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?

Also, you do need to be careful about who and how you confront publicly nowadays.

I'm thinking about the boy who was killed on a train for just looking shocked at how another boy was treating his girlfriend.

And the man who was kicked to death in front of his little girls for asking a group of teenagers not to swear in earshot of his children.

hobbgoblin - "offer the mother support."
Complete and utter liberal, woolly clap-trap.

"Offer the mother support".
I strongly suspect that a man behaving in this way wouldn't be offered support - but because it's a woman, a mother, there's an assumption that if only she was "supported" she might behave differently. You, and I, can't know what support she was or wasn't getting. But some people abuse their children and it's wrong. Some women (and men) are unpleasant selfish people and unless it's pointed out to them that their behaviour is unacceptable, they continue. You might not like the way the OP did that, but she certainly got the message over.

hobbgoblin, you wonder why I didn't offer the mother help?
Because sometimes people need to know they're bang out of order. And that is all.
I prevented myself going to talk to her, because I knew I would end up sympathising, as I always do. I didn't think her getting sympathy would be helpful in this situation.

I've known other people who're damn evil to their kids to 'win' everyone around, such as officials, and get their sympathy.
I've reported someone I knew for slapping their 4yo around the head for next to nothing and it's been on camera.
Nothing came of it.

Abusive parents usually have a fantastic sob story to get sympathy in my experience and the kids get left behind. Like I said, I thought sheer guilt and nothing else was good for the woman in this instance.

She might have said 'I'm so sorry' in case the beer breathed stranger swearing 'in her face' kicked her head in.

Nice one just lovely

I agree with the poster earlier on (forgotten name, sorry) who said that she thinks the mother maybe had mental health issues or something like that because the dad was clearly trying to deal with things calmly and clearly she was ashamed of her behaviour, judging by her response. They don't sound like the typical 'awful' family who eff and blind at their children all the time, as the man's behaviour was so different to hers.

OP - I think you were wrong to swear and wrong to have not asked the dad if things were okay or if he needed any help. If you're going to intervene, at least do it politely.

YANBU - but it sounds like she may have problems. No one knows what other peoples lives are like. She obviously went way too far and realised she had. Lets hope this has deterred her from doing it again. What a shame for the little lad

Good greeneyesandham, then she'll know how the boy felt!

yanbu for saying something but yabu for swearing at her. It won't have made a blind bit of difference. If she's a gobby cow it will be like water off a ducks back.

You should have taken the moral high ground and told her to calm down.

FWIW I think there are shed-loads of parents who shouldn't be allowed to look after a house plant, however even decent parents cannot cope sometimes. I have never sworn or hit my children (or anything like what the op has described) but maybe she was under a huge amount of pressure. I was the rattiest parent ever when my dad was dying last year and flew off the handle at anything.

yukoncher, I agree with you that in some abusive situations the abuser is expert in portraying a whole different self in order to cover up or dtract from the abuse that is taking place.

As a professional this is a strand of the situation that needs to be dealt with, but as a passer by we simply don't have enough information to make this judgement do we?

Ideally it would be possible to support both the victim and the abuser in preventing abuse from taking place.

This would be the ideal as far as I am concerned.

Is there something inherently wrong with taking a liberal view? If you were hitting your child because other life trials had stripped you of your ability to deal with things appropriately or because you were ill or whatever, would you want your child to despise you and move on from you and your shit? Or, would you take the more 'liberal' view and want your child protected whilst you sorted yourself out, thus preserving for your child the image of a mother that loved him?

A child's self esteem is founded upon his view of himself as a part of his/her parents that gradually detaches and becomes independent. What good does it do to denigrate said parents as part of some illogical perception of protection?

lol, she may have just been scared of me. Nice turning of the tables that would have been for her.
Hopefully she was sorry about her nastiness towards DS, though.

I didn't want to interfear with the dad, because he was doing really well focusing on his son, god bless him.
Also DS seemed to be talking very fluently, don't know if it would have been good to speak about his mum in front of him.
Anyway, I'm no social worker to go in and mend everything!

fifi25
Yeah let's hope she's realised, and was just having a reeeally bad day.

oh :( that poor child. i got tears after reading your OP. i think you did the right thing.

hobbgoblin.
I cussed her away from the child.
The idea would be (not that I had even thought it through at the time) but that she coulod have been mortified, and thought 'oh god that was reallyu bad of me'.
Then when child and father came back she could hopefully apologize and move on, and her guilt would remind her not to get like that again.

They were Australian and seemed to be on holiday just the 3 of them.
Didn't seem like the 'usual type' to be swearing and such. All nicely dress, obviously the child had a two parent family taking him on holiday. Had a little cowboy hat on, looked taken care of. Therefor, I do it's possible that the mother just being shamed by her behaviour could help snap her out of it, in a little bit at least.

I love these types pf threads when someone actually goes against the grain and disagree with the majority. hobgoblin offered up an explanation as to why she felt op did not do the right thing. There may not be another alternative and jumping on hobgoblin to provide one is absurd, there is not always an alternative. Op did not ask what else she could have done, but was she ur to do what she did.

I for one dont think op was UR to say something but the manner she did so was not acceptable and by the sounds of it she was performing for an audience.

"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".

This is not the actions of measured concern about a child being abused, this is making a scene and not managing your own anger, was there really any need to do this, why did you feel the need to even stand up and address her or to storm off? It seems you did not have the confidence to be doing what you actually did in which case you should not have intervened unless you where prepared to stay and follow this through your actions or concern.

I think YANBU in saying something. I guess none of us really know what caused this woman to behave in this way to her son (whether mental health issues in some shape or form, that she is ill in some other way, an abuser, etc etc). In these situations all you have is the 30 seconds or so that you witness, and it's then a knee-jerk reaction as to whether you say something or not.

I once saw a woman hit her daughter round the head with a purse. Her little DD didn't even cry :( I asked her if she though such discipline was really necessary. She responded with a string of expletives.

I was too annoyed with her to have offered her any sympathy. If I had any way of identifying her, or where she lived, I would have reported her to social services.

Hobbgoblin, I don't doubt that your theories hold water and that they make a reasonable basis for strategy, but sometimes we HAVE to do something there and then, to stop something happening IMMEDIATELY. Like Victoria Climbie's taxi driver (who may well have used foul language.)

tomhardyismyds
I should have kept quiet then?

Good for you op, you did the right thing, well done for standing up for the little boy, he needed someone to.

And she needed someone to tell her the way she was treating him was unacceptable.

... as a passer by we simply don't have enough information to make this judgement do we?

What good does it do to denigrate said parents as part of some illogical perception of protection?

If you were hitting your child because other life trials had stripped you of your ability to deal with things appropriately or because you were ill or whatever, would you want your child to despise you and move on from you and your shit?

In other words then, hobbgoblin, the OP should have either offered the mother sympathy (because obviously the poor woman wasnt responsible for her own actions) or should have turned a blind eye to a scared young child being abused.

Nice. I just hope you're never in the position of being attacked in public and find the everyone turns a blind eye, because your poor attacker deserves sympathy for whatever drove them to attack you.

Thanks :)

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

Bbird, perhaps you might like to take the time to read what I posted. There is also a difference between "non confrontational" and unaggressive. Making any comment at all could be perceived as confrontational. Shoving yourself in someone's face and swearing at them is never anything other than aggressive and is, IMO, unnecessary.

I guess it all depends what result you want. Do you want the woman to feel thoroughly ashamed of her behaviour or do you want her to feel bullied and threatened and thus able to mentally dismiss what you said because you were an alcohol fuelled bully? I am not suggesting you were drunk but I imagine there would have been the scent of beer on your breath.

I dont think you should keep quiet no. however I think if I where in your shoes and I felt the need to say something I would have done it far calmer with a bit more thought of what I wanted to have been achieved. If it was through sheer anger and I was unable to detach myself from that then I would have not said anything. I certainly wouldn't have been in her face, using foul language and then strop off. I would have followed her apology up with something further about her behavior and maybe asked why she had reacted as he had to the boy.

I am at Amystake regarding the poor woman on a hot bus. It sounds to me like she was having a really bad day and had chosen to ignore the kids for the last part of the journey home because she was sick and tired of it.

If that woman had said anything to me I'd have wanted to slap her face told her where to get off.

I bet she went home and cried her eyes out.

Right. I told my kids to "just fucking behave" yesterday. I have alot of kids, a full time job, 3 hours sleep, bruises everywhere from accidental and not so accidental kicking etc. I spend 18 hours a day being a goodparent and good employee and good person, so when ds1 DELIBERATELY did yet nother £100 damage to something essential which i could not afford to replace for the 4th time in a year, then started acting up in public because following rules is beneath him I did swear. I didn't hit him or shout when he did the damage but yes I got him to do what he needed to do so we could fix the mess he had made so I could keep my job.

I hate smug parents who have no idea what its like in my case working full time and looking after alot of children and constantly washing cleaning being mum and dad judging because they don't have a fucking clueeeeeeeee what its like. I also have a myriad of other problems to contend with as well which I won't go into details about. I walk past a mum of one with a husband house and single child and every day she makes some nasty snidey comment and I feel like pointingout she doens't hve to wash feed clothe uand entertain x amount of kids whilst working full time. Well done her on having a great life, but itdoesn't give her the right to judge anyone else when she would probably fall apart at the seams even attempting to live my life.

But how do you know that woman hadn't put up with 5 hours of disobedient tantrumming son before you met her?

There is a real hypocrisy on this site, if a tired stressed mummy comes on needing support she gets it on one hand, but the same people who support her come on judging strangers. So, YABU

Whacking the bottle was however unreasonable