# have you ever watched parenting fail and had to bite your tongue? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632 "2012-05-02T13:24:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632/61 "2012-05-03T16:14:42Z")
Just clueless: Smiling mum and kid come into the shop where I’m working “you can have _any cake you want_” Kid chooses a jam doughnut only for clueless mother to say “No! you can’t have that, it’s too messy.” Of course the kid has a tantrum and they leave empty handed. Why on earth didn’t she say “you _can_ have one of those but only if you wait 'til we’re home to eat it.” Second is much worse and was reported to me by a friend, Julie. Julie’s kid was being praised by another mother for how well he was talking at just two years old. “Mine’s two and a half and can’t say a word” she informed Julie. It soon became obvious why, every time the poor mite opened her mouth she was yelled at to be quiet and otherwise she was ignored. ---
**Author:** ![SticksAndString](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@SticksAndString](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SticksAndString)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632/62 "2012-05-03T16:42:32Z")
**flodnak** –your story makes me sad.☹ I’m forced to wonder if M didn’t have some sort of a disability. What makes me even sadder is that if he did and his parents couldn’t accept it, they were using the daycare to dump him off so they didn’t have to look at/deal with/think about him and his issues. Baby #2 was probably an attempt (sad as it is) for a “perfect” child. I understand if it’s hard to accept that your kid has a disability at first…I’ve been there. And it hurts like hell. But eventually you’re supposed to get over it and go “What can I do to make his/her life better? How can I help them fit in? How can I make it easier for them to interact and make friends with their peers?”. ---
**Author:** ![SticksAndString](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@SticksAndString](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SticksAndString)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632/63 "2012-05-03T16:48:08Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > Another was an incident my daughter and I saw in an airport. It took us five minutes to pick our chins off the ground. Family consisted of a mom and a dad and a young boy child maybe about 8 years old. They were apparently waiting for grandma’s plane, or some such thing. The child is up and down off the chairs, the windowsills, whatever. No control. Then he says he wants ice cream. No, say the parents, we don’t have time before grandma’s plane. “Oh, yes, you do, if you hurry!” responds the brat. “Go! Quickly, quickly quickly!!” And they did it. You know what we would’ve said to Slim? Me: Don’t be a Mr. Demandypants. What happens to Mr. Demandypants? Slim: He doesn’t get anything. There are times when we give into his demands (he’s in the bathroom with no toilet paper) but most of the time we don’t because we don’t want him to be a spoiled little brat who thinks if he just demands something, he’s going to get it. Yes, he’s a singleton (no siblings) but that doesn’t mean he gets his way all the time either. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632/64 "2012-05-03T17:06:37Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > The girl’s is a design on her lower back (as I’m sure you guessed). The niece I mentioned above got a fake tramp-stamp 2 days before Christmas… I think she was 8. Her parents expressed dismay and anger, but: 1. Didn’t make her remove it, 2. Didn’t stop the kid from showing off her tramp stamp to all the guests at Christmas dinner ---
**Author:** ![Corcaigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Corcaigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corcaigh)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632/65 "2012-05-03T19:22:21Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Mini golf. We had just finished, and were enjoying some ice cream near the batting cages. A kid of maybe 8 was trying his best to hit the balls, and missing every one. His father was behind him, basically calling him a wuss and a loser, apparently in an effort to “encourage” him. It was a nonstop stream of future therapy. We suddenly thought of a much better use for that baseball bat. A cousin of mine witnessed a similar display (but not in a batting cage), she sarcastically started mimicking the dad/uncle/whomever he was. After a bit the man stopped yelling at the child and started encouraging him. Not sure I’d have had the nerve, but my cousin is a big bruiser and you wouldn’t want to spill her pint … > [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > I have to bite my tongue every time my best friend and his fiancée bring their toddler over … we’re helpless to do anything, since telling our friends they’re horrible parents will effectively end the friendship. You’re not really helpless to do anything, I’d a best friend who had a daughter, and my friend was a _terrible_ mother, used to break my heart listening to her shouting at this tiny child for not behaving like an adult essentially. My friend’s behaviour was driven by the fact that her husband had left her when she told him she was pregnant - she “forgot” to take her Pill, see, even though she knew he didn’t want kids. Anyhoos, the child “looked just like that bastard”, and apparently behaved just like him too. At six months old?! There were multiple incidents where my friend was being a bitch to the poor kid and I’d step in and suggest an alternate way to deal with situation. Sure she got mad at me and would spout off “you don’t have children, what would you know?!” and I’d remind her that I had been the child of a bad parent (whom my friend had met, and witnessed her behaviour) and that would silence my friend, until the next time she’d loose the rag at the kid. Two house moves later, I’ve completely lost contact with that friend, but her daughter found me on Facebook and sent me a message telling me how much she’d missed me. She’s nearly 30 now, and was about 5 or 6 last time I saw her. > [@MLS](#): > > Then he says he wants ice cream. No, say the parents, we don’t have time before grandma’s plane. “Oh, yes, you do, if you hurry!” responds the brat. “Go! Quickly, quickly quickly!!” And they did it. I know a kid like that. His parents each have a car, and at the weekend they go out somewhere - at the kid’s insistence. He decides which car they’re taking and who’s driving (as well as where they are going), he yells if they take too long to get ready… > [@overlyverbose](#): > > The worst I’ve seen is when a couple of former friends of mine used to bring their then-toddler son over to our house for dinner frequently. I think he was 18 months old the first time his mom yelled, "Say ‘May I have a bite?!!’ and slapped his hand very, very sharply when he reached for something on her plate. It was awful. Poor thing had no idea what had happened and was just learning to talk. She would yell at him in restaurants, too, when he was 3-ish and trying to touch her after his dinner. He wasn’t leaving his seat, just leaning toward her for contact and she would yell, “GET OFF ME!!” very loudly regardless of where we were. I felt so bad for him. Then there’s the added “benefit” of her bellowing in a restaurant. Oh dear gawd, I knew a woman like that! She’d a son who was a lovely kid, sweet natured and always looking for hugs. Gawd help him if he tried to hug his mother - she’d slap him away from her - and not a little swat, a full on leave-a-mark slap. She used to yell her head off at him all the damn time. Unlike my above mentioned friend, you couldn’t say anything to that woman. Those who did suggest she might not want to be slapping, or yelling at, he son were met with a fury the likes of which I never want to witness again… I was in a supermarket recently, when from the next aisle over I heard a crash, then the sound of a small child frantically crying “Sorry daddy! Sorry daddy!!” That just made my heart bleed for the poor kid. They were gone before I could get around to that aisle, where I was intending to give the father a poisoned look… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-watched-parenting-fail-and-had-to-bite-your-tongue/620632.md?page=3)