To think any parent would do the same? Or am I bonkers

[Doritosandsourcream]

On holiday in the buffet eating dinner all I could hear was my son crying walking from the bar with his juice in his hand. I thought oh maybe he fell over so DH went over to him. Turns out that this little girl that has been picking on him for the past 2 days her dad has grabbed DS and twisted arm so tight he broke his skin and dug his nails into him. (German family)

DS has been coming to me about her saying she keeps pushing him and sticking her fingers up since they arrived. DS finally got annoyed and pushed her back earlier on in the day and she told her dad. So dad got his own back on DS.

I ran over to DH as he was shouting at the dad and the dad was just smirking and something just came over me and I punched him in the face.

Never in my life have I punched anyone and I didn’t think about the consequences at the time I just kept looking at my son he was in flood of tears.

It was the weirdest feeling I have never felt adrenaline like it.

aibu? How would you have handled it? The hotel did absolutely nothing.

It's just lazy parenting.

The OP couldn't be bothered to get off her sun lounger to actually do something about the situation when her DS told her there was a problem.
So everything escalated until she could show what a "Mama Bear" she was by taking a swing at someone. And I agree with Inkheart: it sounds much more like she did it because she felt the German man was "disrespecting" her more than to protect her son.

A really good, really protective parent would have been keeping a better eye on their child once they'd been told about the incident with the little girl (who should have also been punched in the face by an adult, according to at least two goady posters here).

I sincerely hope (and suspect) this is a wind-up but I'm very relieved that I'm "snobby" enough that neither I nor my DDs have ever come into contact with someone like the OP or the posters supporting her actions.

It's a different world from the one I live in, thank goodness.

Amen to that

That about sums it up...😄😄😄

Indeed! What a hero the OP is! And what a hero her child will be as he follows her example. I wouldn't want a child of mine to be his classmate.

She might be like that! Who can really say? Well, expect OP’s DH and the other fella's DW probably could!

There’s a lot of assuming going on!

The facts are: A female went on holiday with her family, during term time so saving about £2.5k, her 1 y.o DS is a “handful” (but then some babies don’t like being out of their comfort zone, so perhaps not the baby’s fault), and her other children were having some difficulty at the beginning of the holiday with a girl pushing them. Then fast forward to the last day of the holiday and post-evening meal, whilst waiting for an airport transfer, an altercation took place between the OP and the other fella and OP punched him on the nose!

Me too.

I think we need a new thread about whether small children should be allowed to go to hotel buffets unsupervised. Someone mentioned this early on and I think it’s more relevant than the fact the other family were German. I don’t think they should - with rare exceptions very young children make a mess and are not aware of queues or hygiene issues. I think kids should be at least 10 before going alone and some are not even ready at that age.
I am strongly against the punching, btw.

I think it’s very easy to sit on our sofas and declare that we would never resort to violence - that’s the cool headed logical decision, as I’m sure the OP would have agreed prior to this incident.

However, in defence of the OP, the fight or flight instinct is incredibly strong, particularly with regard to defending your young from predators, because our ancestors were reliant on split second judgements in order for the species to survive.

A lot of people have commented that the child was no longer in danger and OP didn’t actually witness the man injuring her child, but the scene in front of her when this instinct kicked in was her child visibly wounded, accusing a grown man of inflicting this harm, and said man smirking at the accusation. That is strongly suggestive that no only did the man hurt the child, he found it funny. The lack of remorse would tell OP’s instincts that this man has a violent temperament and could therefore attack again. It’s not unreasonable therefore that those protective instincts took over and she instantly moved to disable the threat to her child.

As much as we’d all like to believe that our basic instincts no longer make our decisions for us, and therefore the OP must have been a thug for using violence, please consider that originally those instincts are what would have given her offspring a greater chance at survival, and I don’t think any of us can stand in judgment of that.

I disagree with some of this.

Yes, OP has seen her child visibly hurt and knew who the child said this was.

But there was clearly in the telling of this tale a gap between DS telling them and the punch taking place. OP's DH initially went over to deal with this when DS came to tell them. OP has had time for her natural instincts to kick in and to rationalise that basic instinct.

However, OP then goes over to join the conversation and what triggers the punch is a shushing and smirk. The smirk in no way indicates he is an immediate threat to her child again (it indicates he's a tosser).

Your natural instincts are only defendable to a certain degree and with the gap in this instance I don't think they are.

Mumma? What a horrible concoction

Agree! MUMMA is 🤮 And MUMMA BEAR! BLEURGH!!!! 🤮

🤣
Not just me, then.

This

It means you don’t value children’s education and other people as much as getting a cheaper holiday.

It’s selfish as impacts other children as well your own plus the teacher who has to try and keep a large class on track.

I think I would be supervising my child more carefully especially as he is only six. I don't think I would punch someone in the face. You sound interesting...

@Warum what is your point? Didn’t see it didn’t happen? If this also your stance when a child is molested? Bizzare comment!

I've already addressed this silly sort of reply already.

😁

And you sound like you think you're better than everyone else

Firebug007 · 12/10/2023 19:10
**
I'd have done the same hon, and after punching him I'd have ripped his fucking throat out for touching my child

Lovely. This thread is really depressing.

How does suggesting people supervise their own children remotely sound like thinking you are better than others?

When it comes to our kids, anything is possible, we will defend. Would like to think I wouldn’t lash out, but I have done something similar

No, you sound like you're making excuses for bad parenting.

Your son had been bullied by the girl for two days and you never noticed, nor did he apparently tell you?
What were you and your husband doing while all this was going on?

full blown mama bear came out. I absolutely applaud you and would’ve done the same.