to think this woman is a cow? (topic may offend/upset)

[crazybuslady]

Was waiting for a bus yesterday, while at bus stop I saw a mother, dd (approx age 4) and grandma come to bus stop, had seen them earlier walking down the street.

DD didnt want to go on the bus she was crying saying she wanted to stay with granny. Mother mentioned to granny than dd was tired - hadnt slept that day. Mother started to wind the child up eg "you ARE going on the bus"..."noooo mummy dont want to" ..."well you are so there!"

Petty back and forth argument which was frankly rediculas, dd tried to walk away from the bus stop, the mother turned it in to an almost game, mother was laughing and chasing her but shouting swear words at her and telling her she was going to "batter you when we get in" I was Then heard a whack, and looked round to see the mum hit the child 2x. Child started sobbing - from her point of view mum was chasing her laughing next min she was being hit)

Now hittings not to my taste, but I realise some people do this so I just tried to look away - small bus stop though so not really possible.

Child was then wingey (was being ignored by mum who only spoke to her to swear at her) Child then said "I am NOT goin on bus I want to go to grannys" (I though no fekking wonder) And the mother literally dragged dd by her arm along ground. DD fell to ground sobbing, mother grabbed her collar and lifted her up by it shouting and swearing and whacked her 5 more times.

At this point bus came, I told woman if she hit her dd in my sight once more id call police. (Now in retrospect I shouldnt have said that, I should have just called, but I was furious and not thinking straight) We got on same bus mother told me to "fucking go ahead then"...so I did. (mother was now dragging child up bus by arm, I dont mean pulling I mean literally dragging, then whacking her again when she wouldnt sit on seat.

Police car was sent right away but didnt arrive in time before she got off the bus I gave a description etc. But as she got off woman threatened to "batter my face in, if she hadnt got the child with her" (I felt like saying go on then, Id rather take the pain than a poor child, then you will go to prison, child will go to foster care and be better off)

I wish Id followed them, police didnt get them If I ever see them again will phone again.

If she does that in public wtf does she do at home.

Crazybuslady - You absolutely did the right thing. If it was a one off then the police or SS will deal with it accordingly and there is no harm done. However if this is a regular accurence then you have just made a huge difference to that little girls quality of life and I am sure she will be forever grateful for that crazybuslady that confronted her abusive mother!!

Kerrymum, in your first post on this thread, your first and last comments are as follows:

"I feel sorry for the poor Mum...

...You're painting it as if the poor child is a little angel but it certainly doesn't sound like she is."

They are really bizarre comments to make, given the situation described. I am not familiar with this site, or its regular posters, but in my opinion you sound like a troll. In fact, I really hope you are.

KM is a regular poster and not a troll

Just asked Mum about this (she's just back from holiday) didn't even tell her the full story as I couldn't remember all of it "insert lots of Scottish swearing and insults" she laughed knowing what I meant.

She said that if the police came on their own they would have called SS anyway when they tracked them down. If you'd have called SS they would have come with the police and no, she doesn't know any SW who has an emergency vehicle! She said a SW doesn't come and pay you a friendly visit and have a cup of tea and chat, whichever way they had been called both agencies would be involved and the outcome the same. It should have been the police called. She said the same as a lot of us, if it had been a different combination, even if it had been the dad, no one would have thought twice about calling the police. It doesn't matter what day she had there is no extenuating circumstances the child is a person and deserves respect like one.

She said (stepping away from her social work hat) if it had been her she would have offered the woman a smack in the face if she carried on (she has done it, offered, not actually hit someone) and then kept her on the bus, with the drivers help while the police came. I'm half amazed she is such a good SW and doesn't ever offer to hit her parents! She doesn't mince things with them though.

So, no, you weren't OTT, you were quite restrained actually!

Did I understand you correctly? Your mother who is a social worker has suggested that the correct solution to the problem would have been to smack the woman in the face?!!!!!!!!
I knew there was a reason I avoid social services as a solution to problems.

No she wasn't suggesting it as a solution, she was telling me what she has done years before she was a SW and she never said she would smack someone she said she offered. I said what her solution was. Call the police, tell the driver and stop her leaving the bus till they arrive.

And I feel sorry for any child you see being beaten up if you don't think social services should be involved. That's very sad.

ok, so the tantrum was brought on by the childs mother and hitting and dragging is awful!
however, my son has had tantrums before and whilst pregnant i could not carry him, so i explained to him in a calm voice that was he was doing wasnt very nice, and that he was to walk for mummy, but ended up being almost dragged through the supermarket - he would not allow me to put him in the trolley (as i said, i wasn't very well and could not lift him - and crtainly would never have asked someone to lift him while he was kicking and screaming) - so yes i pulled him to get the few bits and pieces i needed- but certailny did no yelling, swearing or hitting!

now if he doesn't want to go where i need him to go i will say "fine - but i'm going so i'll see you soon" and start to walk off - obviously while keeping an eye on him and he promptly follows - i dread the day when he realises i will not ever actually leave him.

That poor child though - i think you did the right thing - there is a childminder near us and she hits her daughter in public - we had an arguement at our local playgroup because she shouted at my son - she thought he hit her daughter, (which is besides the point - if he did i would have disciplined him he was only 1 at the time, by using the time out cushion) but they just bumped into each other - i was so annoyed with her that i reported her - she's still a childminder though, god knows how.

Hannah, do you drag him by the collar with him not even on his feet though? I think we can all relate to do something in a small way, but we don't go that OTT, especially with a child that age.

I do the "bye bye then" when she won't come with me or won't walk, she never lets me go out of sight.

calling this thread a 'witch hunt' is ridiculous since the identity of the woman in question is unknown.

the notion that someone attacking a four year old child could be approached using sweets and kind words is also ridiculous.

trying to draw a parallel between someone who gets cross and smacks their child occasionally, and someone who routinely belts/whacks them and swears at them is ridiculous. Be discerning, please.

making analogies between this woman and other violent types is not ridiculous, however. Substitute that woman for a big burly man, or else the woman and child for a man and his female partner. Now what are you going to do?

good for you for saying/doing something ... she was hitting and goading a CHILD ... no matter how frustrating a kid can get (and we've all been there) there is never an excuse to behave like that

its scary to step in tho

i couldnt believe my ears the other day when i heard someone say ... "if you do that again i will hurt you" ... not 'you'll be in trouble' or some sort of confiscation etc but i will HURT you

if an adult said that or if an adult behaved like the lady (i use the term lightly) you described then you it would be considered menacing behaviour at the least/abh

just because someone is below 3ft tall doesn't mean they should be abused in the street

i hate how horribly people think they can be and act towards children ... staggering

good for you for saying/doing something ... she was hitting and goading a CHILD ... no matter how frustrating a kid can get (and we've all been there) there is never an excuse to behave like that

its scary to step in tho

i couldnt believe my ears the other day when i heard someone say ... "if you do that again i will hurt you" ... not 'you'll be in trouble' or some sort of confiscation etc but i will HURT you

if an adult said that or if an adult behaved like the lady (i use the term lightly) you described then you it would be considered menacing behaviour at the least/abh

just because someone is below 3ft tall doesn't mean they should be abused in the street

i hate how horribly people think they can be and act towards children ... staggering

Tinkerbellesmum - no i didn't drag him by the collar but by his hand. I have given him a tap on the hand a few times, but stopped that because it doesn't work and i just felt terrible after doing it - time out and a disappointed voice works much better. I also now tell him that I don't wish to talk to him until he uses his nice calm voice - that tends to work within a few seconds if he wants something!
I tend to use the "one... two... three..." and if he doesn't respond within the time limit then he gets a time out (if it's bad enough to warrant it)
Nobody ever said bringing up children was without trials, but, what the op decribed, there is no need to ever lose it like that.

bump

But surely the woman who was mistreating her child needs someone to show her how to do it in a different way. My experience with Social Services is that they do not do this. And it seemed like the OP was not interested in this alternative either. Of course it's not her job to do so, but that's kind of the problem with today's society is that no one wants to put their neck out and help guide others. No one is teaching young mothers how to parent responsibly, so that the ones who come from places where they themselves were badly parented have no way of learning any other way to do it. I don't know quite what the solution is, but I'm sure it's not to arrest a mother in front of her child and take the child away to a foster home.

i know what you mean SofiaAmes but we dont even feel we can offer any advice these days without getting our faces screamed in -- as happened to the OP

maybe the thing to do is say ... 'woah there ... i know kids can do your head in but you can sort this out without slapping someone smaller than you .... can i help, do you need a minute'

thing is ... the violence is just likely to get turned on to you

and rarely does anyone DO/SAY anything ... just avert their eyes

I saw a woman screaming in someone's face in a precinct a few weeks ago ... honestly thought she was going to get punchy and people were just standing around looking ... I went up and put my hands on the shoulder of the girl being yelles at and said 'are you ok ... this sounds pretty nasty' ... didn't actually confront the angry woman at all who then at least stepped back and walked off (still shouting)

than I crapped myself after thinking i shouldn't have done that, was with my baby and pregnant what if she turned on me etcetc .. but I actually couldnt watch someone getting threatened without trying to stop it

and that wasnt even for a child

perhaps the answer is to say 'you're getting really violent -- are you ok?' first off to calm it down ... and then call the police if that doesn;t happen?

who knows ... everyone seems so angry and ready to explode these days

I have a different experience of SS, they're actually not all bad.

This is not about parenting, again if you turn it around and make it a man and a woman, a senile parent and their child, you wouldn't be saying it's because they don't know any better way to conduct their relationship. It's assault!

Can someone please tell me when assault becomes acceptable? If it is ok to assault a child of 4 but not another adult, when does the change happen?

Of course this is about parenting. The woman needs to be taught how to raise her child. How to teach her right and wrong, how to deal with bad behavior, and most importantly how to deal with her own frustration when things aren't going right. And it's no different with a man and a woman or a senile parent and their child. What are you going to do, throw away/imprison/put down all the people who were never taught how to deal with their frustrations in a non-aggressive manner? I would have thought that it would be more productive for society as a whole and those individuals to teach them another way. I am not excusing the behavior, but I do think there has to be a better, more long term means of dealing with it than locking people up.

Sorry, it was assault. Being a parent doesn't excuse it.

Of course being a parent doesn't excuse it. But that still doesn't make the solution of blindly locking up all the bad parents/spouses/children a viable solution.

If someone broke the law then they deserve to be dealt with by the police. Anyway, who said anything about locking them up?

I guess my world is not quite as black and white as yours. I don't think that calling the police for every infraction of the law is a viable or realistic solution to society's problems. What were you imagining that the police would do with them? In any case, whatever they do in fact do with them is kind of pointless if they aren't taught another way of doing things they are hardly likely to change their behavior.

It just seems a little crazy that there are programs galore to help delinquent youths to keep them from robbing etc. , but precious little to teach them to parent.

I know exactly what would happen, my mother is a CPSW.

"Every infraction of the law"?

Sorry, but if I was a victim of a serious assault in the street I hope someone would call the police. Why is it any less an assault just because it was the mother and the child was 4?

I saaw something similar to this once although not as bad. Walking along our local high st I saw a woman wiht a boy of about 7 . the woman looked to me to be either drunk ( it was about 3.3.0pm) or on drugs -= she was slurring her speech and staggering. She was swearing blind at the boy and not only that but calling him every conceivable name - I think the swearing they may get used to but the abuse - she was tellng him stuff like " you should never have been born you littl shit, " " your ruin my life you filthy idiot". That made me wince with anger and despair expecially as the boy kept repsndong with "sorry mum". then, as we just walked past him she wacked him. Hard. he fell in the street. Loads of people looked around but none did anyhting. As she looked drunk/drugged i was a bit concnered to say something myself but luckily we'd come to the car so I put chilkdrne inside leaving 11 yr old to supervise and saw some policmen over the other sid eof the road/. I told thetm what had happened ( boy had got up by now ) and then thanked me and said they'd heard some kind of commotion and had been coming this way to find out what was gong on. Last I saw they quickened their pace up the road to catch up with them , th emother still staggering and swearing. Image of tha tboy haunted me for ages.......

god LL ... it would, that's awful

perhaps contraception is the key ... some people just dont seem to want children but fail to make the link between sex and conception ...

it would haunt me too ... you just want to scoop the kid up and say you're a human being deserving of love and self esteem ..

I even felt sorry for a kid the other day who knocked over her drink and her mother just totally lost it calling her stupid etc, her little face just fell ... i know we all loe it and who knows, maybe the kid is really clumsy but the things we say and do to children have such an impact

we're the adults after all and should have better self control whatever the circumstance

soz, lecture over ! just makes me sad