I was still young when I first stayed out too late one evening fucking around with some friends in the neighborhood and my mom grounded me when I got home. Trouble was she didn’t realize that “grounding” someone is an idiom and I thought she was going to bury me alive. Pretty sure she didn’t understand why I was crying.
“I made you, I can unmake you.”

Do I have a sibling I didn’t know about?

“I brought you in this world, I can take you out of it.”

Pretty common thing to say among white trash moms (and very possibly among non-white trash moms too, but my experience is limited…)
I grew up with that idiom and understanding what it meant, and then I went to flight school where being grounded has a more literal meaning. So my question: Was the childhood punishment named after disqualification from flight status or was the term in use before 1903 with a different origin?

Etymonline entry for ground

Seems like it was used for pilots in the 1930s and extended to “deny privileges” in the 40s

Dickens used room-ridden

Ground - Etymology, Origin & Meaning

"bottom; foundation; surface of the earth," also "abyss, Hell," and "bottom of the sea"… See origin and meaning of ground.

etymonline