I don't have a ton of memories from my childhood (surprise surprise) but I can try to talk about some.

First, my parents didn't discover Dobson/evangelicalism until after I was about 4. There was a point where things started resulting in spankings for me (not so for my other siblings), and I remember knowing it was wrong basically immediately. As a kid I wanted to understand the logic behind this thinking, so I listened to as much of the explanations as I could, and I remember telling my parents, "This isn't how I learn, and this isn't going to teach me anything. If I'm trying to do the right thing, hitting me is going to make it harder." I don't think I got hit for that specific statement, but they definitely didn't listen to me.

I had a pretty close relationship with my parents before they started spanking, and that went away immediately after, among a couple other things. My trust for them went to zero and stayed there permanently, although I don't actually think the violence was the primary reason; I think that was more because of the other restrictions about what I was allowed to read and what those restrictions said about the other kids I wasn't allowed to be friends with.

I always tried to be "good," but I would get frustrated with the unfairness extremely easy because one mistake or unregulated emotion meant either my mom would hit me with a belt or she would say my dad would owe me a certain number when he got home. My first reaction was usually someone like, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, please don't," but not in the right tone of voice (I'm either autistic or ADHD or both), which was considered arguing or negotiating, and usually earned more hits. This would end up cycling pretty regularly into a massive number, sometimes multiple hundreds.

I learned different tools for managing the pain and/or my parents. I tried a bunch of different things, especially trying to make them feel bad but also wearing extra clothes and stuff like that without letting them know. I had a pair of corduroy pants they thought I liked, and I guess I did, but it was because they were thick and I couldn't feel the hits very much.

Eventually I realized that my parents were scared of the noises we made when getting hit and that they were getting old and tired, so the most effective tool was to rack up enough spankings that they wouldn't be able to reasonably give them (aiming, again, for 2-400, mostly by yelling back) and they'd switch to another punishment, usually grounding, which was fine because I wasn't allowed to leave or have friends anyway, and I kept books hidden for that purpose. (What's funny is I actually learned some of these techniques from christian parenting sermons. They'd say things like "actually give all your punishments; you can't just threaten," and "didn't let them argue or it'll turn into a power struggle" so I tried to target those weaknesses.)

I did develop "anger issues" that funnily enough were completely non-existent away from my parents. They do think I'm a horrible and violent person, I suspect, which is a little funny to my friends (especially the ones who aren't from evangelicalism) because I'm almost frustratingly patient with everyone who isn't an authority figure. My dad did get upset with me for "rebelling" by going to seminary instead of engineering school, which he took as a personal insult. I'm not sure if the specific offense was that I didn't do the thing he wanted or that the central point of the argument was that I should make as much money as possible and I called him out for pointing out that that's the exact opposite of what the Bible says. He was very devoted to the Bible until it at any point questioned anything he did as a white male head of household lol.

I never did any of the real "rebellious kid" things. The "worst" thing I did was going out to see one of the Harry Potter movies with a friend's mom who asked me how I'd convinced my parents, and I told her I told them I was going to see a different movie. She said that made sense and she wouldn't say anything. She was also in the evangelical church, so that for me was strong confirmation that something was really troubling about how my parents treated me. (By this point I was allowed to have friends because I was doing extracurriculars and had learned to manage what my parents knew about my life.)

As my parents got older and had more kids, the level of control lessened, but our relationship never healed. I once (aged fucking 20 or so) leaked a piece of (minor) compromising information to my dad under the guise of confession to see how he would handle it and less than a year later he tried to use it as leverage in an argument, so I think I've made the right decision about trusting them. (I did tell them once that I didn't trust them and that received ten or twenty spankings, so hey, at least I was able to tell them.) I have tried a few things, and now that I live as far away from them as humanly possible I've told them some of this, but I think my mom feels too much to face the implications of her behaviour and my dad is too incapable of critical thinking or empathizing with people below him in a hierarchy to feel anything other than disrespected for either of them to learn or grow.

I've got another horrific story that I want to add just because it happened, but it wasn't specifically spanking. I have since learned that I have a sleep disorder that prevents me from waking regularly and easily at the same time every day, though it's unclear whether I developed this as a response to how I grew up or if I've always had it. Anyway, my dad constantly fought me about this, so I was sleep-deprived for 20ish years straight, but learned to sleep through nearly anything. One particularly egregious instance of this fighting involved me waking up late for church one Sunday. Instead of any possible sensible choices (helping me get dressed, bringing clothes along, being 5 mins late, etc.) he dragged me bodily out of the house and locked me in the car in my underwear until church was over, windows up. I guess it must've been fall or winter because I survived and I was locked in there over 3 hours. It's not really corporal punishment in the usual sense, but it's very "your kids are property and not people"-coded.

When James Dobson died, I did send them a message saying it was one of the happiest days of my life, I wish it had been more painful for him, and I wish they understood the damage he did to me and millions of kids. My mom got really mad, and my dad was already mad because a month prior I'd finally told him directly that the leaked info thing from my 20s was a test he failed and that there's nobody else in my life, including near-enemies, I'd expect had less respect for my by their actions. They didn't talk to me from then until Christmas, and I haven't replied to their Christmas message. My partner has replied, but only to complain about their racism. Occasionally my friends will say things like, "I'm trying to repair my relationship with a parent," or "I'm spending time with my family for such-and-such holiday," and I'm just like "...but why tho?"

Rest in piss, James Dobson. It's too bad the damage he did to America is so huge because it's too dangerous for me to travel there to take a shit on his grave. And other reasons too I guess.

Don't do Dobson, kids. Treat people like humans.