AIBU to have commented (harshly) on a woman's parenting, at the train st.

[yukoncher]

So, we're all waiting for the train home after a fair, I happened to be sitting on my own at this point.
A woman and her 3/4 yr old lil boy and his dad come sit next to me. The woman is obviouslly really annoyed and dominating the atmosphere, saying 'I've had a fucking nuff of you today' at her child.
So the mood around us (including other people already sitting there) is like; uhh god, everyone goes a bit quiet.
So she goes 'just go ahead one more time, I'll smack ya one', etc
I actually cannot see this lil' boy doing anything wrong at all, just looking bewildered.
So his dad goes to him 'please, I'm asking ya mate just stop it, (and what sounded like;) stop looking at her', please.
Asking the little boy to stop looking at his mum, what the hell?
So the mums swearing and stuff, the boy goes to take a swig of his juice, she wacked the little bottle of juice right out of his mouth and it flew across the train station platform spilling everywhere.
The little boy is just in shock.
I thought he had tears down his face, but in hindsight it could have been splashed juice, so I was fuming.
The boys dad quickly said 'come on mate' and took the boy away.

Well I stood up and bent down in her face and said 'that poor fucking child'. And she looked all shocked and goes 'I'm so sorry'.
I looked at her in disgust and stormed off.
Then other people that were sitting near us also left the area where she was sitting and walked past us commenting on how she knocked the drink out of the poor kids mouth.
My little sister suggested buying the kid another drink, but I thought that was imposing ourselves a bit too much, and the boy had a good dad with him anyway.
I so nearly went back over to have a good chat with her about how the hell she was acting, I was so upset.
But I wanted her to feel ashamed of herself and think about it, so I thought my comment alone would be more effective.

Was that unreasonable of me?

If she behaves like that in front of other people, I can only imagine what happens at home when no one else is around. I really doubt that what you said to her will have made her reflect on her behaviour then or her parenting in general, and might even have made her take out any feelings of shame or guilt on him once she got him home.

Yukoncher, wouldn't you rather that someone had quietly offered you support or the card for Women's Aid?

Attacking abusers does not help. Whoever the abuser is. You have to offer support to the right people so that they can escape or overcome the abuse.

Options might be offering a supportive word or advice the father, the child or the mother. It really depends on circumstance.

Child Protection Services don't fuck up all the time. The media distorts reality. Victoria Climbie has had a profound effect on the way services are managed. It will never be perfect and is always going to be hampered by the fact that the vast extent of abuse far outweighs the distinctly minute amount of money set aside for preventing it. Abuse is a symptom of deeper societal issues that no Government is ever likely to want to address even if they could - and that is unlikely.

Surely the best we can do is try and take a grass roots approach as individuals when faced with the reality of emotional distress within families? If the services we have in place are firefighting then we can be preventative within our communities by offering our support to all those concerned in such situations. It's what Social Services would do if they had the money. Instead a lot of children end up in care because there was never going to be the cash to address the real issues that cause abuse to take place.

I think that it is good to make someone stop and think, but a mistake to descend to their level with swearing.

YANBU to intervene, OP, but you're lucky all she said was that she was sorry (I find this amazing).

I intervened once in a bar on holiday, when I'd been looking after a woman's 7 year old at 3am, when he just wanted to go to bed but she was getting ratarsed, dancing like a loon, all over other men on the dancefloor. It was horrible. I suggested she took him home and she went and got her boyfriend who then started a huge fight with my boyfriend at the time, whilst she attempted to smack me one.... I doubt any of this did the little kid any good

Normally I'm in the don't interfere/don't judge camp, but I think you did a good thing, OP. Swearing the way you did seemed exactly right, imho. Yes the abusive mother is probably going thru horrible shit, but she's got to pull herself together & not take it out on the wean. One short sharp comment was a good way to go.

SoupDragon - "Do you really think it is best and acceptable to swear right in someone's face? "
In this instance, yes.

lol @ no jargon contained in said post. Note to poster: look up Jargon

yes I think you ANBU but you shouldn't have used the 'f' word yourself. don't quite understand why you did that.

I don't think the swearing is the issue here. In fact it's probably the least important element of the entire situation.

Hopefully the reaction of a member of the public might shock her into realising how badly she behaved and getting some sort of help.

just speaking in a language she could understand.
Plus, don't know about you guys, but seeing a child (whom I'd percieved to me silently crying) being emotionally abused, gets me really wound up.

NB.
'tears' could have likely been splashed juice.
But he was so bewildered.

totallylovely
That's what I hope!

My first partner was awful to me, and I remember when my first son was a few days old, he burped up sick while we were waiting for a bus and (ex)DH shouted at me so loud to clean up his sick, as I apparently wasn't doing it fast enough. I picked up my baby and walked away, but it was so weird, everyone around us just looking down and not saying anything. That was so isolating for me, I wandered if I was going mad, because noone else really commented on him being in the wrong. I left him a month later. I wish someone had turned round to him then and told him what a prick he was being, I really do. Because he seemed to have no idea how he was acting was wrong.

I can relate to that and have been in similar situations myself. Eventually a member of the public did say something to my ex and it was that which made me realise how bad the situation was and I left.

Hobbgoblin, who exactly, should the OP have called? You said you might have made a few phone calls? To whom? And as for the Victoria Climbie case facilitating profound change, her plight was ONLY PICKED UP BECAUSE A TAXI DRIVER INTERVENED AND DROVE HER AND HER ABUSERS TO HOSPITAL. Perhaps he should have handed over a womens' aid card instead?

Please tell me you don't work in child protection? Make my day and tell me you work in some other arena where commonsense, social responsibility and interpersonal skills are not important.

"SoupDragon - "Do you really think it is best and acceptable to swear right in someone's face? "
In this instance, yes."

Well, that says rather a lot about you TBH, and it's not good. Descending to someone else's level puts you right down with them. Personally, I don't find it acceptable when there are plenty of other ways to have dealt with it.

[shrug] each to their own. A withering look and a heartfelt "that poor child" would have worked just as well.

I'm not condoning what she did, but - you were disgusted at her effing and blinding and then went over to her and said 'fucking.'
Hmm, You sound just as bad as her to be honest.

It's funny that I am a strong believer in community parenting. This, however, is tempered with an intelligent view and so there would never be any vigilante styling in my actions which remain measured, proactive and wise the majority of the time.

It is not the sentiment I condone, but the action taken. Please respect me for that.

Good for you. So what would you have done? Who would you have called, Hobbgoblin?

No, Kristinekochanski, she was disgusted at her threatening and abusing a tiny child, which HAPPENED to include language which some would find offensive. So she intervened and used the same kind of language. That hardly makes the OP as bad as someone who abuses their children, does it?

it is

YABU for swearing, but YANBU for telling her.

I was on a bus on Friday that was like an oven. There was a mum with her two kids near me, a 3-4 year old and a toddler in a pushchair, both upset because it was so hot.

The elder child was crying, shouting, slapping and kicking mum as hard as she could, and kicking the toddler repeatedly. Nobody knew where to look. Mum didn't really do much but she did once tell her loudly to stop and "that everyone on the bus thinks you are a horrible spoilt brat".

Just before she got off, another woman got off the bus and said to her "I've watched your daughter slap and kick you the whole way from the city to here and you've done nothing. You're a disgrace, your daughter is horrible and a completely spoilt brat. You should be ashamed".

Not as eloquently put as I would have liked but I was glad somebody said something.

SoupDragon - HobbGobline - we are all waiting to hear how you would have dealt with this in a "non-confrontational" way.

BagofHolly, I think an important issue not to be overlooked is that we cannot help in every situation. It may not be enough to go home and call CSF and hope there is CTV footage or indeed resources available for someone within child protective services to have the time to take action and seek out that footage if all I did was go home and call them to tell them about what happened. This reality, however, does not mean that I should yell at the mother as the next best course of action; because it isn't the next best course of action.

What would I have done? If I couldn't have spoken to offer the mother support, or if I felt that this would have been futile I'd have had to accept this. I may have tried to report the incident.

At the point the mother in this actual case said "sorry" I wonder why, OP, you didn't soften and ask if there was anything you could do to help..?

troisgarcon it doesn't really matter what preceded the melt down. If this woman thinks a child can take loads of abuse, then she must be able to handle "that poor fucking child". Seriously, we wouldn't want to hurt little mummy's feelings.