Today while shopping at "Trader Joes", I noticed a mother and daughter picking out breakfast foods, and suddenly the little girl, about the age of four, shouted at her mother;"Show it to me, NOW!" the tone of the child's voice brought a chill down my spine, and I said;" Hey, that's no way to talk to your mother! " That was no tone to talk to anyone! If I would have spoken like that to my mother I would had been slapped from here to next Tuesday! Not that, that I'm saying it's okay to slap a child but still, I would had never had spoken to one of my parents in such a tone. But when I when turned around the mother was smiling and showing the child the item she demanded to see. I thought, "Why was this woman rewarding this child for her rude behavior?" Later in the frozen food section, I saw the same mother and child and the child, shouted the same demand:'Show that to me NOW!" The mother and I locked eyes, and then the mother bend down to her daughter and said to her;"We're in public now, you mustn't speak that way to me." And it's okay in private? I wasn't upset at the child, she was just a little girl, this behavior was taught to her. But I couldn't help but think that teaching your child to speak to another person with no respect was a form of child abuse. If this little girl grows up thinking she has a right to be demanding and demeaning to others, she is going to grow up to be an abusive girlfriend, wife, parent and even an abusive boss. I had an awfully, cruel female boss, who would love to yell at you;"You are not taught to think!" She was verbally abusive to her employees and I often wondered if she spoke that way in the office, where she should be on her best behavior, what was she liked when she was at home, where she could let herself go! When I was a little girl, we use to say""Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!" But when I became a woman and became involved with a verbally abusive man, I learned how hurtful words can be.So mother's teach your children well!
