What kind of a human being would scream at a small child, a toddler, telling the baby to "SHUT THE F**** UP!!!!"?

Someone who was probably treated this way by his own parents or someone who has not been taught good parenting skills or possibly someone who has problems with controlling himself and who may have anger issues or possibly someone who has narcissistic tendencies who doesn’t have a lot (or any) empathy for others.

All or some of the above.

Adding to what @Kardamom said, someone who maybe so stressed that they know of no other way to express themselves.

He may need a kind person to talk to, someone that can listen but also tell him to not talk to a child that way.

If there is the least suspicion of child abuse, please call Family Services right away, the child may need protection.

My dad. I’m surprised at your surprise. To me, that’s normal.

I’d set out to record another event. Pass the recording anonymously along to child services. They will pay a visit to Maxwell’s father very soon. He’ll be a regular stop for them. It would do them both a great deal of good.

My son is a Maxwell.

Man, it makes me crazy to run into that kind of behavior. I had a neighbor who called her toddler girl a bitch whenever the girl acted up in any way. I’ve seen people cussing at their small children in public, too. I try to remember that the parent may be at the end of their rope, that maybe they’re not always like that, but it’s hard not to jump in their faces and cuss them out. Which, you know, would probably not be helpful.

You guys…it’s pretty much status quo at those apartments. I doubt they’d even respond. I have had zero luck with them in the past. It’s sickening, but all that calling CPS would do is get my daughter into trouble, maybe serious trouble with the neighbors. She’s all alone, with her kids. No one to protect her.

I had a daycare, and a child I was watching, who was perfectly potty trained, started soiling her pants after her mother’s boyfriend got out of prison and was living with them. I met him once. Mom brought him with to pick up the child. He was a huge, hulking, frighting man with an obviously low IQ. He leered at me, almost literally drooling. He scared the crap out of me…and now he knew where I lived. I saw clear, clear signs of child abuse. I called CPS, even though I was scared shitless of him myself and I too, was alone with no protection. CPS did nothing.

Clearly, a method of parenting that is not currently in fashion.

@zenvelo I got so stressed out with the kids once I locked myself in the bathroom wanting to scream! (I figured it was better than locking THEM in the bathroom, which was the next step. :) But no matter what, I never, EVER cussed at them.

The most hopeful theory is that the parent was just extremely frustrated. To scream at him like this is a pretty terrible thing, and I hate that parents think that it is acceptable to yell at an innocent kid. I guess the child will have to learn to cope because, unfortunately, there’s nothing he can do. He is helpless.

I know @dxs.

I’ve heard lots of screaming kids, but really hesitate to call the police because my middle daughter (actually, the one who I’ve been babysitting for) was a screamer. It was crazy. I did time outs mostly, but if the transgression was pretty heinousness that it called for more than 15 minutes in the hall, I’d send them to their room (I thought more than 15 minutes in the hall wasn’t quite fair to a kid under about 7 years old. At least in their room they could move about while being denied the opportunity to play or whatever.) They couldn’t come out until the time was up, but if they were still crying they had to stay in until they had gotten themselves under control. Then, when they came out, we’d have a little talk about what happened, what they could have done differently, etc. It worked on the kids….except my middle daughter. About half the time she’d work herself up into a rage. Many times she’d turn a 5 minute time out in the hall into a 45 minute rage. I’d give her 5 minutes in the hall and she’d just lose it, getting progressively more upset until I sent her to her room. She’d scream for 45 minutes, scream and scream and scream things like, “Don’t do this too me!!!! PLEASE DON’T DO THIS TO ME!!!!” I wasn’t doing anything other than sitting in the living room listening to her screaming in her bedroom desperately wondering what was going on. I didn’t know what to do. I never did quite figure that out. Man, if I’d been some passerby, though, I would have thought the kid was getting drawn and quartered.

I have called the police a couple of times on others because the crying and screaming from the house just sounded…..off. That’s all I could say to the police. “Something’s wrong.” They never got there in time to hear what I heard, though.

I think you’re getting to see where the guy got his parenting skills. :/
Parents yell at their kids a lot at my store. I think it’s cultural.

What kind of culture would that be @Nullo?

Yes, that is appalling. Some people might even be outraged at your walking outside to smoke while you were supposed to be watching the grandkids.
I am just saying everyone has different points of outrage.

One who sounds like a ticking timebomb and from whom, despite how badly you feel for the poor child, you keep as much distance as possible.

I used to be an apartment manager. One of the saddest (but funniest) moments I ever heard was when I heard a mother screaming at her daughter, “I try to teach you to act like a fuckin’ lady!”

We had a neighbor kid that his father called David Youlittle Bastard as his name. He was constantly yelling at the kid. Guess how he turned out?

[removed by me]

An immature person used to his uncontrollable anger.
That poor shild will get seriously hurt one day by him.
Or worse…grow up like him.
Years ago there was a story about a neighborhood apartment complex that had a family that fought and yelled every night. Everyone in that complex did nothing for the 10 year old girl that got beaten daily and eventually was killed by her own father in a rage.
After that the article says that everyone in that complex moved away.

My Daughter-In-Law does that. She doesn’t mistreat the children, but she is a yeller and foul language is normal to her. She thought it was funny when one of the first words her children repeated was the F word. She yelled “Where the F*** are my keys” in the Chuck E Cheese parking lot after a toddler birthday party and one of the parents said “HEY” in an angry voice

Maybe this was a parent at the end of his rope and usually doesn’t act like this.

Sad, and pretty reflective of a very immature person. It is possible as @chyna said though that this man has other issues going on and it was out of character for him in that moment.
Most likely not though.

I have a similar situation with my adopted cockatoo. Every time he screeches, immediately afterward he will say in a nasty guttural voice, “shut your fucking mouth!” Guess he had some of the same treatment.

Maybe he wasn’t talking to the kid, or maybe a demon was perched atop his television, or maybe santa clause was fucking the tooth fairy on his kitchen table…noisily.
Oh wait, none of that crap matters, he’s just a cunt, an epic failure of a parent who needs a right good kick up the arse.

I, too, am surprised at your surprise.

But then, I’m pretty much proud of myself for never beating my child with a wooden spoon, so that tells you something of my own upbringing.

I’ve told my son I’m going to throw him out the window, and if he stops right now I’ll open it first.

That usually makes him giggle long enough to distract him from whatever he was doing that I was upset with in the first place.

I do realise that from the outside, a threat to throw a 4-year old out the window would sound utterly insane.

I used to threaten to duct tape my kids to the ceiling fan and turn it on high!!!. I think they actually hoped I’d do it some time. :)

Yeah, people either a) get angry with a child for using the cuss words that they themselves use on a daily basis, or b) they think it’s cute. I never heard my folks cuss. When I was about 13 my mom shocked me by sharing with me that when Dad was upset with someone, another adult, he’d call them a “shit bird!” LOL! A shit bird! But I’d never heard that word come from either of their mouths so it shocked me as well as made me grin.

Human beings overwhelmed and exhausted (and perhaps without support from spouse, parents and friends) by the very hard job of child rearing.

@filmfann “Some people might even be outraged at your walking outside to smoke while you were supposed to be watching the grandkids.” And I suppose there could be those that are outraged that I put the babies down in their own room, in their own cribs, while I went some place else, like to the kitchen and washed dishes, when I was supposed to be watching them.

@mattbrowne I guess. I could say I’ve been overwhelmed and exhausted, without support from spouse, parents, family or friends—which I have been—but I never resorted to simply screaming at my kids and certainly never cussed at them. Me thinks, that for some, it’s just the standard response. For some, they think it’s the easiest way to handle it. It may be, as far as getting frustration out of their system, but it certainly doesn’t help the situation, or the kids, and actually makes things worse…harder for everyone in the end. But….I was lucky too. I had a good role model in my parents.

@Dutchess_III When my son and I are alone, he’s allowed to express himself however he likes. One of his favourite songs has the line “I’m not a man, I’m a fucking beast!” I’m totally going to take him to karaoke one night.

Outside of “our time”, he knows that he has to restrict his words. He knows exactly which words those are, and which situations he’s not allowed to use them in.

I try not to make assumptions about people based on what I overhear.

Now, the other day I was in the car, stopped at a red light. The (at least 6’, 240 lbs.) guy in front of me got out of the driver’s seat, opened the rear driver’s side door, and proceeded to beat the small child (short enough that I couldn’t see their head, though I was in a truck and they in a small sedan) five or six times, before getting back in the car and speeding away. I was so shocked they were gone before I regained the presence of mind to think about taking down the license plate number.

I’ve been thinking (then I have to go babysit!) that our parenting reflects the parenting that we were raised with. However, I know that I improved on my folks, and for SURE they improved on their upbringing. Both my parents were raised in utter poverty. They made a conscious decision to rise above it. I know many Jellies here have risen above extremely bad parenting. Why is it that some people are able to do that, and others aren’t?

@Seek_Kolinahr That is horrible. I was in the grocery store once and this mother had her kid, 4 or 5, parked in the cart…not the seat part but in the tote part. The kid sat down…and happened to sit on a 5 pound thing of hamburger. The mother hauled off and slapped the shit out of the baby for it. Her mother was with her (so 3 generations) and she saw my horrified face and said something to her daughter, who said, loud and clear “I don’t give a fuck!!”

This world is hell for some kids, and they’re helpless.

@Dutchess_III Desire, mostly.

I, personally, don’t have the “Well, my mom did XYZ and I turned out OK” attitude. I am clinically depressed, have zero self esteem, and have panic attacks when I have to make a phone call to someone I don’t personally know. I’m not a serial killer or a child molester, but my parents don’t get an “A” for effort.

I actively want to not become my parents. As awesome as my dad was, he felt capable of cutting off contact with me at my mother’s wish. Maybe it was easier than fighting, but I can’t imagine choosing not to talk to my son for almost 20 years, no matter who was standing between us.

I don’t strike my child, because I don’t see a need for it. It’s much more effective to restrict his video game time, or take away his before-bed cartoon, or cancel after-dinner ice cream.

But you know what? It’s really hard to not become your parents. It goes against instinct – nature and nurture combined. Couple that with the fact that those of us who do probably don’t have any help in so doing, and I can see why some wouldn’t have the desire to ride that road.

@Seek_Kolinahr
But you know what? It’s really hard to not become your parents. It goes against instinct

I think it’s weird that that is true. I am nothing like my parents (or anyone else in my family) whatsoever, in general beliefs and parenting methods not that I plan on parenting anyone. It has outcasted me from my family a lot. In fact, I use my parents as a negative roll model almost daily. I think on my own, and I thought that that is what everyone did, but it seems like it isn’t true. The post above that I had removed was about how I disagreed with @Kardamom when saying that children mostly mirror their parents. But then, I considered people other than myself and realized that I can think of many (real-life) instances of children that mirrored their parents. Even Harry Chapin agrees.

@Dutchess_III One of those cultures where you scream at your kids, of course.

Ugh, idiots that don’t treat their child as a little person, worthy of respect and happiness.

I wish more people would choose not to have children, or at least evaluate themselves before procreating. :(

A parent yelling at a child isn’t the end of the world. I’ve witnessed the results of much worse behavior.

On a funnier note, my husband and my oldest stepdaughter love to tell about the time he was chasing his youngest daughter. She was running full speed and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Don’t beat me, Daddy. Please, don’t beat me daddy. Don’t beat me, daddy,” while they were having a foot race.

It’s not the yelling @bkcunningham. It’s the cussing at them….calling the babies “bitches” and “bastards” and “little assholes.” It’s just sick. Sick.

@Seek_Kolinahr Wow. You are incredible….I just wonder what makes some people consciously think about how they want to behave as a parent, and others just blindly do what their parents did.

@dxs It’s a shocker when you get upset with your kids and don’t even realize that you’re handling it the way your mom would, even if you’d been telling yourself since you had the first one that you wouldn’t do it. I’ve told this before, but when my daughter was about 7 I was upset with her over something and she said, ‘Mom…it’s OK if you’re mad but you don’t have to hurt my heart!” That stopped me dead in my tracks, because that’s exactly what my Mom did. If she got mad at you she made you feel like the most useless, worthless thing on this earth. She’d feel bad about it later, and try to make it up, though, and sometimes even apologize, so I give her that.

Oh, and I practiced on my dog before I had kids. It’s easy to assume you’ll get the results you want if you yell, but I had a theory it wasn’t the volume…it was the consequences. My dog used to jump on the couch and my husband would yell at her to get down. He’d have to get up and threaten her before she’d get down. I thought “There HAS to be a better way.” So I started saying “Snuffy, get off the conch,” in a calm voice. If she didn’t get off right away I’d give her a swat on the rump. By the third time she’d get off right away when she heard those words. No further follow up was needed and we never had to yell again.

No it’s not appropriate. I’m in the ‘perhaps there’s more going on here’ camp though. If this was the first time you’ve heard this, perhaps you can ask if they’re okay next time you see them. Not in a judging way but sincerely to offer an ear or some support if they’re stressed out. If it happens, phone child services. Even if they are stressed out, or if they don’t know any better because they’ve never had any good parenting examples, do something about it. How many kids are dead because nobody said anything to anybody.

I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him. He was in the apartment. And, like I said above CPS wouldn’t do anything….so what if a guy is cussing a baby out. That’s a far cry from the abuse they deal with. Also, it just might serve to get my daughter in trouble and she’s a single, unprotected Mom.

You can still report it. If anything ever happens perhaps someone will do something about the CPS ignoring such calls. Really, if it was or is as bad as you’re suggesting, I couldn’t just ignore it. Either the parent or the child or both need some support or help.

That was meant to say ‘if it happens regularly’ further up too.

It didn’t sound like the child was being hit or anything. It was just verbal abuse.
The CPS system is broken, @Bellatrix. It’s flat broken. See my post above

@Dutchess_III – I didn’t say that it was okay for a parent without support from spouse, parents, family or friends, to scream at his or her child this way. I also didn’t say that all single parents without support from spouse, parents, family or friends, resort this kind of screaming. What I meant was that if it happens, these circumstances could be one reason.