I'll Handle It, Thanks Very Much

Why it's not OK to discipline someone else's child, and why I'm a massive hypocrite

About a month ago, another mother told my daughter off. Right in front of me.

I was furious. Raging. Thank goodness my wife was there to step in and have a measured, calm conversation with her, because I’d have definitely told her to fuck off—and ruined my nieces' birthday party.

That doesn’t reflect well on me perhaps, but my daughter was so upset so this random adult’s rebuke, for something that was really minuscule in the rough and tumble of soft play.

How fucking dare she! I fumed to myself in the car on the way home, with my daughter happily delving into the obligatory party bag of cheap plastic shit that ends up in big landfill pits in China, having completely forgotten the incident. I would never do something like—

Then I had to stop my train of thought. Because I was about to make a massive hypocrite of myself. In my own head, albeit—but nevertheless, a hypocrite.

Let’s rewind a bit.

I was running late, for two reasons. Firstly, because I have two children under the age of five, so of course I’m late for everything where their presence is also required. Secondly, because I forgot the birthday presents. I guess both reasons are in a roundabout way, my fault.

To further deflate my already flagging mood, I end up ignoring the sat nav (I’m sorry, tech overlords, I will never question you again), taking a shortcut (it wasn’t), and driving past a speed camera that was, to be fair, heavily concealed by bushes. Nevertheless, a speeding ticket followed in the post two weeks later. I knew I’d been caught at the time. So I was on cloud fucking nine, as you can imagine.

I end up having to park down the opposite end of the road from the church hall that the party’s taking place in. Incidentally, I used to go to day care in the same church hall. I hadn’t been back there since I poured a jug of milk over a girl’s head on my last day, so that was a nice trip down memory lane.

I found my way inside, past the room that had been the sight of my dairy-related assault, and into the main hall. It was the classic kid’s party setup—bouncy castle, soft play, ball pit with a slide, beige buffet and those shitty plastic chairs around the edge of the room for knackered parents to seek the faintest moment of respite. Lovely.

I let the kids loose into the maelstrom. The five-year-old is mostly self-playing in a situation like this, but the eighteen-monther is at that age where you basically have to follow them with your arms outstretched, crouching like you’ve shit yourself, waiting to catch them before they fall face-first on the paper-thin lino tiles.

Just don’t make me come with you on the fucking thing, I beg of you

Fast-forward a bit; I’ve tagged out of following the little one around and I’m sat by the side, near where some soft play toys have been laid out. My eldest is there dicking about, trying to build a bridge out of some big soft play blocks. I'm vaguely aware of another slightly younger girl playing nearby, as well as a woman sat on the mat watching who I presume is her daughter.

My attention turns briefly away from my daughter. I was probably making smalltalk with one of my sister’s in-laws—you know, the kind of person that technically you’re sort of, kind of related to but you really don’t give a fuck? That.

Anyway, I hear someone crash to the mat. I turn my head, and the other little girl has fallen off a bridge that my daughter was building. I’m just tuning in to what’s happened, so I don’t quite hear what the woman sat there says, but she said something. All I clocked was the look she gave my five-year-old: it was the kind of glare that if a Disney animator gave it to one of their villains, the director would go “alright tone it down, that’s a bit much”.

Before I knew what was happening, the mother had whisked her girl away, and my daughter was crumpled in my lap in tears. I ask whether she’d hurt herself: no. I ask if the other girl had hit her: no.

Then the pieces fell into place.

“Did that mummy say something to you?”

A nod, and another tear rolls down her cheek.

“What did she say?”

She wouldn’t tell me.

I wanted to go and say something immediately, but two things stoped me. First, my daughter still needed me, so being there for her gave me a chance to calm down and think rationally. That presented a second reason to temper myself: the daughter of this mum is likely a classmate of my niece, who’s just started in state nursery. I had to tread lightly, as if I blew my top I’m potentially serving my sister with years of awkward encounters with this woman.

Once my daughter is calmed and she’s back diving head-first down the slide into the ball pit, I seek out my mum. She’s the kind of busy bugger who knows everyone.

“Who’s that?” I say, surreptitiously pointing.

“Who?”

“That lady. The one with the fringe.”¹

I tell her what’s happened. I go into the little kitchenette alongside the church hall to eat the cookies think about what to do next. By now my wife knows as well. I really want to say something, but it occurs to me that might not be the best approach. This mum is here on her own with her kid, whilst I’m here with my wife, mum, dad, and sister (who’s the host of the party). Already that’s a fairly intimidating prospect—plus I don’t feel like I’d stay appropriately measured. I haven’t calmed down sufficiently yet. I’m still pretty cross at the fact that someone else has upset my daughter so much.

I just think that whether my daughter was in the wrong or not, it’s no one else’s place to discipline her but mine. Sure, the odd utterance of something like “careful” or “watch where you’re going” is harmless—but that’s not what happened here. Whatever had been said was a stern telling off. I know my daughter would not have reacted that way to anything less than that.

I say all this to my mum who’s talking it over with me, as my hand dives right back into the Costco cookies. She agrees.

“Absolutely,” She said. “Gosh, I’d never dream of doing anything like that with someone else's child. Would you?”

As I affirm that I wouldn’t, I’m dragged back in time. Back about two years or so, to an incident that I’d buried in guilt and regret. I’d hoped I’d forgotten, but today I needed a reminder of it.

I was in the park with my daughter, who had only just turned three at the time. My wife was sat away from us, still pregnant with our second. I was stood by the climbing frame, helping my daughter clamber up the rock climbing wall that was a bit too big for her—but she insisted—and then watching her go down the slide. It wasn’t that busy, so she mostly had the thing to herself.

Two boys emerged out of nowhere. They were far bigger than her; my guess was at least seven. They’re charging around this climbing frame like you’d expect seven-year-old boys to. I can hardly tell them to calm down, but equally I’m stressed they’re going to squash my three-year-old daughter.

Well, it was worse than that.

My daughter had just gotten to the bottom of the twirly slide, when the two boys both came down together, arriving at the bottom in a heap, where my daughter was still sat. They bumped into her a little; no big deal. But then as one of the boys jumped off to go up again, the other boy—for no reason—pushed my daughter off the end of the slide. She went backwards, hitting her head on the floor. It was that kind of rubber flooring you get in playgrounds, but it obviously still would have hurt, and made her cry.

Naturally, I was cross. But I’m not proud of how I reacted.

The boy who pushed her jumped off, as if he’d done nothing, to go and join his friend. He ran right past me.

“Oi,” I said, the word leaping from my mouth before I’d had time to compose myself and figure out the proper way to react. In that split second, I made a decision that doesn’t reflect well on me, but the purpose of being open I’ll tell you. I made a grab for him.

What was I going to do if I grabbed him? Tell him off? Chuck him over the fence? To this day, I have no idea why I did it.

Fortunately, I missed. He stopped in his tracks, looked at me like I was a nutter (which was a fair reaction), and they both ran off to play on something else.

My face flushed red. I knew immediately I’d fucked up. I picked up my still crying daughter, sought my wife out and told her we needed to leave. I felt eyes all over me. What if someone had seen what I’d tried to do? How could I possibly have explained that?

What I should have done—and what I believe the mum who told my daughter off should have done—is parent your own kid first. My daughter was hurt. She needed me to be with her, not taking my feelings out on the aggressor.

Sure, I wanted the kid to know that he’d done wrong. But that’s not my job. Judging by the fact that no-one said anything to me as I fled the park that day, his parents hadn’t seen what happened—or weren’t there at all. While that’s annoying, it’s not my job to step in. And it wasn’t this mum’s job either.

I told my daughter to be more careful with the younger kids myself, after she’d stopped being upset. In the end, my wife had a word with the mum. She was defensive, saying that she was just keeping her daughter safe. But the incident had already happened. Yes, she was probably cross that my daughter had pushed hers over. But taking it out on someone far younger than you, with much less impulse control, isn’t going to help your own child.

Having said all that, as all the memories of two years ago in the park rushed back to me in a great big Proustian Rush of shame, I realised that, whilst I still thought she (and I, in the past) were in the wrong, it’s still fucking hard not to react when you see your kid upset or hurt.

I looked in the rear view mirror as I carried on driving. My daughter was happily rummaging through her party bag, stuffing her face with cake. She probably won’t remember anything about today—but I would.

Whether I was cross that someone hurt my kid, or whether I was fuming at another parent for telling my own kid off, it’s my job to take a beat. In those moments, I’ve learned that a deep breath and a second of pause can stop me from reacting impulsively, giving me the space to respond in a way that sets a better example for my kids.

It’s my role to demonstrate how to regulate myself (without betraying the valid feelings I might have) and move forward in a measured way, prioritising my own kids—the people that, at the end of the day, I care about the most.

And if I don’t manage all that? Then just try to do better the next time. That’s all any of us can do.

What do you think?

I’m interested to hear your views on this one. Whilst we can’t totally ignore other kids and the impact they might be having on our own kids, is it ever OK to discipline them, instead of letting their parents do it (if they even do)?

Let me know what you think—and thanks for reading!

Previously on Some Other Dad

1. If you’d seen it, you’d understand.