Oh I am livid. I wrote a very long post about how far is to far in punishing a child, and my internet went down on me as soon as I pressed "post". I lost the entire thing, I am not a happy camper.
Anyways. Maybe I'll rewrite it later, but for the sake of it and maybe I'll feel a better sense of accomplishing something. I'll leave you with this question; how far is to far in punishing your children?
This woman I ran into completely flipped on her 4 year old daughter, told her how she was ruining their social status by asking stupid questions, she continued to yell at her daughter, grab her by the hand and yank her away, causing her to fall and start crying. At that, she told her daughter to "shut up" and to "stop making a fool out of yourself". Mind you, this is Wal-Mart, I'm sure no one was judging this little girl, but instead juding her mother, I know I did. While yelling at her daughter, her infant starts crying and the woman would not touch her infant, she honestly looked disgusted when she looked at her baby. So she starts yelling at this baby, while she's yelling at her daughter and proclaiming "if you don't shut up and act like a young lady I will leave you here and I am not coming back!".
Now I ask, is that how you'd treat a child when they calmly and nicely asked you if they could have something? Heck, the little girl even phrased it as "Mommy, may I please have this?" and the woman goes nuts.
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That woman sounds really selfish. How can you punish a 4-year-old and tell her that she's "ruining her social status"? Honestly, Wal-Mart is not the place people worry about social status anyway.
I was in Wal-Mart one night and a woman was pushing a cart with a daughter, who was about 5, and a son, who was about 3. The boy kept telling his mom that he had to go poop. She said, "You can wait til we get home." She kept talking on her cell phone and shopping. A little while later I was walking down an isle and saw them again. He was holding his bottom. She would not take him to the bathroom! I bet he probably pooped his pants. She probably yelled at him when they got home. She is probably going to tell the story of when her son pooped his pants at Wal-Mart when he was 3 because he couldn't hold it. No where in this story will she mention that he told her he had to go to the bathroom, and that she ignored him and talked on her phone and continued shopping. That little detail would probably make her look like a bad parent.
I had an experience in a store once with my little sister. My mom took my youngest sister to the bathroom, and told me to continue shopping with my older sister. Well, shortly after my mom left, my sister told me she needed to go to the bathroom, and made a big fuss about it. I didn't let her go, and some lady yelled at me for not letting her. But do you know why I didn't let her? She didn't need to go to the bathroom, she just wanted to be around our mom instead of me, because for some reason, she didn't want to be with me. The lady probably thought I was her mother too, since everyone seemed to think my little sisters were my kids when I was younger... yet now people tell me I look younger than I am. Means a lot of people probably judged me wrongly when I was younger.
Things, and especially actions, aren't always as they seem. What may seem like abuse to one person is nothing more than an argument or punishment for a wrongdoing to another.
EDIT: That's not to say that the woman didn't make a fool out of herself, I'm just saying that you can't always say that any women is a bad mother based on one experience. Everyone has bad days, and I can almost guarantee that if you have kids, at one point you will lose your temper with them (maybe just your patience) in a public place.
~C
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It's people like that who should be slapped quite soundly. Had I been there, I would have been tempted to do so and most definitely would have said something to the disgusting woman. And you are quite correct, no one was judging the little girl. But you can bet they were looking at the mother in absolute disgust and wondering why in the world she was blessed with children in the first place.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."
Not to defend the mother...but I use to think that about all the times I saw parents just do something very un parentlike. Then I became a parent. Now, I like to think I started out being a pretty good one. But I have learned, there are days, even when you'd like to be a perfect parent, you feel so overwhelmed, and stress and frustrated that you do become varying levels of asshole to your children. Sometimes you don't even realize it. Sometimes the pressure of people all around you make you a little nuts. I had my children in the health food store and they were excited and running up and down the aisles. they're kids. I told them to stay put, but with out getting down right nasty, they're not going to. There was one old lady who was so nasty about it the entire time I wanted to rip her face off. So...I can get abusive towards my kids to ge them to shut up because you're cranky, and someone is going to judge me, or I can let them be kids as long as there not breaking anything, setting reasonable limits, and the othe half of the store is going to judge me. Its a lot of social pressure, especially when you have someone calling you and your kids names audibly under your breath. you begin to be unsure where the social limits are, and afraid someone is going to ask you to leave the store.
If this child really was that polite, and this lady had her and an infant, I'm gonna guess she snapped. It may not be right, but rather than crucifying her, making it more obvious that you don't have a problem with the childs behavior may help frustrated and pressured parents not feel so helpless.
Anyway, that wasn't as clear as I would like it to be.
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I'm really disgusted with some people's so called "parenting skills." Society these days are setting the ranks higher and higher for everyone. They expect more out of teenagers, and more out of young children. They are CHILDREN, that is the key word. They are still developing, and they need guidance, not brutality. It's sad to think that that little girl is going to have a very low self esteem, all thanks to her darling mother. There are some people that just shouldn't be parents.