After a mom overheard two boys ridiculing her daughter at a community swimming pool, she jumped to her daughter’s defense in the name of good parenting. Her anecdote quickly went viral.
Jade North took her two children, a daughter and a son, swimming to the family’s local community pool. The kids began playing with toy sharks in the water, until two boys swam over and grabbed the toys for themselves.
Jade’s daughter kindly surrendered the shark toys, and the boys swam away. A few moments later, Jade overheard the same boys talking just a few feet away; they were insulting her daughter.
“My heart dropped,” Jade continued. “That was it for me. I’ve had enough of kids being cruel. My kids have been taught from early on to always practice kindness. Why is it so hard for others to teach the same?”
Jade walked to the edge of the pool, reclaimed the shark toys from the boys, challenged them for speaking cruelly about her daughter, and asked them to apologize. She then walked away to find the boys’ parents.
She didn’t have to walk far before a confrontation ensued.
“I pride myself on being a decent human being,” Jade explained. “I don’t like confrontation, and I don’t like yelling. But I also don’t like it when a grown adult defends bad behavior. Behavior that has clearly been learned at home. Behavior that hurt my child.”
“I won’t lie,” she admitted. “I saw red.”
Another mother swam over to Jade. She proceeded to explain that one of the boys was not her child before denying that either child had insulted the little girl. She then reprimanded Jade for shouting at the boys.
The argument continued as all pool attendees looked on. Jade’s final remark, however, put an end to the conversation between the two women: “My daughter was raised better,” Jade said.
Neither the mother nor her son ever apologized, Jade explained. Instead, the mother tauntingly hugged her son and told him she loved him in front of the daughter, before sending him off to go play with his friends.
“No repercussions for either of them,” she added. “No shame for what they had done.”
Jade concluded that the lack of reprimand reflected the type of environment that the boys were being raised in—an environment without proper explication of good behavior, or discipline when the occasion called for it.
“I am seeing red too for this story,” wrote another. “[Your daughter] is a beautiful girl,” they added, “and I hope when she looks in the mirror she sees her beauty inside and out.”
Jade concluded by saying that our children learn from us and they learn from the reactions of adults. “They learn from how we handle difficult situations ... Today, my child learned that I will always defend her,” she added.
“Raise kind children so that the world isn’t responsible for your failures,” she advised. “And if you can’t, be prepared for mothers like me to do it for you.”
