Abuse? What would you have done?

[Cubtrouble]

Went to museum yesterday.

In a line for film there with my child (5), there was a family a few people in front of us, mum, dad, boy and girl, boy was around 8/9, girl maybe 7 or 8.

Girl was attached to mother wrist with "lead" like a fabric strap, loop at either ends round her and mums wrist. Mother was an absolute animal, shouting loudly at this poor girl, stand still or I will smack you, get back next to me, stop this, stop moving, etc, in the line and again in the pre film briefing, "sit still, for Christ sake stop moving"
The girl complained the strap was tight and it was loosened roughly with the mother telling her off yet again. She was roughly yanked along when it was time to leave.

The behaviour was noticed by plenty of other people. It was loud and very aggressive.

I wanted to say something- staff noticed but no one did anything.

The dad was at least 6'4. He didn't utter a word. The mum was short and fat and angry.

I was obviously with my own child and on my own and I didn't think I could say anything without altercation and that would have been frightening for my own child. I was genuinely concerned it could have turned out badly for ME. So I kept quiet.

The kids for what it's worth looked clean and well cared for in nice clothes.

What would you have done???

Didn't see that again. Was obvious to staff who could have removed them from the show or told her to stop? But should they?

The OP mentioned heights. So what? Some of you are losing sight of the real issue which is the nasty woman's behaviour.

To those who say 'if it was that bad, you would have said something' ... Ha ha ha.
Not remotely true
If people see a child in an abusive situation, they rationalise it with 'maybe it was a hard day', 'my child wore a strap' etc. Because it makes life easier

You have a duty to challenge bullies like her but I accept it is a scary thought. Maybe though, when challenged, this charmer would not have been quite so brave.

The "It may have been a bad day" is a pathetic excuse to offer any bullying parent.

Well the OP isn't very knowledgeable about Parenting children with varying needs, or she wouldn't have questioned the wrist strap.

I'm surprised that the Staff didn't intervene to just ask the Woman to not shout.

Some people's shouting are another's normal speaking voice.

As for asking, I don't agree with it and when I was a SW had to offer Parenting classes etc, but it isn't illegal.

I doubt that she was acting "like an absolute animal", the Staff and other Parents wouldn't of allowed it around their own children, surely. Or couldn't anyone in the queue safeguard their own children?

I scared the shit out of myself asking a woman not to call her 4 year old names when she was shouting at her dd in a carpark (for asking to go to the park). She obvs turned on me with 'who are you to tell me how to parent' etc etc. I don't know if it did any good tbh, but I see it as someone verbally abusing another person and I will say something if that happens tho it makes me shake with fear as it is likely you'd get a slap/verbal abuse back.

Maybe the child had form and the mother felt the need to reign in

Maybe the child had form and the mother felt the need to reign in

Aaargh scrub that.

Was trying to say that maybe the child had form and the mum was trying to pre-empt bad behaviour.

Parent taking their child to see a film probably isn't going to be abusive or neglectful to be honest. Even if she is fat.

I think you're judging something which might've been terrible or might've been nothing. All we have is your judgment and it's def not impartial

Birds gotta fly, I'm not knowledgeable about children with additional needs and I found the wrist strap comments useful.

I haven't found it necessary to restrain my eldest child and we hold hands in busy places.
I don't think it was busy though and it was a safe place if the girl had run off. But obviously I didn't seen any behaviour before hand.

I hope very much that the girl had been naughty and the mum had told her off and was still cross and the strap was used to stop her running off and that the behaviour I saw toward this little girl was a one off.

Like someone said why would you bother taking your children out for the day if you didn't care.

Thanks for comments

Yes nice glass- exactly that!

My parents took me to the zoo, the cinema, the seaside, gave me so many fun memories, and that's what makes child abuse so hard;
Abusers are not black and white Bad. They do wonderful things sometimes.
And then they hurt you, call you names, and do bad secret things to you as well.
If all abusers were bad evil people you could spot from a mile off they'd all be in prison before they could hurt anyone, but that's not the case. If you see a parent being nasty to a child, that's not the same as a parent sighing to themselves as they hold tight to a wrist strap, and in your gut you'll feel that.

Good grief. So many abuse myths/abuse apologists on this thread. Sickening. And we wonder why so many children are still abused.

Myth: if your parents take you on days out it means they're not really abusive.

You do know that on this site there's a very long running and much used thread for adult survivors of child abuse called "But we took you to Stately Homes" precisely because so many families that appear perfectly normal and functional on the surface are actually cesspits of abuse, scapegoating and general shit underneath?

So a parent who actually makes herself stand out with her shitty, abusive behaviour in public is probably actually pretty bad.

Children are being abused by their parents every single day and people turn a blind eye because it's just too difficult to take on. What that child will have taken from that experience is that her mother's behaviour is actually ok and it's really all her (the child's) fault that she (the mother) treats her like that.

But that's not to say I'm judging you OP because I've witnessed the same kind of situation and also done nothing because what can you do? Speak to the parents? No. If you have your own child with you, you're putting them at risk as well as yourself. Also, the parents may well take it out on their child even more once they get home - people like this aren't given to suddenly taking responsibility for their actions so their narrative will be that its the child's fault that you had a go at them in front of everybody, something else to punish her for, scapegoat her for and hold against her.

Seriously, unless you see a parent beating the living daylights out of their child, there's nothing you can do if you don't actually know the family. You can't call the police for what they're doing even though it's clearly emotionally abusive, and that is actually an offence now. Even if they took you seriously (which they obviously wouldn't) they're not going to prioritise something like this, so if they ever did come out the family would be long gone. You can't call social services when you don't have any information about the family at all. Who can you call? What can you do? Nothing.

The only thing that could make any difference would be if the culture around child abuse changed to the point where it would just be totally unacceptable to treat your child like that in public, where you would know that no one around you would tolerate it. If everyone was going to speak up and say that's not ok. And we're nowhere near that when you see the number of replies on this thread minimising, denying, and justifying this kind of behaviour.

Of course most of us lose our cool with our DC sometimes and we wouldn't like to be judged on our worst parenting moments. But I think most of us know the difference between being frazzled and losing it a bit, or struggling to deal with a difficult situation, and the kind of situation OP is talking about, which looks like a snapshot not of a one off but an established, habitual dynamic.

How many of us would honestly sustain that level of anger at a child in public for that long, with no excuse like immediate danger of traffic etc, to the point where other people were noticing and commenting? Not many, if any, of us, I'll bet. And anyone who could answer that they would probably needs to take a long look at their own parenting.

There are no easy answers to the problem of child abuse. There is no quick fix. But the first step is to challenge the denial around it, to stop pretending that something isn't abuse when it is. MN is pretty shit hot on this when it comes to rape myths and rape apologists; I would like to see the same approach to child abuse.

Rixera

One last thing... I hope it doesn't seem I'm having a go at you, OP, I'm not. I fully understand how horrible it is to witness something like that and feel powerless to do anything to challenge it. We don't want to believe it's abuse because we don't want to think children that we see are being abused. But it is and they are.

I work in retail and we have a regular family come in. Mother and father and two children - a little boy of maybe 3 and a younger boy in a pushchair. They scream and shout at the kids, push them roughly and swear at them. Both parents are fat, unkempt and the father has no teeth. Filthy clothes. Always buying cheap vodka and shite food. I couldn't give a shit how judgemental that makes me sound. I've o oh noticed them in the past month or so due to usually working upstairs in the office. I'm now on the shop floor fir a few months.

Anyway OP, seeing how they loudly interact with their young children upset me so much that I decided to take action last week. My hands are somewhat tied what with being at work and not knowing where they lived but I was driving back from school last Thursday and saw the family walking along by an estate. So I drove down where they were headed and parked up and watched the house they went into. Made a note of the address and had it reported to SS by the following morning.

I can do no more right now. But if I see them in my shop again behaving in the same way? I'll be picking up the phone each and every damn time to follow up and add to my report.

I'd rather be a busybody than some politically correct abuse apologist who thinks ' oh bless, maybe that mum is just having a bad day ..' I've got kids, I've more than likely in the past been furious with them in a public place.. trust me, you can tell the difference between a cross 'normal' parent and an abuser

So that is why your thread leapt out at me OP. The apologists in here should feel ashamed. There is NO defence of this

Tatterdowl ,I totally understand the situation you explain and agree totally with you as you say you've seen on lots of occasions so can see a pattern totally.
However the op has seen one situation one time with people she's never seen before snd chances are unlikely see again,2 quite different situations and judging both the same way is not possible really.

It's true that nobody was there of course!

All I'd say is that if you see something and your gut tells you it's not right then you're more than likely on the right tracks. I'd just urge that you speak out if you can. If we all did this then it'd help. Children being mistreated is all of our business

Excellent post Owl and thank you for reporting them, I know exactly the sort of family you mean ,usually spending the child benefits on booze and cigarettes. When my DC were all at school there were a few people like that, all vile. Kids badly dressed and always dirty, they swore and shouted at them. Not having a bad fucking day, just nasty,abusive and cruel. But as this and other threads show, certain bleeding hearts people just love to feel bad for them and not the poor children they choose to have and refuse to look after properly.

The Stately Homes thread is about people who have narcissist parents. Usually mothers.

That kind of emotional abuse (and I know, I have a narcissist mother) is not the type that was being exhibited here and isn't something that SS would be able to easily pick up on or act.

I know that my mum (who did appalling things like invade my intimate privacy, wouldn't let me have a lock on the bathroom door, opened my mail, ripped up my photographs of my friends whom she didn't like just to name a few of many awful behaviours) was absolutely scrupulous in public. Which is part of the whole stately homes thing - it's all about outward appearances.

A mum being a bit cross and perhaps OTT with the discipline while taking a child out to the cinema does isn't an abuser.

Whatever your views on smacking (not a fan) mother wasn't out of control, verbally or physically lashing out at child in anger. In fact she was trying to enforce discipline by giving a warning along with a consequence.

Sorry museum. But it's difficult to know what the preceding behaviour had been like. Mum could just have been at the end of her tether and not handling the situation v well:

Whitewine, people have the same line delivered by abusive parents who aren't narcissists, I know because I've heard it.
Being out of control is not the only way to abuse, surely with a narcissistic parent you should know that?

My mum kept up that same low level stuff constantly, small nasty things and happy days that conflicted with the huge horrors from home. If you feel it's not right, turning a blind eye will surely not help.

OP doesn't know the family and couldn't have done a great deal but the sad thing is, people who see this sort of behaviour regularly and who could do something will still refrain from doing so for those very reasons.

Ah and here comes NiceGlass to explain is all away

Honestly, just stop excusing shite and neglectful parents. Maybe you're one yourself and to you this is normal?

So heartening to see some likeminded folk though.

Cake - couldn't agree more