Yep! That too!. The worst behaved kids have the worst behaved parents…but the parents don’t see it that way. All they see are they have bratty kids, but it’s the kid’s fault, not theirs.
When I lived in the big, three story house, where each floor was an apartment, some horrible woman moved in the floor above mine. She had an infant and a 5 year old daughter. She screamed at them constantly. I’ll never forget, the baby was crying and she screamed at her 5 year old to “Shut that fucking brat up!!” like it was the 5 year old’s baby! I remember hearing that poor child desperately trying to stand her ground but…there was just no hope.
One morning, early, the woman woke me up screaming at the kid. She said something like, “Someday I’ll be dead and THEN you’ll be sorry.” It was sickening.
I am not a confrontational person, but that upset me so much I had to do something.
I got up and went on my back deck to wait for them to come down (they had to cross my deck to get to the stairs leading to her apt.) As they came down I said, “Ma’am, you woke me up with your screaming this morning.”
She whipped around and snarled at her daughter and said, “Now look what you did!! You woke our neighbor up!”
I said, “No, Ma’am. Your voice was the only one I heard. Your daughter is fine. I never hear her. Only you.” I kind of gave a slight nod, trying to convey, “Hang in there honey,” to her daughter, who was watching me carefully.
She huffed away, dragging the kid after her snarling, “Now you got me in trouble! Are you happy???”
It was SO freaking sad. So sad.