Moms Clap Back At Child-Free Man Who Went Viral For Shaming A Mom At The Park

A debate has sprung up on TikTok after a man posted about an incident he witnessed while walking through a park.

In his video, he explains that he saw a mom glued to her phone while her son was trying to get her attention. Eventually, he claims the mom ended up screaming at her kid “like a velociraptor,” opening admitting that he is judging her for doing so.

He also claims he’s “trying to help,” but I don’t really see how getting on the internet and blasting this mom to his millions of followers is helping anyone except himself and his view count.

In fact, he’s just perpetuating more B.S. surrounding what moms “should” be doing. He even dismisses several commenters who wondered if maybe this mom just needed a break. He doesn’t think she deserves one, I guess? He claims that if she has the “energy” to scream, she has the energy to watch her kid go down the slide.

Several content creators and moms stitched his video on TikTok, defending the mom in question and trying to find active solutions to the issue at hand (y’know, instead of just shaming the sh*t out of her with zero context).

Content creator and mom Abby was one of the first to speak up against this guy’s sweeping judgement.

“If you have never been a parent or specifically a default parent, AKA mom, I don’t think it’s wise to come on the internet and start shaming a mom,” she said.

“Because if you have never been the default parent, and you don’t know what it’s like to be constantly needed all day, every day ... if you’re not the one consistently and constantly regulating your child’s emotional needs while also having to regulate your own, which also likely means that you’re having to relearn how to do that because you weren’t taught that as a child, I think it’s wise if you pipe down.”

She goes on to point out that his guy witnessed literally one minute of this mom’s life — 60 seconds — and decided to go home and hop on his TikTok account and run this woman through the mud for yelling at her kid with absolutely zero understanding of her life.

Later, we learn that he thinks he can shame her and blame her because he, too, was once a child, and since he had a childhood once, he can make these kinds of claims about a mom he doesn’t know in the slightest. He is so very sure of himself, doubling down on this notion that he can decide this mom is in the wrong because he was once a little boy who was yelled at.

Popular content creator and mom TikTok user Elizabeth Ward also weighed in on this debate, taking a more empathic approach to the man’s rant.

“My heart just breaks for kids who feel like an inconvenience to their parents and maybe that mother only ever yelled at her kids and did not give two craps about him. I suspect that’s not the case,” she says.

Ward goes on to explain that she grew up with one of those “velociraptor” moms who made her feel small and like a total inconvenience to her life.

“I could feel the rage in this guy’s video. If you watch to the end, you see that the reason he’s triggered is because he grew up with a mother who was probably like that, and we are allowed to say that it sucked and it wasn’t fair and it is not healthy,” she continues.

She recognizes that constantly screaming at your kids is not healthy, and there are few moms in the world who feel stellar about themselves after losing it on their kids. However, instead of blaming and shaming moms, Ward says, we need to find solutions.

“I don’t think there’s many moms out there in the world that screaming like velociraptors, feel proud of it, but the problem is society just points fingers at moms and is like, ‘Shame on you! You’re a horrible person.’ Doesn’t consider what it takes, the pressure of being the entire village for your kid while struggling yourself,” she says.

“You have no idea if that’s the first time she yelled at her kids like that or the 50,000th time that day. Nobody’s asking how can we support that mother. Wondering if she has access to health care. I wonder if her partner’s supportive. Wonder if she has anyone in her life. I wonder if she has been around that kid’s needs all day, every day, for years on end, and she’s going out to doctors and trying to find help, and maybe he has behavior problems, and maybe she needs things. Everyone just says, ‘Well, it’s your kid, you figure it out.’”

She then speaks directly to the man who shamed this park mom, asking him to maybe do some work on himself sensing there could be some major underlying issues as to why this upset him so much to the point he felt the need to record the video.

“I have a feeling you went through some really hard stuff growing up. I did, too. It wasn’t our fault ... but it’s our responsibility to heal. We don’t keep passing that on to the next generation. Maybe you’re never going to have kids so you’re like, That doesn’t apply to me. Fine, but ripping on mothers who are using their phone to escape — not only doesn’t help, doesn’t get that kid what he needs, but really shows how much work you maybe need to do on your own triggers,” she says.

“Because someone who gets that angry just watching someone do something they disapprove of? I can’t imagine who would be the type of parent who would never blow their cool and always pay attention.”

One of the more humorous and straight-forward responses came from mom Nicki Marie who decided to give this mom the benefit of the doubt because she knows and admits that she’s been that “velociraptor” mom before.

“So, he defined their entire life based on that one moment that he saw. Can you imagine?” she asks rhetorically before admitting that she, too, loses her cool sometimes. “There is no such thing as one moment defining a mother and child.”

She then addresses the comment section on the guy’s video which, surprisingly, has hundreds of people supporting his claims, even moms who are so shocked that a mother could do such a thing! Let me clutch my pearls!

“And listen, I’m the first person who would be like, ‘Oh my God, she’s not watching her son, and he’s really excited for her to see him go down,’ but have I also on very, very small occasions been that mom, you’re trying your f*cking hardest to be present every minute of every f*cking day for your kids, and I’m just here to defend,” she says.

She says she’s “happy” for all those moms who swear up and down that they never, ever are on their phones during the day, but she’s choosing to give this park mom the benefit of the doubt.

“We’re trying, and I am going to choose to believe that that mom was having a tough moment and that she and her kid went home, maybe had some dinner together. Maybe she said, ‘Sorry for f*cking flipping out on you earlier,’ and they’re hugging and they’re cuddling in bed, watching f*cking Paw Patrol. OK?” she jokes.

“I want to believe that ’cause I’ve been that mom, too, and I’m here to say, with the comment section, you are not all perfect. I am not perfect, but I’m a good f*cking mom, and I sometimes flip out on my kids.”

Watching a parent yell and scream at their kid in public or otherwise is uncomfortable, yes. Witnessing a child be ignored can be a sad thing to see, of course. No one wants to see anything but a shining happy family (unless your favorite movie is Hereditary or something).

Yelling and screaming at kids constantly is not a healthy family unit. There’s no question about that, and no mom out there wants that kind of vibe for their household. Trust me! Also, are there probably some deeper issues with millennials and phone addiction? Sure. However, we cannot make any sort of assumptions about this mom, whether you’re a single child-free person or a mother of five.

The moms clapping back have really good points: It’s time for fewer snap judgements and more empathy.