On ITV's This Morning program in Britain Wednesday morning, broadcaster and mother of two Sally Jones recounted episodes (video below) in which she confronted a teen driver over littering and a child who was kicking the back of her seat in a theater—and it's caused a very boisterous row on Twitter in response. Before getting to the backlash against ever correcting someone else's child (and the equally-vocal supporters who think nasty kids and terrible parents shouldn't get a free pass), here's what was said.
Ms. Jones first recounted an incident that seems cut and dry, aside from the risk she took upon herself. She said she pulled up to an intersection and saw the teenaged driver ahead of her dump fast food wrappers out of the car, "I just saw red when I saw a teenager in the car in front empty their fast food meal out of the window." Jones then recounted that she got out, picked up the litter and handed it "back through the window saying, "you seem to have dropped something."" This did not go over well with the teen's mom, who, shockingly, was sitting right next to the offender. The mom began screaming and cursing, and Jones' own daughter, who was in her car, later said "you must be mad, there could have been knives and guns."
This Morning host Ruth Langsford admitted that she had had her own moments of correcting children, like when she saw a five-year-old knocking all the shoes off the rack in a store. Langsford told the child "I wouldn't do that if I was you, the ladies will have to put them all back and will be cross," which seems rather polite, but this is Britain so maybe it was horribly offensive. That kid's mom thought so, anyway, and literally screamed at Langsford "How dare you talk to my child?!" Langsford said she thought the mom was about to "headbutt" her.
This was not the incident that sparked the real online backlash, however. That came from Jones telling a story about being in a theater where a child was kicking the back of her seat. After turning around to look at the kid and finding that unsuccessful in curbing his kicking, she addressed his mom, saying "do you mind controlling him, it is getting annoying." This mom didn't get angry back, but rather seemed nonchalant about the entire thing. "Oh, he gets bored in the theater," the kicking child's mother responded.
Once the story went online and asked people what they thought, things got intense. A poll on the show's website was strongly against ever talking to another person's child, with 74% of respondents saying no, you should never do that. On Twitter, the responses fell into many different categories:
1. Teachers saying that they had to constantly parent other people's children, so they didn't see the big deal.
2. People saying it was their biggest irritation when anyone spoke to a child.
3. People saying that modern parents and children are awful and need a stern talking-to.
4. People who won't discipline others' children but still hate bad parents.
5. People concerned that a child who seems to be horribly misbehaving might actually have an autism spectrum disorder.
This fight seems particularly related to the kicking incident, as trouble sitting still or having a public meltdown is a common struggle for those children, and of course no one wants to humiliate a child with a disability. Perhaps the choice of hashtag, #KidsKickingOff, pushed the argument in this direction, because this final camp seemed to come out on top in the Twitter fight.
And they have a totally valid point, although it is equally true that children without any disorders are capable of misbehaving and a lot of parents, well, are not great parents. In the end, as with most online fights, nothing really got decided except that everyone was angry. There aren't any disorders that seem to cause littering at stoplights, of course, but the specter of accidentally shaming a child with a disability is a scary one. What do you think?