Do Public Displays Of Aggression Mirror Home Life?

I was standing outside a supermarket the other day when a six-year-old ran past his mother onto a busy road and narrowly missed getting hit by a car.

He just wanted to show his dad, parked on the other side, his new magazine. In those moments, I inhaled that mother’s fear. Every mother’s worst nightmare.

Without thinking, the mother tore across the road and spanked his hand hard.

‘You naughty boy!‘ she screamed, the tears pouring down her face. I never judged this mother; her terror was indisputable. Although he came out unscathed, I can only imagine, much later, her crying herself to sleep, thinking of what may have been.

This brings me to my next incident, where my family and I were out walking our dog recently when we encountered a ‘respectable family’ with three small children.

I’m not going to dignify the incident by describing it, but in summary my dog was repeatedly kicked in the head, and I was assaulted by the mother of this family. I have many emotions over this experience, but one thing that mostly got me thinking was;

Do public displays of aggression play out at home? So then, is aggression a learned behaviour?

Are they mirrored in one’s daily life or are they one off occurrences where strangers indulge inappropriately? Are people under such tremendous pressure at work and at home to be good, that they lose the rag in unrestricted territory?

What upset me was that this person did it in front of her three children, and my own three. Can someone just explode into an isolated moment of frenzied madness? I don’t begrudge this woman, she’s clearly got her troubles and I feel sad for her, but more than anything I feel so sorry for those three children that were witness to their mother’s shameful and disgraceful conduct.

For my kids, as shocking as it was, they saw their mother retaliate in the same fashion I would expect from them in a similar situation. My only retort to this ‘lady’ (I use the term loosely) was what a lovely example she was to her children!

We wish to live in a society where ethics and basic values like respect are upheld. Where we do as we say and not as we feel like.