Child abuse: Why Are People So Mean to Their Children?

I was waiting in my car at the supermarket for my friend to finish his grocery shopping.  This lady pulled up in a passenger van and 3 children got out with her.  She was yelling at the children while she pushed a shopping cart and they followed her into the supermarket. 

I was still sitting in the car and waiting when she came out of the supermarket with the children.  The woman was still yelling at the children, but was cursing at them more.  She scolded one of the little boys for opening a van door when she didn’t ask him to. 

From my perspective, what the child did wasn’t a big deal. He was just doing the things that a normal child can be expected to do. Children make messes and they make minor mistakes. However, the woman acted as if he had committed some sort of atrocity.   She looked really stressed out and miserable.  She is young, so she might not be mature enough to handle the responsibilities of parenthood. Maybe she was going through some personal problems that people don’t understand.  It is still no reason for her to take her anger and frustrations out on those poor children. 

I don’t understand why people act that way towards their children.  Child abuse and mistreatment are recipes for disaster. Children are such a blessing, even when they misbehave. Adults can learn so much from observing children.

It is a parent's job to nurture their children, prepare them for the world, encourage them, and cultivate their mind for success.  Tearing the child down, especially in pubic is really humiliating and damaging to the self-confidence and self-image.  Abused children are less likely to take healthy risks in their lives or to pursue a goal or dream because of low-self-esteem. 

I didn’t say nothing to her, although I sat just a few feet away.  I feel like it is not my business to intervene unless, she were physically abusing those children.  Some people consider yelling and swearing at children to be emotional or psychological abuse.  There wasn’t any outright name calling or belittling from her toward them.  But, the yelling and swearing may have some negative effects on those children.

In my opinion, people who mistreat and abuse their children don’t deserve to have them. I read a news report about a monster mommy, who allegedly abused her own 2-year-old son and tried to cover it up. It is an old story but still very sickening. 

The way that I see it is that people like this should not have had children, if they knew deep down inside that that they weren’t cut out for it.  I mean, hello? There is such a thing as contraception or even giving the child up for adoption.  It’s a pity because there are so many special and loving people in this world who want to be parents, but they aren’t physically capable of having children.