, I was almost always told to bend myself over a cord of firewood in the woodshed area.

We didn’t have a shed, but one of my friends did. I was 14 and with my friend and I both got in trouble with his dad. He called my dad and told him all about it . My dad got on the phone with me and said my friend’s dad had his permission to give me the same punishment as his son. We were told to go out to the shed and wait. After what seemed a very long time his dad came in holding a doubled over leather strap. We were both told to strip from the waist down and bend over a saw horse. We both got a very long and hard whipping from his dad.

I know twin brothers who were spanked by their father in his woodshed (and with a piece of wood) but they were an exception rather than the rule for me to know about.

I can’t speak from experience but I do remember a “Little House” episode where a boy was taken out to the woodshed for a “whippin’” followed by the tell tale crack of leather. Also another movie where a teenage boy actually laid over the wood pile for his whippin. In the early days of America, we were an extremely rural culture, with most people living in the country and farming, at least enough for themselves. Having a “woodshed” would be very normal, as would having a lot of kids, and using some kind of structure to get out of the elements and away from others when discipline was necessary. We think of the ‘50s era discipline a lot where kids were bared and spanked in front of other people, but in reading some older books this was at one time considered very ill mannered. “Ill bred” was a term I actually saw applied to whipping someone in front of others.

We have a woodshed, because we burn wood in the winter time. Let's just say that I have literally been taken to the woodshed a time or two by Dev as part of a scene. He's never made me cut my own switch, though.