Rebecca Eckler

Have you ever wanted to walk up to someone’s children and say: “Stop talking to your mother that way!” Maybe I’m just super sensitive lately.

Recently, I was catching up with one of my childhood friends. She was irate. Just that morning, her 12-year-old son had told her to “#$*# off,” and, also called her a “bitch.” I was shocked, because my friend is an amazing mother and I don’t really know any children who swear to their parents (at least not yet).

“What did you do?” I asked my friend, because I certainly wouldn’t know what to do if my daughter told me to “#$# off” and told me that I was a “bitch.” Basically, my friend dropped her son off at school and cried all morning. She would talk with him later and ground him. The thing is, he’s not a bad kid. My friend admitted that what she wanted to do was to swear at him too. She held back.

In this day and age, she said, kids will tell their teachers on you and even if you haven’t done anything wrong, you never know if social services will come after you. Recently, in America, social services interviewed a mommy blogger's three children after someone read a post she had written, saying that she told the teacher to give her son a failing grade because he traded his calculator (which he needed for a test) for some game cards.

For the past few weeks, too, I’ve had to pick up my daughter from a dance class after school and wait for her in a waiting area in the same place where another mother waits for her two children to come out of class. Each week, I’m shocked and appalled at how her kids talk to her. I’m guessing that these kids are five and 10, but they are so completely rude to their mother that I hate watching it and being around it. Her children barely say hi, they refuse multiple times to get their coats on, and, boy, do they whine and complain.

The thing is, the mother doesn’t really even seem bothered by her children’s actions or words, so maybe she doesn’t care, or maybe she doesn’t want to make a scene in front of other parents. And, as a virtual stranger, I can’t very well walk up to her children and say, “you know, you should really treat your mother better.” They’re not my children, for one. And, I suppose if the positions were reversed, I’m not really sure I’d appreciate another mother coming up and reprimanding my child.

Have you ever wanted to step in and tell other children that they shouldn’t treat their mothers that way? Have you ever?

Follow me @rebeccaeckler

Thought that was sweet? You'll enjoy:

Swearing in Front of Kids

Eckler Plus One: Losing Your S**t

10 Silence-Inducers for Kids