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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m surprised so many people are surprised.  Do you all live under a rock? Never leave Bethesda? This is how a very large percentage of parents speak to their children on a regular basis[/quote]

So sad 😞 and so true. [/quote]

This is incredibly true. I used to be a camp counselor for a camp that served low income kids. Many had social workers, some were in foster care (one of my kids had been in over 10 foster homes by the age of 11), and many were raised by single moms or extended family members. One night I walked into a conversation my older campers were having about what items they’d been “whupped” with and were sharing stories. Switches and belts were most common but the girls also mentioned sticks, wooden paddles, wooden spoons, and the worst one was an electric cord with the plug on it. This was a group of 10 girls. I realized clearly that the difficulties I thought I had as a kid growing up were literally nothing compared to what these kids experienced.

From that experience I learned that the CPS and foster care systems are completely and utterly horrific. I left the camp having been brought to tears multiple times by stories these kids told me about their foster parents. One girl came to camp with lice—a horrific case—the foster parents ignored. Another only had ill fitting and out of style hand me down clothes because the foster mother used the money she received for being a foster mom for her foster daughter to buy new clothes for her biological daughter and gave the foster child all the bio child’s old clothes. (That little girl is now grown up, stayed in foster care, and has 3 kids by 3 different dads, and a long criminal Record for drug abuse, shoplifting, and drunk driving, among many other issues.). Another one of them, an 8 year old whose mom had abandoned her and her sister, asked me to adopt them multiple
Times. I was 22 and in college - in no way able to help her. She is now a single mom with a drug problem and has lost 2 of her 4 kids already.

Every parent has hard moments. All parents are doing their best with the resources they have. What OP witnessed was a mom who likely was at the end of
Her rope and needed support and a break. The kids were not in imminent danger. I understand some of you are perfect parents with perfect kids who never raise your voice or lose your patience with little perfect Larla or utter a curse word but most of us are human and screw up with our kids from time to time and that is NOT a reason to call CPS on some one. You call CPS for a child who is in danger, for abuse, neglect, etc. Not because you saw something you disliked. [/quote]

I could swap stories with those girls about what my mother beat me with. Most of the things you listed, actually. One time, she beat me with a log. That's right, a log. I don't yell at, cuss or beat my kids, I value them and make sure they know their thoughts, needs and feelings are important. I am not perfect by any stretch (I have had several rounds of therapy and cope with cPTSD) but I sure as sh1t DO NOT take my "bad day" out on my kids. I survived my childhood by fantasizing about the family I would have when I grew up. Everything, from the devoted, faithful, gentle, loving husband to the 2 boys (who are a handful) has come true. If anyone should have failed at being a decent parent, it's me. I have a zero tolerance for abuse of children, mine or yours.[/quote]

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