9:45pm
Today was a good day.
#1. I was off of work.
#2. I got to spend the whole day with my baby girl and wife.
#3. I had some pretty decent mexican food for dinner.
We went shopping to get Brynlee some warmer clothes. The weather is changing and starting to cool down a little bit. She doesn't have much clothing for that type of weather. Not in Newborn size at least. We have an outlet mall close by, so we decided to check it out.
There was one part of the day however, that wasn't very good. As a matter of fact, we were horrified.
One of the stores that we visited was The Children's Place. We had Little B in her stroller, with the sunshades up. The mall is outdoors and the sun was really shining today. Anyways, we found a few little pants and sweaters for her there. While my wife was shopping I noticed a lady, maybe in her late 30s, or early 40s, waiting by the register, loudly calling her little boy's name. He was sitting on the ground by the front door of the store. There was only us, and a handful of other customers in the entire store.
I could see her impatiently staring at the credit card machine, as if it wasn't working. The store clerk, standing there with her arms crossed. It was an awkward situation, and I didn't understand it. Anyways, we kept shopping, others came in and out, and they stayed in the same position.
We decided on what we were going to purchase, and proceeded to the register. There was only this one open. When we walked up, I think that we were the only ones left in the store, perhaps one other lady browsing. Turns out the lady's credit card wasn't going through, or was declined, not sure, don't really care. Her son was still sitting by the front door, ignoring her demands for him to come over by her. She stepped to the side, so that the girl could ring us up and get us on our way, while she was waiting for the card to magically start working again.
The clerk started to ring us up while she, my wife and I, and anyone else that might have been in the store noticed this mother go over to her child by the front door. She smacked him a few times while he was on the ground, my wife said she kicked him, or booted him with her feet, but I didn't notice that. The real shocker to all of us is that while she was "mildly beating" this child, who was probably two or three years old, she was also belittling him by telling him how STUPID he is. Several times. The child even responded, "I'm not stupid!" With her responding, "Yes, you are!"
We were in awe. My wife and I looked at eachother thinking, do we say something? Is it our place to intervene? I could tell that my wife was really biting her tongue. She is NOT one to turn her head at something like this. But, she did. And so did I. But now I'm starting to think that we should have took action. It's not even so much the smacking, although she went a little overboard with it, but a little discipline is not uncommon, and every parent can make their own decisions about that. But to tell your young child that he is STUPID? What is that going to improve about the situation? Nobody is stupid. At least that is how I feel. I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of other parents would agree with me on that one.
Who knows how she treats this kid behind closed doors. Now that we sit here and think about how we should have confronted this situation, you still can't justify it because of how crazy some people are these days. What if we would have said something and she had a knife, or gun, or some sort of weapon? You can't be too careful. I think that's why we kept our mouths shut. I bet if we wouldn't have had Brynlee with us though, my wife would have said something, if I didn't.
Moral of the story is that NO CHILD IS STUPID. They might be a lot of work, not listen, be a pain, and give you more headaches than you can ever imagine. But they AREN'T stupid. And degrading your kids in that manner is just not acceptable.
I would LOVE to hear your thoughts about what we witnessed today. What would you have done in this situation? Leave your comment on here or on my
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