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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel sad when i see a child being smacked in public?

45 replies

Divastrop · 05/06/2008 22:16

it wouldnt bother me in extreme circumstances,like if the child had run out in front of a car and the mother was obviously acting out of shock and fear,but today a boy of about 5/6 came out of asda with his mum and he either dropped or threw(didnt see)the lid of the bottle of water he was drinking on the floor.the mum slapped him round the head,knocking the water all over him,and shouted 'pick that up NOW!'.

i felt really bad for the little boy,but then i feel i had no right to judge as i used to smack dc1+2 occasionally when they were younger,before i learnt better ways of parenting.

OP posts:

VeniVidiVickiQV · 05/06/2008 22:20

Not nice to see.

But, that said, you only pictured a 5 second moment in what was a 86,400 second-filled day.

sweetkitty · 05/06/2008 22:21

I felt like that on Wednesday, I was chatting to one of the other mums about babies/pregnancy and she was saying she kept going until she got her little boy and how he's really clingy etc, he's only turned 2.

Later on I saw her in the street and the little boy was lying in the pavement having a tantrum, he had reins on and his Mum was lifting him up by the reins and battering his bum

solipsism · 05/06/2008 22:22

you didn't know that off by heart did you, you just either googled or calculated didn't you?

VeniVidiVickiQV · 05/06/2008 22:24

It's not hard to work out - 60x60x24
Pondered googling but figured it'd be quicker to work out

Original poster

Divastrop · 05/06/2008 22:27

yes i imagine it was a just-been-in-busy-supermarket-cant-take-anymore-stress moment.was rather though as dd1(9.6 and always the gobshite) said 'thats child abuse!' within earshot.i was half expecting a smack in the gob myself

OP posts:

jumblesale · 05/06/2008 22:29

I shouted at someone in a shop once because she hit her boy across the face. Really gave her a row. And she cowered and apologised just as I was running out of steam and waiting for the torrent of abuse...

Hova · 05/06/2008 22:31

No, it makes me sad too. And what makes me sadder is i wonder if that is how they are prepared to behave in public, home must be worse.

I suppose it just brings stuff up from my own childhood so it is a bit painful really.

Original poster

Divastrop · 05/06/2008 22:45

i dont know,hova,i have often seen dh's biological mother with her youngest son in the supermarket,acting like a 'normal' mum,you would never guess what shes like behind closed doors

OP posts:

Pillow · 05/06/2008 22:52

My dh, who is very much live and let live, actually went to remonstrate with a woman in Sainsbos after seeing her basically beat her little 2 or 3 year old about the head. I wasn't there, but he is very very placid is DH, so it must have been quite bad. He said no-one else batted an eye-lid...She was using fists and just cuffing him repeatedly.

hester · 05/06/2008 22:56

That is so depressing, Pillow. Some kids just don't get a chance, do they

blousy · 05/06/2008 22:58

It just breaks my heart to see anything like this, and I always give my most disgusted look.

micci25 · 05/06/2008 23:02

i agree with vvvq, you only saw a small part of thier day, while i would never ever hit dd1 for something so seemingly trivial, she can be a very difficult child at times and i may shout and threaten punishment of early to bed or no tv over it which would seem unreasonable to anyone who has never spent the day with dd1 and took her shopping.

what seemed like something small to you may have the proverbial straw, so to speak, for his mother.

hester · 05/06/2008 23:10

I don't disagree with you, micci and vvvq, but it does raise the question of how we balance the need to understand what individuals may be going through versus the need to send out a collective social message about hitting children.

If we, all of us, fail to signal any kind of disapproval to public kid-bashing, then aren't we facilitating it? Didn't we used to turn a blind eye to men hitting women in public 'domestics', on the grounds that we didn't know what was going on between them privately?

I don't have any easy answers to this one - I'm certainly not advocating tarring and feathering every woman who gives a smack on the back of the knees in the middle of Tesco - but I think people's feelings of horror at seeing these kinds of scenes are natural, legitimate and fill a useful social function.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 05/06/2008 23:16

Well, you see the thing is, I don't beat my children around the head or any such like, but I am much sterner with them in public.

I'll keep them in check more with manners, dropping rubbish, and general misbehaving. I suppose it's about keeping up appearances as much as anything as opposed to the usual gentle correction (or in some cases, heavy sigh.....)

micci25 · 05/06/2008 23:27

i used to shout a lot more in public and often threatened 'right that it is it we are going home and you wont be able to get that cereal you wanted for tommorrow i have had enough!!' or whatever over what must have seemed like silly things to other people like dd1 just throwing two tins of unwanted beans into the trolley and did get quite a few looks off people esp for the times she was running behind me screaming 'i just want some beans though mummy, you never let me eat anything' and i would be shouting back at her about her not being allowed ect.

but i have recently learned that if i just ignore and let her continue on with her screaming and flinging people dont react in the tutty way that i had thought i they would e.g 'tut, poor child only wants some beans she is probably hungry and is just being shouted at!' they laughed at dd1 not me and i just got smiles of sympathy!

i think people try to reprimand thier kids more in public because they are afriad that they will look like bad parents if thier kids is running along the street screaming and they are happily shopping.

what we see people do outside the home is probably completely different to what goes on at home, tbh i would never step in or judge unless a child was being actually beaten rather than just smacked, although smacking is something i try my best not to do myself as i dont think it teaches the dc's anything.

Pan · 05/06/2008 23:30

I am with you divastrop..I can't stand it either. The thought of hitting as a response to any stimuli is just not in my emotional/intellectual/whatever vocabulary. There's been lots of threads on hitting, as you know, but witnessing it is just so disturbing, I agree.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 05/06/2008 23:45

Ah, see when I'm thinking about outings micci, I'm thinking about DS and his spitting at strangers or his running off into the car park when I glance away for a millisecond or his opening/damaging anything he can get his hands on, whilst simultaneously flirting with all the women close by including pinching their bottoms.

I'm in a league of my own, arent I?

hayley2u · 05/06/2008 23:52

my ex dp s sister (ya got me ha), well she s awful, she smacks her kids in public and calls them a batard and a d*k head but she proper hurts them. one time she was pissed n dragged them out of bed as they had slept at ours so she could enjoy herself. i thought they were being gr8 not a problem but she had anargument with her bloke which ade her take it out on her kids its soo wrong
and i have another friend who smacks her 8 onth old when drunk shamely i told her it was wrong, i know its not my buisness but too many people turn blind eye to it in this country

cory · 06/06/2008 08:16

True that you only see part of the day, but with some parents you can't help seeing that they're setting themselves up for the smack-and-shout scenario and that they expect to get there- so they do.
I am thinking of the scene I see frequently when a mother- or couple- get on the bus with one or two (or sometimes four) youngsters. They don't speak to them and they sit at the other end of the bus from the los. When the children get excited and start climbing about, they don't get up and move near them, but yell from the other end of the bus 'stop that or I'll smack your bottom'. Then they ignore them again for the next 5 minutes, then yell again. Finally, they move over and smack. Then the child cries. Then they smack it for crying. Then they go and sit at the other end of the bus. Then the child starts misbehaving again.....

sarah293 · 06/06/2008 08:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

SummatAndNowt · 06/06/2008 09:28

When is it ever ok to hit a kid around the head?!?

bubblagirl · 06/06/2008 09:35

yeah i was in sainsburys and child maybe 2 or 3 in pushchair doing normal thing trying to climb out

could have been an older mum i would have said nan though kept shouting and slapping her round the legs telling her to behave or she'll smack her bum

little girl seemed used to it though so wasnt to bothered but she kept slapping until was sitting properly in the chair

mistypeaks · 06/06/2008 09:44

I'm not sure about the if they hit them in public what are they like behind closed doors scenario. My LOs behaviour is 100000 times worse in supermarkets (either boredom or the lights I reckon and I just so could (but don't) smack them. But at home I'm less stressed and they're far nicer. Now I've typed that it looks like a chicken and egg scenario. Are they worse 'cus I'm stressed?
Either way clouting a child round the head is not on. I have been known to smack bums for dangerous high stress moments (running off in car parks etc) but I couldn't smack mine round the head for throwing a bottle top (much less if it was dropped). There would be a removal of said bottle and a stern word . . .

wearymum200 · 06/06/2008 09:45

I'm with OP that a single smack in a dangerous station would raise only sympathy in me for the Mum. However, smacking round the head can NEVER be appropriate. But challenging the behaviour of others in public? tricky, tricky...

wannaBe · 06/06/2008 09:59

well, I don't smack, and I certainly don't think that hitting a child around the head is a suitable parenting method.

However I do think that people are little too hung up on smacking verses anything else.

I was smacked as a child. Not beaten, not hit around the head, not thrashed with an implement, smacked. And I don't really remember any of the occasions where I was smacked or why. I was given a smack for whatever I'd done and that was the end of it. However, I do remember quite vividly being shouted at, being put down, and being put in time-out when I was crying over something. It seemed like an eternity I was shut in a room and made to stay there. And I remember sitting on the floor sobbing my heart out because I believed no-one loved me because I'd been left there.

And I'm sure it was just the matter of minutes that the child psychologists advocate these days.

So I do think we're a little too one-sided on the smacking issue tbh.

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