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?

MrsDeVere .... this has absolutely nothing to do with class. Money and position have never precluded abuse. It is certainly not a judgement that I make, to say that children from financially & socially deprived backgrounds are the only children at risk. In some ways its a damn sight easier to be an abuser when you live in leafy, MC, middle england. Small screams don't carry far across large detached plots of land.
I digress.

The point I was trying to make is exactly the one you have demonstrated; as you say, there are 100's of people declining HV visits. ....because they don't want the intrusion.
We need a better safety system to protect children across the board.
Would those people really mind so much if they knew that a legal requirement to be visited was ensuring that vulnerable children were identified? can society not accept that toleration of a system designed to protect children is in the widest public interest, not an intrusion into their own lives.? Do we ever stop to consider that in demanding the right to exclude professionals, we enable those who are hiding from professionals for a good reason.

Every time we assume that something is a one off, we turn our face away from children potentially at risk. They are at risk until it is proven that the behaviour is not standard, and the child is normally happy and safe. Would parents really disagree if resources allowed for the introduction of a system which required a professional to see every under-5, in its home, once a month.............if those parents knew that substantial numbers of children might be rescued from abuse under such a system?

Really, I don't give much of a damn about how parents feel while there are children out there suffering daily.

Trouble is, as much as some people will hate to admit it, you're standards of what is and isn't acceptable slip when you're a social worker or in the field.

Of course shooting and starting at your child is out of order.

But trust me, for some clients, if that's the worse thing they done all day on to of managing to get to the shops it's called progress!

Shouting and swearing

Kindly tell me what my agenda is, Mrs.

Huh? Mrs DV you didn't answer my question at all, just made an irrelevant point. Of course it is much easier to judge someone on the actions that they have done, than what they haven't. Its kind of why we only convict someone of murder when it has been proven that they undertook the act of murder, rather than just shoving everyone in jail

Of course abuse takes place in 'naice' families, that is not the point here at all. I don't particularly care if the woman in the OP is Vicky Pollard or Kate Middleton.

So are you saying that you would not make the assumption that someone who racially abused another in the street was a racist?

That's a scary thought, MumnGran. I'd genuinely think about emigrating if that law came to pass. I couldn't handle being supervised as a parent, as a precaution because 'you never know', and knowing that if I resisted the intrusion in any way, as MrsDevere pointed out, I'd probably be labelled as someone who has something to hide and have it elevated beyond my control until I lost my child altogether.

Mumsnet makes me scared to be a parent sometimes.

I can't actually believe that Yellow is witness to actual physical abuse and making excuses about making one simple phone call, and everyone is arguing semantics about swearing.

Yellow just fucking phone SS for gods sake.

is a reason why some children end up dead. Because they come from 'nice' families who don't swear and know how to behave in public
What is your point, Mrs.D??? Are you suggesting that the mum in question has in fact kept her children safe by releasing her anger verbally rather than being physically abusive? .

To be honest Kirjava, it was not a realistic proposal (on a resources basis alone) ...but a point made to emphasise that we need to really "see" children, and not simply be accepting.
And to ask if society needs to re-adjust its thinking

YANBU, OP. And YWNBU to report this woman somehow to someone. IF she is otherwise a terrific parent and was merely having a shit day, SS would find that out pretty quickly and leave her alone from then on. I do not think it is likely to be the case, but it's better to act than to ignore. All that is required for evil to flourish is that good people do nothing.

I don't care if much worse stuff goes on daily in families already under SS observation. Swearing AT your children in this manner is not ok. I have sworn in front of my children on occasion, but never, ever AT them. It is emotional abuse, no matter how much you try to downplay it.

And still the rhetoric goes on.... Yellow CALL SS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

So you would make an assumption about someone, based on what they say then Mrs DV?

I think shouting 'you fucking piece of shit, what the fuck are you doing?' at your own son and calling him a 'little prick' says rather a lot about someone's 'ideals' to be honest. Because whilst I cannot guarantee that I will never swear in front of my son (actually that ship has already sailed), I can be as sure that I will never call him a fucking piece of shit as I am that I will never call someone a insert hideous racist remark here.

Yanbu. The woman sounds like an utter waste of space. You have to pity the poor children. How vile that tiny children are being g spoken to like that. Well done for trying to intervene. I would have been temped to call the police. Not sure they would have been able to do anything but it may have at least have alerted the authorities to the excuse of a mother.

If you talk to toddler's in the language that the OP heard, you are a completely and utterly shit parent. Who swear's and name calls to toddler's like that unless they are the absolute pits? If she talks to them like that in public, what the hell is she saying at home?

Absolutely disgusting and no excuses. Poor, poor kids.

I don't quite understand what this argument is about.

I don't appreciate being called an abuse apologist either.

I will say this-again. For the benefit of people who just read whatever they like and ignore the rest.

There has not been one single person on this thread who has even whispered the suggestion that its ok to swear at your children in that manner.

There have been people,myself included who have said that whilst the behaviour of the person was pretty shit, you cannot possibly know how she behaves at any other time

She may be like this all the time. She may not.

It pisses me off to the extreme to read things like-and I paraphrase here- I would describe her but you lot would lynch me or she is a rough shit parent.

So, clearly she looks a bit, what word shall we use here?
Common? Chavvy? Rough?
Clearly she didnt have a nice accent or look "decent"

Well you know what? I reckon I look a bit common when I'm not at work. And I have a north london accent which horrifies people. And I am loud.
I also don't swear at my children or abuse them in any way. But I know for damn sure that people judge me. Not because of the way I talk to my kids. But because of all the things I mentioned before.

The OP has decided, based on 10 seconds that she is a shit parent. Based on those 10 seconds and the fact she was "rough"

I happen to think that a pretty shit thing to do as a person.

I keep saying this. And I'll say it again. Judge the behaviour that happens. You are fully within your rights to say look I saw this parent screaming and swearing at her children. It really upset me, I called out to tell her to stop but she swore at me. I think it is completley wrong to talk to children like that.

It is not ok to sit there and assume she is a rough, shit parent who is emotionally abusing her children every day.

BECAUSE YOU CANNOT KNOW THAT

And yet, we have someone else listening to a parent saying this to her child daily and no one apparently bats a fucking eyelid.

And the racist comparison being made?

Please stop. Seriously. Everything has to be compared to racism and it is stupid.

Holding racist views is very far from using unacceptable language and it irritates the fuck out of me. Really it does.

Racism isn't actually something that you can compare to anything else. It is what it is. And to be on the receiving end of racial abuse from ignorant tossers on an ongoing basis is a serious thing, beyond anything you are tring to compare it to.

She was rough. In the absolute true sense of the word. Horrible woman.

So, if we saw a man do exactly the same to his partner in the street - remember , loudly screaming ' you fucking prick, you piece of shit ' amongst lots of ' just fuck off ' in her face ... ' you'd say ' ah well , that was only a ten second snap shot - he's probably really nice at home ?'

Would you say that? If so, of course you're an abuse apologist. Or a use minimiser. That's probably more apt for you

And it's perfectly ok for me to assume she's a shit parent. If you don't want me to think that then don't scream foul abuse at your defenceless little boy. I won't judge then as it had not been made my business to do so. Remember, I was up on a top building. She was in the street. That's how loud she was. I heard her perfectly well