Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To Slap This Woman Back?

294 replies

RightOldSlapper · 08/07/2013 16:52

I've nc'd for this as don't want it to follow me adoring but am a regular poster (Yoni, Pom Bears, Naice Ham, Wilf etc).

I'm not asking AIBU as I know I was but I'm asking to what degree was I unreasonable, say on a scale of 1 to 5 in regards to the following incident.

Yesterday, DS3 (aged 13) and DS4 (aged 9), were playing out in our street, with 6 other similarly aged children who live on the same street, DS3 being the eldest. They were not directly outside our house but around 8-10 houses down. There is a small junction in between, and while I recognise the residents in that area I certainly don't know them as well as my immediate neighbours. I am however very friendly with one of the others boys mum, who lives that far down.

I'd last seen them 20 minutes earlier having been checking on them every half hour. Anyway, at some point DS4 and a few of the other boys came running in saying that a woman up the road has hit DS3 and says she's going to kill him. I arrived to find this woman still shouting at DS3.

Apparently DS3 had fallen off his bike and over her very low front garden wall (max 2ft) onto her flowerbed. Apparently he had damaged her garden and crushed her cat. I could see no visible damage to the shrubs (no flowers). The cat was nowhere to be seen. It was an accident. She had been washing her car and had rushed over yanked him up, screamed at him and slapped twice; once on the top of the back and once across the face.

While I was there trying to resolve the situation she threatened to slap him again. Am not pleased with myself but I lost my temper and I grabbed her then hit her twice. I've been feeling guilty but not. Am quite conflicted, and am also quite shocked still at what happened, friends/family have said it was ok but I just wonder was it really that ok or am I totally irrational.

So yes how unreasonable was I?

I don't want to drip feed but I haven't written down all minutiae of this incident as I didn't want to start straying into Dostoyevsky territory. However I'm happy to provide further details if some of you feel its relevant.

OP posts:
Burmillababe · 08/07/2013 21:52

I just think that calling the police would have been a better solution, the woman would have found herself in all kinds of trouble, poss lost her job etc. I understand how it happened, I just think that everyone in the OP was unreasonable, and acted in the heat of the moment.

FeegleFion · 08/07/2013 21:52

Burmilla you can't say you believe the OP is no better than the woman who assaulted her child and then say it was understandable and something most mothers would do. It's contradictory to yourself.

The woman assaulted the OP's child before the OP hit her.

The OP sent a very clear message to her DC here. She has their back and will defend them when they've been wronged.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 08/07/2013 21:55

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and in an ideal world, I am sure that OP wishes she hadn't acted by smacking Ivan Drago up the head.

But she did and IMO, it is justifiable.

No-one is disputing that there are better ways to go about things but heat of moment and mother lion and all that... It's just all of this "You lost the moral high ground" "You are no better than she" sanctimonious batty wagging that's grating, tbh.

FeegleFion · 08/07/2013 21:56

Good for you Marmalade I bet he shit himself Grin

Burmillababe · 08/07/2013 21:56

I meant that I understand the instinctive reaction but it doesnt mean that imvvho she did the right thing

MarmaladeTwatkins · 08/07/2013 21:58

I shit myself when I'd ran off and processed what had happened! Shock

A combination of youthful indignation, being more agile than I am now and having a decent right hook helped me out there. Grin

peggyundercrackers · 08/07/2013 21:59

you were being very reasonable - she hit your child twice and threatened to do it again.

if it was my child she wouldnt have got a chance to threaten him a third time - ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has a right to chastise my child - if they want my child chastised because of something they have done then come to me and i will deal with it - if you do it woe betide - ill have your head off.

FeegleFion · 08/07/2013 22:01

I agree Burmilla it never is the right thing but faced with an extreme situation like this, in which you know your child has already been physically attacked by an adult and to then witness that same adult say that she was going to assault him again...well instinct would win out for all of us, I'd bet.

Sparklysilversequins · 08/07/2013 22:01

I think she did do the right thing, at the very least it will make Slap Happy think twice before laying into an injured child again I am sure.

Gonnabmummy · 08/07/2013 22:02

I don't think u lost the moral high ground at all u hit a grown woman who was threatening your family. She hit a CHILD and continued to threaten the child. OP violence isn't the answer but I would of hit her too probably more its that fight or flight. It's not like you stormed off to slap her child in revenge tht WBU.

GertrudeMorel · 08/07/2013 22:05

Horrible situation but you were both very wrong.

I might have been tempted to report this neighbour, but OP, you behaved very badly too.

Terrible example to kids too.

breakingup · 08/07/2013 22:06

Yanbu.

If someone hit one of my kids I would probably end up in prison.

sunshine401 · 08/07/2013 22:07

Does this women have children?? What age range is she ??

She should never of hit your child at all. Depending on the answers to the two questions above even though you did respond in such a negative (deserving) way I would still report to police/ss.

Burmillababe · 08/07/2013 22:07

Feegle - quite possibly, and granted it is impossible to predict how you would react in the actual situation, I would hope never to be in one, but if I was, I would like to think that i would behave differently.

FeegleFion · 08/07/2013 22:11

You're a better woman than I Burmilla because I know how I'd react, I'd have her fucking head Grin

FeegleFion · 08/07/2013 22:11

You're a better woman than I Burmilla because I know how I'd react, I'd have her fucking head Grin

FeegleFion · 08/07/2013 22:12

Sorry stupid phone Confused

MarmaladeTwatkins · 08/07/2013 22:13

BOYAKASHA

Original poster
RightOldSlapper · 08/07/2013 22:16

I'm not sure if she has children, my friend thinks she may have grown up children of be a NRP because there is an older teenage girl who seems to stay every other week.

I'd say she's in her mid 40s or early 50s. I'd think definitely older than me (41).

OP posts:
MarmaladeTwatkins · 08/07/2013 22:20

You battered a big girl?

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Euclase · 08/07/2013 22:23

I would have lost my temper as well. Ok it wasn't the best thing in the world to have lamped her but I probably would have done the same.

NeoMaxiZoomDweebie · 08/07/2013 22:36

Marmalade Grin Ommmmmmmmmmmm.....I'm TELLIN'!!

cocolepew · 08/07/2013 22:59

You know in cartoons where someone gets run over by a steam roller and has to be peeled off the road?
That's not what happened to the fucking cat. It's fine it had been seen moving and everything.

ShellyBoobs · 08/07/2013 23:20

I don't know why she thinks I'm a scummy bitch.

No, it's bizarre isn't it?

LadyBeagleEyes · 08/07/2013 23:25

Er, what do you mean by that ShellyBoobs Confused?