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?

Oh and by the way you lowered yourself to her level whn you swore. pot calling the kettle black there...

I did feel sorry for her, it was very hot, but the girl was also kicking her sibling over and over again, who was crying in a pushchair and obviously couldn't escape her, and mum just did nothing. Not even move the pushchair :(.

funny wow you are being so UR!!

You say "fucking" to your kids? This is, imo, unacceptable in any situation. I doubt you have it much worse than lots of other parents who can manage to get their kids to behave without swearing like fishwives at them.

There is no excuse for it, and in fact parents like you are the reason I have trouble getting my kids to realise appropriate/inappropriate behaviour and language at school.

Awful

"There seems to be a lot of super human people around. I would think that your average 'normal' kind passer by would feel anger at seeing a child being abused in public"

What is superhuman about not being aggressive in a response? I would indeed feel anger at seeing a child being abused in public but I wouldn't feel the need to stoop to the abusers level to get my point across.

I wonder what Amystkae and the other woman would have liked the mother-on-the-bus to do.

I think funny sounds like a parent at the end of their tether. Sympathy rather than branding her a fishwife simply because (horrors) she swears when in a stressful situation is preferable.

IMO, there's a hell of a difference between the situation she describes and the one in the OP.

I also feel bloody sorry for the mum on the bus - even in my pre DC days I might've thought the child was a proper little madam, but it would never have occurred to me to have a go at the mum because of it!

NO flying I said it once! Oh wht a terrible parent I am! My point, which you completely missed in your attempt to be smug and judge someone else because you are obviously so much better as a parent than me, is that on ONE occasion after a massive amount of stress and pressure, I behaved badly. However 99.9% of the time I don't.

So do you have four kids a full time job, very little support, ill relatives, money problems, harrassment, housing problems and a total lack of sleep then?

Nah thought not. You probably had a nice glass of wine with dh once ds 1 was asleep in your nice 2 bed before having 8 hours sleep and then coming on mumsnet for a nice relaxing morning of thinking you area better erperson than other people.

Twat

lots of people have a lot of problems. I still think "fucking" is a horrible thing to say to your kids. And so do you, by the sounds of it.

you've got absolutely no idea what my life is like, so don't demean yourself by making vast assumptions.

Well done, OP.

This woman is a bully.

Bullies are cowards.

If you had said quietly "Don't speak to your child like that" she would probably have thumped you one.

By using language she understood, and seeming - for want of a better word - somewhat "hard" you probably got through to her far more efficiently than if you'd soft-pedalled it.

People like this rely on most people being either too scared to stand up to them, or having the sort of woolly, "let's all love everyone no matter how scummy" attitudes of some of the MN'ers on here.

Seriously, I'm convinced that some of you would defend Hitler if it came to it - "He probably had a bad childhood, poor lamb"

Although I would find it shocking to see a parent treating a child like that I would probably keep out of it.

For all I know the child has been tantruming for hours previously, the parent has just been made redundant, the parent has had a bereavement in the family, they are feeling like crap from some bug etc. Of course she could just be a bitch.

But I try not to judge on what is just a tiny snapshot of someones day, and an even tinier snapshot of their life.

Regardless of whether the parent has had a bereavement, been buggered by a baboon, learned that they have one leg 6 inches shorter than the other, lost their job, got Malaria or any of the other 4,000,000 things that might have gone wrong in their life - that does NOT make it alright to whack a drink out of her son's mouth or to talk to him the way she did.

I don't care if she's got the beloved "MH issues" either. She was compos mentis enough to look shamefaced and apologise when the OP challenged her, so I highly doubt that was the case.

Tiny shapshot - yeah. Right. I tell you what - I bet her child remembers that tiny snapshot for the rest of his life. Don't pretend it doesn't matter, eh?

A four year old remember that for the rest of his life? Really?

Oooh I can see it now...later on we will have a thread along the lines of;

I can't believe how disgustingly rude some people are!

I walked into the train station today and witnessed out of nowhere a drunk woman verbally abusing a total stranger for what I could see was no reason. This poor lady was just sat on a bench and suddenly this other lady bent over her swearing in her face with a look of pure rage. The lady on the bench was in total shock and I felt so sorry for her. Then this complete psycho just stalked off and stood further down the platform!

Everyone was looking around uncomfortably and I really wanted to say something but thought it was best not to get involved incase I got an ear full or even worse attacked, as I'm sure this woman was the kind who wouldn't have thought anything about punching my lights out.

Now I'm sure you can all see what I've done there and I'm sure you can see the point I am trying to make.

"Seriously, I'm convinced that some of you would defend Hitler if it came to it - "

OH DEAR! Chins invokes Godwin's law.

Funnyspelling are you suggesting that four year olds don't remember things?

What a peculiar idea.

I think that you handled that fairly poorly tbh

Having a word and saying that you are a parent yourself and know how hard it is but you found her behaviour toward her boy made uncomfortable viewing. Asking her if she was okay or if she needed any help might have been helpful

Swearing and bullying/acting aggressively is shit no matter who does it
YABU

OP- YANBU.

Funnyspelling, stop being so aggressive with people. FWIW people with only one child also reach the end of their tether at times. Not all them go round effing and blinding either at their children, or faceless posters on t'web.

I would think four year olds would remember extremely traumatic events perhaps.

Remembertheir mum behaving unfairly and swearing? (If they even understand what the f word means)

No I sincerely doubt he would remember that for the rest of his life.

My first memory is from when I was 2 years old. Not traumatic as such - it is of my GF being taken ill, and us all going off in the ambulance with him.

I have memories of tellings-off. One in particular of spoiling some newly-put up wallpaper. Mum hit the roof (it had taken her a long time) and sent me to my room. I was 3 when that happened.

Possibly this event stood out because my childhood was generally very happy and I hardly ever got shouted at. Possibly the child in the OP won't remember this particular incident due to it being one of many.

I think you are missing the point. I put up withpeople judging me all the time and behave better and do not swear back because I'm bigger than that.

I don't think these adults who make snide comments/swear at me would consider they are doing anything wrong because I'm an adult, but it's hurtful and in my opinion quite abusive of them to do that. I don't moan (apart from this once) and I don't wallow in self pity and I most certainly don't insult people in public. But exactly why oh why do people consider themselves entitled to gossip about and judge other people, from their perceived position of superiority, when in reality they don't know anything about that persons lives.

I swore once on a very bad day. It does not make me a bad parent it makes me a person that was having a terrible terrible day.

To quote TheFlyingOnions "There is no excuse for it, and in fact parents like you are the reason I have trouble getting my kids to realise appropriate/inappropriate behaviour and language at school.
"

I swore once flying andyou are judging me . No Flying I am NOT the reason your kids have problems. You misread and misunderstood my post, insulted me and judged me.

funny, you did not say you swore once, you said " I told my kids to "just fucking behave""

I think that even if you said it once, its still an unacceptable thing to say.

Parents who use casual swear words when speaking to their kids teach their kids that its ok to swear. I then (try to) teach them at school that its not ok.

I can imagine a situation in which you lose your temper and say something you regret. Not the end of the world, as long as you apologise and explain why its unacceptable. I presume then, that you did this.

Lets not get into a "whose life is harder" competition

I think there's a huge difference between losing your temper and using the odd swear word once in a while, and what the OP witnessed.

TBH, in a way I find it worse that the woman in question backed down as soon as an adult intervened. She was wound up and "at the end of her tether" enough to treat her child like shit, but she managed to rein it in when she felt intimidated herself. Far easier to pick on a child. That's what I mean by bullies being cowards; she was brave enough to harangue a small boy but wimped out when the OP had a go at HER

I think I would have been inclined to give the mother a wide berth, and follow the son and dad to ask if there was anything I could do. I can't imagine that either appealing (sp?) to this woman's better nature, or acting up so my behaviour was on a par with hers, would help in any way. And she may well have had many things going on in her life - which one of us doesn't - but nothing excuses such behaviour as hers.

Ok flying perhaps I didn't make it cleaar that I swore once in exceptional circumstances.

However, you were a little fast to hitch up the judgy pants too....

Flying I try not to talk about whose life is hardest because life is too short, you might as well make the best of it, and the way to do that is to be good tempered...

hmmm alright funny shall I take the advice I dish out to the kids on playground?