Friend slapped daughter hard

[Daffodildainty]

Some friends were visiting from another country. Last night there was a mix up about the arrangements and I went out of the restaurant to meet my friend and her daughter - a 19 year old uni student . They were arguing on the pavement and as we entered the venue With me walking ahead of them I glimpsed my friend slap her daughter really hard across the face - I continued inside and eventually my friend arrived without her daughter who had returned to the hotel. She mentioned the slap but said her daughter had called her a name and pinched her hard to which she retaliated. I said it was not a good situation but took the cowards way out and didn’t tell her how shocking it was. We continued the evening. I feel badly for not intervening WWUD?

WeirdScenes
What are you talking about? There are a lot of people definitely not ok with it.

SeaEagleFeather
Yes, that’s how I felt being whacked across the face by my mother. It was definitely all about inflicitng humiliation and asserting direct personal power. And her being out of control.

@mayand juniper
This is deffo not ok. How old are you? Your post is so sad that you think like this. I could also very easily get out of control with my dd with the upbringing I had. My brother thinks smacking is normal and I don’t but then he has been violent with me even in our 40’s.
Do you want to hit a child when you become a parent? I find it so humiliating even now.

SheerKhan WTAF? This isn't a child. This is an adult and you are making the assumption that they must have said something to "deserve" a slap. Does that mean your friends can slap you if you've said something unreasonable?

"but said her daughter had called her a name and pinched her hard "

Does that deserve a slap across the face?

I don't think so.

I can imagine I might have shoved them away though if the'd pinched me.

I understand that things are said & happen that may be dealt with differently to how I'd deal with it.

So it’s alright for me to slap DH when we argue then? Or him me?

Can I punch my elderly mother when we don’t see eye to eye? Because everyone deals with things differently.

Cannot believe some of these responses. It’s not okay to be violent towards anyone, surely.

PitterPatter
We are talking here about a mother and daughter (her child)
I don't understand why people assume that a parent who slaps a disrespectful child should necessarily slap everybody else in their community and environment left, right and centre.

SheerKhan So what if it's a mother and daughter? Giving birth to someone doesn't give you the indefinite right to slap them when they do something you don't like. Just because someone is a parent doesn't mean they're a reasonable person.

you don't believe in slapping your kids, fine, it's your own right to parent as your chose. None of your business if other parents make different choice
Well it's a point of law if that choice is violent. Your child isn't your possession to do with what you want.

Why get people so offended when someone disciplines their own badly behaved child?
So if you say something I don't like I can slap you? Or I can't but your mother can? Irrespective of age? So at 36 my mother can slap me for anything she wants and at 58 her mother can slap her? What about the dads? We're allowed to physically assault our offsprings for the entire lives because we produced them??

For people saying it's acceptable, it isn't it's assault pain and simple. This wasn't a light smack of a child's hand to stop them touching something got, this was a hard also across the face. I wouldn't be friends with someone who thinks violence is conflict resolution.

I can't believe this thread isn't unanimous against the friend.

So the general consensus seems to be, if I slap a random adult in the face I can expect to be arrested for assault.
But if it's an adult I gave birth to, it's my parental privilege to be physically abusive to them, no questions asked. Righto

Yes, I'm very intrigued by the logic here that my father can slap my thirty-something face if I am 'disrespectful' to him. I think the law would certainly take issue.

This is an adult hitting another adult. The fact that it’s mother and daughter is irrelevant - it wouldn’t be fine for a husband to slap his wife like this.
I find the shrugging off of someone posters awful.

Slapping someone is violence, and is never acceptable. It's also a childish reaction - you can't behave reasonably, so you resort to slapping? No, it's not defensible, ever. And not slapping someone is not a sign of weakness!

Another in the stunned camped here..

I can't believe some of the first responses to this post.

Slapping someone is physical assault. That is a legal fact. Nothing to ' get over' in that respect. I seriously worry about someone - a parent especially - that thinks a hard slap is nothing out of the ordinary.

Personally, I wouldn't have sat down to eat with this person, but I can understand how shock and your previous relationship might not have made this an easy thing to do. I hope the OP is considering her future friendship with this violent person.

Non issue to me. But then everyone I know IRL smacks their kids.

This is an adult hitting another adult. The fact that it’s mother and daughter is irrelevant

Actually I would say it's relevant in that someone willing to slap their 19yo daughter across the face in public has probably done the same thing or worse numerous times before, which makes it even worse.

But yeah, it's wrong either way. Only an idiot would defend it. And the culture argument is ridiculous. Just because in some countries it's more acceptable to hit your children doesn't mean we just accept it and say "oh well, cultural differences!". We acknowledge that those cultures are wrong. Hey, it's okay to burn a woman alive because she was raped – cultural differences!

Another in the stunned camped here..

I'm a bit stunned at the bubble some of you lot seem to live in.

I'm also surprised that we haven't had "Triggering" added to the title in case some of you have a fit of the vapours.

So my dilemma is that my 19 year old daughter was inside and i told her what I’d seen when I went inside. She was shocked too. I’ve always been one of those people who stands up and objects to wrongdoing and I’ve taught DD to be the same. So I feel like I’m a prize hypocrite as I didn’t say anything when it was close to home whereas I’d have stopped and intervened if they’d been strangers. They were leaving the country this morning. I see them every couple of years but always feel uneasy about the controlling nature of the relationship afterwards. Friends DD is fortunately at uni in another continent from her mother - her helicopter parents are financing an expensive education. Suspect she’ll have limited contact after that.

Alligator. You can't be real. You can't be telling me that a woman (or a man) slapping someone that is sexually assaulting them is wrong. Nobody can be that thick....

Slapping someone round the face is not 'discipline', its abuse.

What you need to read sometimes....

Obviously it's going to depend on the strength of the slap and the Kung Fu grippiness of the pinch but, on balance, I'd rather take a slap to the face than be pinched on the hand.

I'm a bit stunned at the bubble some of you lot seem to live in.

I'm more than happy to live in a bubble in which adults don't casually assault each other. If not wanting to slap other adults or be slapped by them makes me a precious millennial snowflake in your eyes then so be it. No doubt there would have been people 30 years ago who had similar views about husbands hitting their wives "if they deserved it".

I don't think anyone would argue that it's wrong to slap someone as in self-defence (if they were being assaulted and needed to get away). That's clearly not what happened here.