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This is actually about a home ed related topic, I'm not just ranting aimlessly about random people. We were recently at the barbers, my husband was getting a hair cut and as usualy with the kids being with us the hairdressers asks if its a non-school day. We went through the motions and she said a typical line you hear from people when you tell them which is "oh god, I couldn't do that!". It's not something I take personally or offence to because it's not for everyone, and I don't mean that to sound judgey or patronising. But this woman openly admitted to being horrible to her teenage son to the point of making him cry, and seemed quite pleased with herself. I was astounded! I didn't know what to say so I decided to keep quiet. She then went on to tell me she has enough trouble with homework as it was without the thought of being with him (her son) all day. Continuing to give us an example of her actions she told us that he was supposed to write out an essay in his own words from the the article in a text book. But instead of writing it in his own words he just copied it out. Now although clearly this would have been obvious to the teacher and no doubt got a detention over it, as a parent the obvious advice would be, and I'm sure you'll agree, would be to point out the fact he'll probably get into some form of trouble from the teacher so to write it how he was supposed to. However, kids don't always listen and if he chose not to then he would have to learn the hard way. But no. Not the hairdresser Mum. Oh no no no, she proceeded to tell me how she took the paper from him, ripped it up in front of him and chucked it at him yelling at him to do it again and making him cry. Yes. You read that correctly, and she was quite proud of herself about it. At this point, the co-worker haridresser walks in and she calls out to her "you tell them!" the co-worker asks "what's that?" hairdresser Mum replies "tell them what I'm like with Harry" (her son). Co-worker replies with disgust in her voice "Oh yeah, you're horrible to him, you make him cry all the time". Then hairdresser Mum just laughs. Disgusted at her attitude all I said was "Well if you home educated you wouldn't have that problem". Thinking that would be the end of the heartbreaking conversation she proceeded with "Nah, if I homeschooled I'd have him up at 7am and start at 9am just like school and not let him get away with anything!". At this point I just felt sad. Now, I know you can't tell people how to raise their kids, and some kids do need more disapline than others. But I don't see how her actions on that occassion was valid. He's a kid, they all do that kind of thing at some point, right? Certainly not worth being made to cry about it. I would even go as far as to call it mental abuse. Yep, I said it! Here's why. If she had been having a bad day or he was giving her a hard time and she just snapped then that's understandable, not right, but understandable. But to tell strangers about it and be pleased with herself, there's something wrong there! In my opinion. Thankfully, by this point she had finished cutting my husbands hair. We paid and left and although the haircut was good (hard to find in our town) I will never go back there. Honestly I was so upset by it, I couldn't stop thinking about it and even writing about it now riles me. All I hope for him is that he does well at his chosen path and gets away from her as quickly as possible, and hopefully won't be too damaged in the future.