Bad parenting - when should we intervene?
When a stranger's parenting comes with a side of piña coladas and toxic masculinity, should we say something?
I didn’t know whether I should share this. See, I’m far from the perfect parent. I’ve been known to bribe my child with chocolate so I can shop in peace. I rarely wash my son’s hair because he hates it and I’m often too tired to insist. I also hate to be that Mum who enters a public space and calls out another parent. I love the camaraderie of this club, as dorky as that sounds. The conspiratorial smile, the sharing of snacks, those four reassuring words “we’ve all been there”.
But on a recent family holiday I found myself wondering, when is parenting so bad that we can’t shrug it off? Picture the scene. I rock up with my family to the poolside of our all inclusive resort in Crete. There are toddlers everywhere because we’re holidaying in term time, while we still can. Most of the little darlings are clad head to toe in enough inflatables to keep the Titanic afloat. Grown ups are milling around them, guiding them carefully in and out of the water.
I clock an older boy teetering on the edge of a deep pool, with no responsible adult in sight. He’s five. He says he can’t swim. He asks my eldest if they can be friends. After half an hour of playing together, dangerously close to the water, I ask about a parent. He gestures towards a stocky figure lounging about as far away from the pool as possible. “My Dad”. I squint and see a cocktail in the guy’s hand, with three more drinks lined up. He’s on the phone, chatting animatedly. My first thought was – maybe he’s a stressed single parent, looking for some downtime in the midst of unrelenting parenting. I’ll swoop in and protect his son from drowning. I can be this dude’s hero, he’ll be so grateful!
Not a chance. Over the course of that afternoon, the Dad gets visibly more inebriated as he staggers from pool to bar to toilet. He neither acknowledges me, nor his son. The boys want ice cream. I tell the five year old to ask his Dad if he’s allowed. I can hear the cursing from afar.
Later, something terrible happens. Dad decides to teach his son to swim. What I mean is, he throws a ball in the deep water and then he throws in the boy. Over the Dad’s shouts of “man up!” and other insults that I won’t repeat here, the five year old struggles to stay afloat. He starts to cry, desperately treading water. The Dad repeats a litany of f-words and “NO, you swim to the ball”. By now, all the other adults around the pool are watching silently, as horrified as us. The boy finally makes it out of the water and is left shivering on the poolside. The Dad lurches drunkenly back to his lounger, clearly proud of his day’s parenting.
I later find out that Dad and son are on holiday alone. With no exaggeration, Dad is having over 20 cocktails per day and there’s no sober adult to take over the reins when he presumably passes out. Now our holiday is now about keeping my son’s new friend safe. I take him to the toilet and wait outside, so he doesn’t get lost on his way back. We invite him to lunch and he throws food. I finally get my youngest child to nap and the boy shouts “WAKE UP!” directly into his pram. We attempt some parenting by proxy by being more disciplined with our own child. But our son’s behaviour is also deteriorating, the longer he spends with this new friend. And then I spot moments of tenderness, like when he reaches for my son’s hand and they skip off together. My anger melts away. I remember that he’s only five years old.
The whole experience left me feeling conflicted. Of course, it was impossible not to feel incredibly sad for this little boy. The years in store of toxic masculinity, of desperately trying to impress his awful Father. Or worse. I’ll admit that I was also peeved at having to look after a stranger’s child, and one that was behaving appallingly at that. I’m ashamed to say that I made sure people knew he wasn’t ours.
My husband and I mulled over our options each night, whispering in our hotel room so as not to wake our children. Should we report the Dad? To whom – the hotel staff? The Greek authorities? But what will happen to the boy then? We also discussed confronting the Dad. In the end, we agreed that there was nothing we could do. Nothing would change the inevitable course of events. We spent the last days of our holiday elsewhere, essentially turning a blind eye. Doing nothing.
Since returning from holiday a week ago, I’ve replayed this situation in my head many times. I’m not sure that we did the right thing. I’d really like to hear if you have experienced anything similar and how you approached it? With the summer holidays approaching, it feels like our experience may not be a one-off.