This "mother's" action seem cruel, that poor little girl

[Mylittlefanny]

I do believe that kids need firm boundaries. But refusing to let a grieving toddler into your bed at night after her dad died! Those poor kids look so unhappy. There is being firm and being cruel. 😭 That bit honestly made me so upset. I agree about chores, cooking and cleaning. But gloating to your kid and leave him shivering without a camping bag! Sorry 😐 that's not on. I wonder what her kids will feel like when they are older! And yes I do read the daily mail as despite some of the celeb shit they publish. They also occasionally do interesting stories and cover issues many other newspapers don't.

I'm such a strict mother, a parent reported me to social services mol.im/a/11942993 via https://dailym.ai/android

It was after separation the child wanted to go in bed, not after the death which was 5 years later...

As a parent of DC who are all active in Scouting, I suspect there is an element of sensationalism about the sleeping bag story in particular. No sensible Scout leader would have allowed him be without one all night - as others have said, it's a safety issue, he could potentially have become hypothermic very quickly, the troop would then have got into serious trouble with the district for allowing it. The child would almost certainly have been lent a bag (leaders usually have spares) but of course the DM writer will have conveniently left that part out of the story.

The rest of it sounds common sense to a point but all a bit extreme, her approach may have a negative impact on her relationship with her DC into adulthood, but that's her choice. They all look miserable as sin in the pictures, but that will also, I suspect, have been carefully engineered. Every bit of the article will have a DM spin, written for clicks and drama and attention, and hey, it's worked - we're discussing it here for starters!

I think there's a good chance that she is reading the article with as much horror as we are.

The Daily Mail are quite capable of taking anecdotes out of context and twisting stories. They might have taken dozens of photos and selected the one with the kids looking miserable.

There are several different parenting styles that are ranked best to worst, the best being authoritative and the worst being authoritarian. I think this woman is most likely the latter.

This, too.

It isn't the only newspaper article that this particular woman has appeared in. I think she has made a pact with the Devil, and I can see why in some ways - not least because it's well paid. But the Mail is able to put a terrible spin on things like no other paper, and I hope she and her children are okay.

It was awful reading that part when her son was to push through to play rugby, I've not read all the comments but yours said exactly what I was thinking this morning. X

I’m in my 60s and the emotional side of our lives weren’t acknowledged either at home or at school. School was Victorian in its harshness - spending the rest of a lesson with our hands on our head if we yawned. Writing lines when we got wrong answers etc. It was awful and inhumane and was permanently scared and upset but couldn’t show it.

I read the article in horror. There’s a huge and happy medium between over-indulgenct helicopter parenting, and punitive consequences for normal childhood behaviours and feelings. Yes, these kids are resilient but at what cost? That it’s not ok to be good enough? That if they’re grieving they should pull themselves together and be able to self-soothe, and to not know when they need to listen to their bodies - I don’t know a doctor who would suggest a child played rugby when they had a high temperature with flu. That’s irresponsible, totally unnecessary, not to mention inhumane and potentially dangerous. She sounds way OTT. Firm boundaries can be set appropriately and with kindness, and don’t need this Spartan approach imo.

Here's my Daily Mail story. Local charity shop got a donation which included some Victorian photos. They appealed for help in identifying the people. I was able to identify a wealthy local family who had done a range of good things - various donations to good causes, helped found a soup kitchen, funded a temperance cafe, and also founded a temperance "club" with free meals and improving talks and hymn singing. They thought that alcohol led to all manner of social problems including, but not confined to, prostitution.

Local newspaper covered the story of the photos and the people in them. Nice, feel-good story.

The Daily Mail spotted the story in the local paper and phoned me. I had a lovely chat with the reporter.

The Mail then printed a story, naming and quoting me accurately, but with my quotes spliced into a story about Victorian prostitution. The story included references to Jack the Ripper. At no point in the phone interview was there any mention of Jack the Ripper. It wasn't even as though the family lived in the same area as Jack the Ripper. There was no possible connection with Jack the Ripper at all. In the interview I focussed on the family's opposition to alcohol, and only mentioned prostitution in passing, as a reason for their opposition to alcohol.

It was a sordid, salacious article and it bore no resemblance to the interview I thought I was giving.

@Dominoeffecter Okay, sorry. But it makes no difference. The child was distressed, she needed comfort from her mother in the form of a night of cuddles. Her mother couldn't be arsed. The reason for needing it is irrelevant.

The article is written by her.

The trouble is with shit like this is that it legitimises the behaviour - the abuse and neglect - in the minds of others.

Like I said, she'd get on brilliantly with my XX provider - because she would also laugh at how somebody had the gall to report her of all people to Social Services and how delightfully hilarious it was to see your child suffer and know that everybody else was laughing at them, too.

Those children might not be LACs, but they are definitely on their school DSL's radar as neglected and emotionally abused, as the eldest would be by the Scouts.

Regardless of whoever 'wrote' it, it will have been subbed in the Mail's house style. There are various rules, the aim being to get traffic to the website and, with luck, 2,000 comments (and it's obviously working in this case, given how many people will have clicked through to the piece). So the original piece might well have been very different from the finished version. There's nothing unusual or wrong about this - all publications have their own rules and their own style. I am a Mail journo, btw.

The kids look unhappy, and the mother's eyes are ice cold, just like her poor boy in that tent. She seems to be taking pleasure in being abusive. I guess kids will treat her the same when the time comes. She doesn't sound like she enjoys being a mother.

She’s an absolute cunt. That’s all to be said about her. I can’t believe she did that to her son FFS.

No she isn't, but the article is clearly doing its job if you're saying such vile things on social media.

I’m happy to amend my comment.
She is a vile cunt.
Is that better now? 😂

The children look unhappy to me.

This woman’s style of parenting is the very polar opposite to how I was brought up. I had so much freedom and all my friends adored my mother. I’m so grateful for that.

If you want to be so unpleasant, that's entirely your choice. But all I can say is that nobody should ever absolutely believe everything they read in the papers.

How many pictures do you think a photographer has to take to capture the perfect 'miserable children' and 'horrible mother' image?

Agree!

I read it this morning and was horrified. I am all for kids helping out around the house, learning too cook etc but to leave your child to freeze overnight is neglect. It also seems cruel to not comfort a young child while grieving.

I wrote this after cuddling my 6 year old in his bed for a while. He was over tired and emotional and just needed a cuddle. He calmed down and went to sleep by happily within minutes.

I’m so glad to read so many comments saying they don’t agree with this style of parenting. I read the comments in the Daily Mail, and all but one of them were praising her actions, which surprised me. I felt so sad for those children when I read the article.

The sleeping bag was beyond cruel and sending the text was despicable. Made her ill son play rugby for 2 hours, just why?
Chores are fine but I wonder if the kids do these things because they are scared of her.
Not the sort of woman I'd feel comfortable going to if I was in trouble. I can just imagine her saying so what? Your problem, you deal with it.
You can teach independence and resilience without bullying your children. I think she's lucky the Scout group didn't report her to SS.

Agree with @Mailista

The article is a show - it’s designed to ignite feeling & generate response. It’s doing its job clearly!!!