Man slapping child

[Yorks2Lancs7]

I am going to preface this by saying I do not have children. But I grew up in a not pleasant household.

tonight I was having a drink with my partner at a train station pub, I saw a man slap his child round the face (probably 5 years old) I spoke out, the mother said ‘he didn’t slap her on the FACE’ I said he did, I saw it, you are a terrible mother. She then came towards me to try and fight me but I went in the bar. I told my partner and although he was proud of me he told me given current aggression in the UK I should stay out of it. WWYD?

What on earth? Is there a reason you are bringing immigrants into this? When corporal punishment is still legal in England and obviously still carried out by some English people why are you talking about immigrants? God knows we get blamed for enough shit that's not our fault.

Op you did the right thing. If nothing else I hope at least you have shown to both mother and child that this is not normal and accepted behaviour. And if it is a cultural issue as pp has claimed (rather than some men just being sick bastards) then maybe there is a sliver of hope of him seeing that abuse of children is not part of every culture.

report it, it could be on cctv that poor child deserves a better life.

I agree with this. A mother (or father) standing by and allowing their child to be abused IS an abuser. They may be a victim themselves - the two are not mutually exclusive - but they are primarily a perpetrator.

The priority should always be protecting children. Not shielding adults from the consequences of their own actions and decisions.

^I agree with this. My DM has said consistently that my F smacked my siblings and me ‘too hard’ (she now admits that she was wrong too, they shouldn’t have smacked us at all), but she never stood up to him. She says she stopped him eventually, but if she did she let it go on for far too long. She was often there when he did it too.

I don’t hold against her the CSA that he was guilty of (on both my DSis and me), because she didn’t know about it, but she was certainly as guilty as he was where the physical abuse was concerned.

This. Sadly within some communities it is totally normalised. We need to call it out for what it is, abuse. Maybe a stranger calling it out in public might just make some abusers realise it’s not ok. Maybe it will enable a child to realise it’s not ok, and feel safe enough to take that information to their teachers who can help.