I even got to sit down, with my own little table sat viewing the English countryside whizz by outside. There were a couple of children with their young(ish) looking parents nearby. The mum sat on her phone, the dad relaxing with sunglasses on, a position he didn't move from the whole duration of my voyage.
These children were happily chattering away, crawling over their seats and playing with each other, an elderly couple a few seats down were smiling as they watched.
I happily sat down, looking forward to a calm, swift voyage home and possibly a mint or two; and then I realised the mistake I'd made choosing this particular carriage.
The mum started screaming at her kids to be quiet, so loud my eardrums actually hurt. The children were making noise sure, but their mother's response was so bizarrely disproportionate it took me by complete surprise, and by the shocked looks on the other passengers' faces, them too. This continued until I escaped at my stop, 40 minutes later, my eardrums possibly perforated and my head aching. Each time she'd yell, grab her kids and muscle them back into position, then promptly ignore then and return to her phone, at which point the children would start getting more energetic, restarting the cycle.
I'm young, I'm not a parent, but is this a normal way to react to children noisily playing around? Because to me this seems like a very ineffective way to discipline children, all she seemed to achieve was thoroughly annoying all those around her.
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