To have confronted this poor excuse for a mother?

[TeddyPickleStick]

So I'm sat at work, window open. I hear a commotion outside so get up and look out the window. There is a heavily pregnant woman with two small children - a boy of around 3 and a girl of maybe 4.

She is screaming at the boy .. ' you fucking piece of shit, what the fuck are you doing? ' and ' Come on you little prick ' etc etc.

I shout down ' Don't do that! Don't say that! ' in complete shock. ' Who the fuck are you? Fuck off ' she shouts back.

I then deliberated on what to do. I felt really angry so ran down the stairs onto the street but she had gone into the bank. And then I ground to a halt and couldn't work out what to do.

So did nothing more. I mean, what CAN you do? Only a bit of swearing after all eh? I have no idea what I would have done if I'd managed to confront her anyway.

I detest this, really hate it. If you swear at your children like this, in the street, then you are a shit parent.

Aren't you?

So what if she wasn't the child's mother?? She obviously has access to the children, and she spoke to them in a disgusting, abusive way.
Stop splitting hairs, ffs.

^THIS

Nowhere have I said this woman must be like 'this' all the time. She may be the world's most brilliant mother behind closed doors.perhaps she has some sort of personality transplant when she takes her kids out. If I'm being honest I doubt it, but I suppose it's possible.

My point has always been (and others have also said this but have been too intimidated by other posters to
stick around on this thread) that the incident was disgusting.

A very frustrating thread in which I find myself agreeing with almost everyone at some point. However I did come away from some posts with the impression that while no one condoned the activity, suggestions of what might have helped to trigger the abuse have been interpreted as excusing unacceptable behaviour. I accept this probably wasn't as intended, but it's certainly how I first read some posts, and ultimately I walked away from the thread for a bit so I could come back more composed.

While no one has condoned this woman's activity, my impression has been one of a troubling (to me) comparison between someone swearing at their child in the style of 'oh for fuck's sake' and the kind of verbal abuse the OP has described. I agree her appearance is irrelevant. Her behaviour is not, and what was described I would classify as verbal abuse no matter what the target. The fact that it was a toddler makes it worse, because there is a clear power differential in the relationship. However I accept that I have a very low threshold when it comes to verbal abuse based on events in my own past.

So was this an instance of awful parenting? Unquestionably.

Is she a bad parent overall? Impossible to know without knowing her parenting history to be able to judge in a balanced way. But this was an instance of damaging parenting.

Was this abuse, not just swearing? Yes, from what has been described.

Can verbal abuse be as damaging as physical abuse? Yes, at least emotionally, and occasionally physically.

• Assumption: the woman is the child's mother.

Do you work in Africa?

Really?!

I kind of like the idea of social services being staffed by clones of MrsDeVere...

I think she made a good point in her first post on this thread an it's a shame that she and tantrums, who should also be cloned by SS IMO, got drawn in to a silly argument.

the op's intentions were good but her thinking is very black and white and idealistic mixed with a bit of 'ivory tower' judginess and that's what got picked up on. Nobody is saying she shouldn't have acted or been upset.

The thread shows me that lots of people care passionately about child welfare and that's got to be a good thing.

Maybe you should read the whole thread MrsDeVere. Whether you've won the argument or not, I don't think you've covered yourself in glory on this one.

Sorry, her thinking SEEMS, not is - now who's assuming! Argh. Peace.

Mrsd, by arguing for eleven pages that this woman could possibly be a great parent behind closed doors/on a cooler day/when she's in a better frame of mind you are minimising the impact of the emotional abuse she dealt out to those kids at that moment. We don't care if she's the epitome of Kirstie fucking Allsopp when she's at home; she is a shit parent whenever she chooses to demean and frighten and belittle her children by calling them 'fucking pricks' and 'little shits'.

Yes, I have read the thread but it's gone round in so many circles it's impossible to keep on top of who has said what and who has missed which points.

So nobody doubts that this incident is entirely beyond normal and acceptable boundaries of behaviour. Good.

I do also think it's logical for MrsD et al (sorry, I can't keep up with who is in which camps!) to say that you cannot definitively extrapolate someone's entire character from a few moments of either good or bad behaviour.

However, I do think that this particular incident is severe enough (if we take the OP at face value) to presume that the child in question has suffered some degree of emotional trauma. That could be as a result of a one time occurrence of his (again, presumed) mother screaming in his face OR it could very well be part of a pattern of abusive behaviour directed at him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what is being argued is whether or not you can reasonably determine, from today's incident, that the mother is generally abusive. To do so is obviously conjecture, but I think in these circumstances - given the precise language used towards the child and the apparent viciousness in it - it is not unreasonable to draw such conclusions.

I have no experience of working with families or dealing with child abuse beyond having been a victim of it many years ago, so my opinion is completely personal and not a little bit biased.

MrDV is spot on as usual. The lady described in the OP behaved appalling, there is no way of knowing if she is or is not an appalling parent at other times. If that makes me an abuse apologist, then erm....!

And fwiw I think the behaviour described in the op is emotional abuse, but I agree that the lady is not necessarily a shit parent all the time. She might be and she might not, in an ideal world nobody would talk to their kids like that but there are a lot of chaotic families where this is seen as no biggie as well as a lot of nasty cruel parents, we just don't know which that lady is.

Sounds like a parent who was badly parented to me. Somehow the chain needs to be broken and criticism is not necessarily the way to go about it.

Well done you, OP. Evil triumphs because good people do nothing. It's so sad and so many people would give anything for a child/ children and would treat them so well. Life is so unfair

If I called my husband a prick when I was out shopping would that mean I was a husband beater? Or would it mean that at that moment I was being rude and out of order?

Disingenuity of the highest order. Preposterous. Your husband is not a young child being abused in the street.

MrsDV, for me it's been comments like redfairy's (on phone so can't copy and paste, sorry), and the 'just a snapshot' comments, or those condemning the act but throwing in the influence of heat or hormones as if that were relevant, that have made me upset/angry because to me it feels like if not excusing, then creating space to excuse. Because I wonder if those comments would be made if the mother had given her child a black eye.

Ditto the comments that the OP's post was somehow less relevant because the mother looked 'rough'. I don't give a shit what the mother looked like, what OP has described was abuse to a toddler.

Apols for general incoherence. Verbal abuse, and the fact that it's all too often in society not treated as seriously as physical abuse, is a hot button issue for me. Physical abuse is appalling and potentially lethal, but so is verbal and emotional abuse.

Ooh marriedinwhiteagain I often disagree with your posts but absolutely concur with that one.

We 'judge' people by their actions. If a man beats his wife, even if it is one-offwe view him as an abuser. If somebody murders another, they are a murderer. We don't say he may never have murdered another person in his life so we can't judge him. Perhaps these are too many analogies for some, but I think they are worth thinking about. In my neck of the woods we say we speak as we find, and in this instance, this woman was abusive. It matters nothing that she may not swear at her DC all the time. Once is once too often.