Last week, the internet was abuzz with the news of Charlize Theron mistreating her four year old son, to the extent that she was labeled the ‘Monster Mom’.
This post comes very soon after my post about abusive parenting. But being a celebrity brings it more to the limelight, Charlize Theron had to suffer from media glaze, anger and wrath recently while picking him up from a dance class.
Charlize has recently broken off with her long time beau Sean Pen and now is a single mom with young kids to deal with.
In this case, if you look at the pictures carefully, you see a truant kid and a hassled mom pulling her to the car.
If your kid does decide to lie down on the road next to your car, I guess you won’t just let him be, right?
There is also a picture of her yelling at the kid. All of us lose it at some point or the other. That doesn’t make us a ‘monster’! I remember how many times when my kids were toddlers, they would just throw a fit at the airport(thanks to the odd hours of international flights) and would just lie down on the floor and no amount of pleading, scaring them would help. One stranger crossing the scene, would just ask them politely and lo, they woudl get up and behave. Luckily, there was no media around me when I was trying to threaten my kids with fictional stories of the police coming and taking them if they didn’t behave in public. Luckily, I didn’t have to care for the hundreds of paparazi cameras horading at me when I am having a meltdown. It’s a luxury the Charlize can’t afford.
This is what I feel however, on the other hand there is a school of thought which strongly proclaims that reprimanding a child is fine, but you need to define boundaries. Hitting a child, insulting a child, dragging him/her in public can have long term effect on his/her self-esteem and definitely not advisable.
We would love to know what would go with or how would you have handled this situation better?
