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?

You know, a few people being willing to say 'sorry, I worded that badly' probably would have made this a much shorter thread.

MrsDV, clearly I misinterpreted your words. From my reading, I suspect others did (not all, but some).

But you don't see it, do you?

I volunteer in one of the most deprived boroughs in london.

Or is that a lie as well? Maybe I am a fucking idiot and actually everyone's rolling in cash, living it up and they just fancy a free dinner?

According to the latests statistics one in six UK children live in poverty

And pramela you have a loose grip on the definition of fact. In my very honest opinion.

Bloody hell jassy
Gold stars for eloquence.

Sometimes, we can know what is going on after 10 seconds, Tantrums. 10 seconds is a long time to be at the end of a verbal attack, especially for a child. A more powerful person was abusing a vulnerable one, it wouldn't take long to see that.

@MrsDeVere

pram has been goady throughout this thread. I believe this is against MN rules.

Indeed it is. We are on the case.

@AlanMoore

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

Well yes. Sorry to be late to the party.

our guidelines for those who may need them.
Peace and love

Not nice behavior, however to this women she may know no different. Maybe that is how her parents were with her. Maybe she has health problems, maybe she just is a shit parent who knows...
Without all the information you cannot really state facts

For an absolute fact, Pram? Really?and you won't debate the issue? May not be be exactly 1/3, but yes, people in the Uk struggle to feed their children. I have seen the evidence and I find your lack of empathy scary.

You have no clue. No clue.

I'm pleased this thread is being looked at. Lots of people had views on it then disappeared after being jumped on.

The fact is, MrsDV, that neither of us can say with certainty what people have been responding to or reacting to any more than we can say with any certainty what sort of mother the abuser in the OP is behind closed doors.

I think we may start to circles if we continue. I accept that you did not intend to mislead or be misinterpreted through your choice of words, and neither did you choose to offend. Let's leave it there.

, Emily. Am painting skirting boards in between MNing, it helps me to order my thoughts. Going to run out of skirting boards in a second though....

For the nine hundredth time miss I know.

That. Was. My. Point.

We can see that her behaviour, that the OP witnessed was horrible. And wrong on every level.

We cannot presume to know anything other than what happened in. That. 10. Seconds.

Wow, mrs d hasn't said she agrees with what happened, but we honestly dont know what the lady is like with her kids 100% of the time.why is everybody jumping on her?mrs d been in ur place, had whole load of mn on me last wk because i went against the majority.

The only people jumped on and insulted and called abuse minimisers, enablers, apologists were those who didnt agree that this woman was the spawn of satan every second of the day because there was no actual evidence of this.

I believe we are still here.......

Good grief. I didn't run away, but have eaten dinner, walked the dog, watered the garden, etc ... and am stunned to come back and find this is still going on.

Could we not just agree that ...... the OP should maybe have qualified an assumption......and ..... that a lot of the responders latched onto just that element that because it pushed a specific button for them.

Oh, and that.....
if it quacks like a duck then a lot of people are going to consider it to be a duck, but would be happy to be corrected if it turned out to be a chicken having a bad day.
A lot of other people will consider it isn't a duck until its proven not to be a chicken

Does that sum it all up?

Btw op i wouldnt confront ur neighbour or the partner as they may be aggressive towards you and you don't need that!

MumnGran, admirably succinct. I'd only add that there's a group (maybe just me) who think that even if the chicken was having an incredibly bad day, it was a duck for those 10 seconds. And a really small discussion about different species of duck.

I think I just broke the analogy.

Its amazing the distance that dog walking can give
And inspiration for analogy.

I really hope that Yellow comes back on and realises that it is absolutely unbelievable that she hasn't rung SS yet. Sorry, but in my eyes it's disgusting that she has heard physical abuse to a child, and done absolutely nothing about it. It's not hard to pick up a phone and ring a number.

Like a PP said, I cannot believe the Daniel Pelka case - how can no one have seen the abuse and not taken further action? It makes me feel physically sick to think of the abuse that he had to endure; that poor, poor little boy.

Cases like that do tend to make me wary about parents; but at the end of the day I would much rather ring SS and be wrong, than to do nothing and know that some poor child had been abused because I couldn't be bothered to phone. SS aren't going to take action if nothing is wrong.

Of course YANBU OP - it's so hard to know what to do in situations like that. I can't bear all this '10 seconds of her life' rubbish - is that to say that if you saw me slapping my child around the face in the street that you could just brush it off and say 'Well, it's only a snapshot of her life - she's probably lovely at home'.. The likelihood is that these kinds of parents will be worse at home, and behind closed doors.