It surprises me, not just the way some people treat children, but how they treat them in public.
The way I see it, parents who are nasty to their children in their homes but sweet to them in public know that it is wrong, but do it anyway, People who do it in public too, must think that their behaviour is okay. I'm not sure which one worries me more.
Today I caught the train to College. While sitting at the station I was reminded of 3 weeks ago when I was sitting in the exact same spot. A man with a double stroller with a young girl and a young boy who looked about 3 in it, sat on the next bench up from me. The children were cute but grotty. Being a mum has encouraged me to not judge - or at least to try not to judge - little things like snotty noses and dirty faces and hands, but it is something I noticed all the same.
But the thing I noticed more, was the way he was acting toward the children. Just from sitting there for 5 minutes I felt like I was able to pick up a little of their story, parents split up, twin children spent at least the one night with dad and now they are catching the train to head back to mums place. A perfectly normal thing to be happening, but dad had obviously had enough.
The children kept sooking, they were hungry.
"But I'm hungry daddy" the little boy would say, "oh just be quiet!" dad said, "You know I have no spare money because I had to spend it on the train".
The little girl wants out of the stroller. "Just sit down will you!" not such a nasty thing to say, but the tone made me look up. The little girl continued to try to remove her belt. Dad shoved her into the back of the stroller pretty roughly, she started to cry. Dad smacks her and leans forward and whispers "If you don't shut up..."
Meanwhile the little boy is still sooking "But I'm so hungry dad! My belly hurts!". I'm now starting to wonder if the children have eaten much that morning and wished that I could help in some way. Wished that I had something on me that I could give the children to eat.
By now the little girl has stopped trying to get out of her set and is instead playing with her brothers fingers. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and yet dad smacked her anyway.
She starts sooking that she is hungry too. "Shut up!" is dads response, "You can have something when we get to your mothers". I hope mums place isn't far. It's a hard thing on anyone to be hungry, I couldn't imagine what the little ones go through, not understudying why they can't just have something to eat to make the hunger pains go away.
This went on longer, at one point dad smacked the little boy in the head for crying about being hungry. He threatened to leave the girl behind if she complained about being bored again.
I was at the point where I was about to seriously lose it - and I am not the kind of person to interfere in someone else's parenting, especially a random person in public - But I just felt extremely uncomfortable and angry at the way this man was treating these little ones.
But not just that, I was worried for the children, because if this is the way he treats them at a public train station, I can't imagine how he is when they are in a private environment.
Just when I felt I couldn't stay quiet for one more minute my train pulled into the station and I had to leave, hoping so badly that they would get back to their (hopefully much nicer) mother quickly and have their little bellies filled. Hoping they were able to play and be themselves and end their day in smiles and giggles.
Sure, I get annoyed at my children, but the tone in his voice was enough to make me, a grown woman who wasn't at the other end of that treatment, feel extremely uncomfortable, I don't even want to think how the children were feeling. Too hungry to notice it seemed.
I just don't understand how some people can treat their children like that. Little ones are helpless, they rely on us for everything. They don't deserve to be told to shut up, to be threatened, just because they are upset over being hungry!
Anyway, there is nothing I can do about it, but I just can't get it out of my mind. It has been 3 weeks and the horrible tone, the tone that sounded so much like hatred, is haunting me. I can still hear it. I wish I could have taken them, washed them up and given them a good feed.
About 2 weeks ago Logan and I took the kids to McDonalds for ice-cream. We sat outside so that the kids could play in the playground. There was another table occupied, a woman in her early 20's with too young children, maybe 3 and 1 1/2, and her brother.
After a little while some older girls, I would guess pre-teens, came out and were running around playing chasey, both through the playground and the tables. It was about 8pm and other than those mentioned there was no one else around. While running around the girls never caused any harm to anyone nor did they bother me or my family one bit, but the brother at the other table, when they were getting ready to leave, said to the girls "go play on the road will you!?".
Oh. My. God. Did you get that? This random man, told these girls to go play on the road!!!
I was in shock and before I had the chance to say anything the girls had already disappeared back inside to their parents. The man even had the nerve to look at me like I would agree! Still in shock all I could do was shake my head at him. The girls mother came out to defend them and he and his sister did nothing but make matters worse by defending his words rather than apologise. They made out like the girls were endangering the little ones.
Seriously, what goes through these peoples heads? What makes grown people feel that it is okay to act this way toward children??
Shit it makes me angry!
