Should I have said this?

[forthebirds]

Usually I hate any sort of confrontation and actively avoid it. Just wondered what others would have done in this situation!

I was getting out my car at the supermarket and noticed a family also getting out the car beside me. There was also a group of birds walking about looking for bits of food, just typical pigeons in a car park. One of the kids (aged between 10-12) was running up and scaring them making them fly away, but as I walked past I realised he was running up and trying to kick them. He ran up to a pigeon and nearly booted it and it just flew away, but he wasn’t pretending to kick he was fully trying to kick them with force. I approached his parents and said excuse me, I don’t know if you’ve noticed (not in a sarky way, they were just taking stuff out the car) but your child is trying to kick birds and they went WILD. Shouting at me that it was none of my business and to F* off and that he was just being a child and doing nothing wrong. I realised they weren’t going to see sense and just said like oh ok I just thought it let you know and I walked away but I could hear them shouting things at me as I left. At this point the kids were all running and trying to kick the birds and the parents were laughing about it.

like I said, I would never usually get involved or cause confrontation but FGS imagine allowing and laughing about your older child trying to physically hurt an animal! I suppose I just wondered, would you have got involved and said to the parents like I did? Or should I have minded my own business in the first place?

Not unreasonable at all. You can tell where the kid gets his attitude from. And he will no doubt raise his own kids as badly. This country is rapidly being overrun with arse holes.

I could have told you exactly what the parents would be like by the fact that their child of that age was trying to kick birds.

You tried to do the right thing but there is no helping people like that.

YABU for approaching a family that has obviously taught their child that violence and animal abuse is ok. You shouldn’t be surprised that they reacted like this. In fact you’re lucky that they didn’t attack you. Never confront those sort of people, it doesn’t end well and occasionally ends very badly indeed.

I'm like you OP, am terrible with confrontation and often let things slide. Recently someone skipped in front of me and for once said to myself no, I will not tolerate this. So I politely asked her to join the queue and she was so nasty and publicly tried to humiliate me. Similar story to yours. I was very upset and spent hours wondering if I was wrong to confront but now I realise I was not wrong. And neither are you. We need to call things out. They were shit parents and maybe if enough people say things to them the children might eventually see that it's not acceptable behaviour.

Just awful, OP. YANBU.

You should have minded your business in the first place tbh. I think you were 100% in the right but you shouldn't have got involved unless for example the kids were trying to kick your dog or basket or something.

A man was recently abused on a bus by another passenger for telling said passenger to stop vaping on the bus! It wasn't worth a bloody nose!

I just walk on by these days.

Nasty little bastards. Good on you!

So OP was 100% in the right but shouldn’t have said anything? You’re basically saying if the kids were kicking OP’s basket then she should have said something, but as it was just a pigeon then she should’ve stayed quiet? How bizarre.

It’s always right to call out animal cruelty. Always.

I get it, I'd have wanted to run up to the parents and boot them, see how they like it. Realistically I'd have just ignored them though.

Your heart was in the right place OP, but there's no helping people like that unfortunately. Sure they'll be all surprised when he turns into a horrid shitbag teenager.

What if the kid was kicking a cat? Or a puppy? Or a child?

When does it become ok for the OP to alert the parents of what they can't see their kids doing? It's not like she was aggressive or even spoke to the kids.

OP, if it was my son and you had told me, I would have thanked you, been humiliated and scolded him. But I would hope my son wouldn't behave like this and would have basic respect for life.

Yes that is exactly what I am saying. We'll have to disagree on this approach being bizarre but there we go. As a general rule in life it is best to navigate the world carefully given you don't know what or who you're dealing with in certain situations but you carry on

I did similar in Italy except I gave disapproving looks until the parents made a show of telling the kid not to chase the pigeons. Awful behaviour and awful parenting.

I just don’t understand that though. You think animal cruelty is ok?

I am not sure how you have arrived at the conclusion that I consider animal cruelty to be okay.

Because you would stand by and not say anything about a pigeon being kicked? But you would say something if someone was kicking your shopping basket?

You literally said “you shouldn't have got involved unless for example the kids were trying to kick your dog or basket or something”. So it’s ok to kick a bird but not ok to kick a metal shopping basket? That says to me that you’re not bothered about animal cruelty.

Well said.

This happened to me in a park. I told the parents of some children off for kicking geese whilst mum and dad laughed and filmed them. The parents then made racist comments to me about my children. It was unbelievable. There are disgusting people around unfortunately. These ones were wealthy in a garden you pay a lot to enter.

Good for you, Op. Back you 100%

@JupiterFortified I take it you didn't read the rest of my post vis a vis the vaping man on the bus. Or my subsequent post in which I say you don't always know what/who you're dealing with when getting involved.

Of course it's not okay to kick a bird, or shopping basket or anything really in public - even a football would be inappropriate depending on the context. But the point is often it's better to 'mind your business' because of the consequences. In this instance the parents basically told the OP to piss off which is annoying but the OP will soon get over an exchange of cross words. Another parent might have reacted by physically pushing the OP resulting in injury.

I suppose I’m just not made that way - I just couldn’t stand by and watch cruelty to animals and not say anything. I would accept whatever consequences came my way because I couldn’t respect myself for just turning a blind eye. Too many people are passive bystanders.

@JupiterFortified That's perfectly fine. Everyone knows themselves and what they can/cannot handle. For example, if I saw someone shoplifting from Tesco I'd just carry on doing my shopping, if I saw a child about to scoot across the road I'd stop them.... it's great that we all have different approaches to situations so that hopefully as a collective someone will always have the requisite skill or ability to intervene when a situation arises.

In what world is a kid going to be successful in attempting to kick a pigeon he’s running at? They can fly. They are well used to getting out of the way of people and vehicles. Other than being mildly inconvenienced, the pigeons will be fine.

The little git can try all he likes until his legs ache, the pigeons will have the last laugh.

Fair one, let’s just hope no one is cruel to an animal in front of you.

OP you were absolutely right but as a PP said it’s no surprise that the parents responded the way they did given the child’s age. This is why I tend to completely avoid confrontation too.