I agree with what you are saying, but I'll just point out that being a parent is really hard. Being a parent of screaming children that are bored waiting in a car that isn't moving is really really hard. It could make you do some stupid stuff.
This cannot be overstated. For many kids what they need to do is scream it out, depending on the age and the situation. Trying to suppress a child when they are acting out is often detrimental to future behavior from the child. But man is it hard to let a kid scream it out. Especially in public. And people just don't understand.
I remember seeing a poor exasperated mother with 3 young children, all under maybe 5, and the middle one, must have been maybe 3 or 4, was acting out in a big way, didn't get whatever it was she wanted. Really the mother needed to just ignore the kid and show her that it would garner no attention to freak out. But it was obviously an uncomfortable situation and there is no manual on how to raise kids. So the mother finally snapped, took the girl by the shoulders, and yelled into her face "will you please calm down!" Yep, didn't calm the kid down, made it worse. Man these are difficult situations, but every parent goes through something like this.
I may have told this story here before, and now this is an inside joke in our family, and I actually told this story at my daughter's wedding, which was hilariously embarrassing for her, but she loved it. Of course I redeemed myself by singing at her wedding and she didn't know I was going to do that. She had said she wanted me to sing at her wedding since she was 12, and when I actually did, well the waterworks were going full-on.
Anyway, the story.
So I was 29 years old. I had just undergone major surgery for my cancer and survived a NDE in the summer of 1999. We had moved to Loma Linda California to go to the Loma Linda University Medical Center for proton therapy, a kind of radiation therapy, for my final treatments for my cancer. My kids were all little then. My oldest was 6 and beginning 1st grade, and he stayed home in Utah with my parents to start school, and my youngest at the time was 2. My middle one, my 4 year old daughter, was beyond precocious. She was one of these kids that developed way too fast. Crawling at just a couple months old, walking at 6 months, speaking in full sentences at a year old, that kind of thing. At 4 she was reading at a 2nd grade level and just consumed every bit of information she could. My wife bought this set of cassettes, VHS, and books called Brite Music to use as activities with the kids. They had indoor activities and outdoor activities where they could yell and get the energy out, stuff like that. It was pretty cool. Well one of the outdoor activities was what to do if a stranger approached you, and I found out soon after that my daughter learned this all too well.
On Thursday nights in Redlands CA, they had a market night in the old downtown district. In '99 this was relatively new (they actually held it every year since until the pandemic killed it for good...very sad), and we had fun those nights taking the kids there, getting kettle corn, and seeing all the booths, watching people, etc. Well one market night they had a pony ride there. My 4 year old daughter obviously wanted to go on the ponies, but it was getting late by the time we saw it, I was exhausted due to my treatments, and the guy was starting to close up. So we told her no. Predictably, she flipped out, screaming, falling on the ground, crying. So I told her, look, you can settle down and we can stay for a few more minutes and get a treat, or I can take you back to the van. She laid down and refused to move, ponies or bust apparently, so I stood her up, took her by the hand, and dragged her down the alleyway, away from the market night, toward our dark colored van parked behind one of the buildings.
Sounds kosher, right? Some big bald dude dragging a little 4 year old girl away from the crowds down a dark alley, no way this can end badly, right?
Halfway down the alley, still in full view of the people at the market night, she gets real quiet then suddenly starts frantically tugging at my hand and screaming "THIS IS NOT MY DADDY!!" over and over. I had a moment of indecision....do I let her go, basically admitting she isn't my kid to anyone looking...do I pick her up and cover her mouth and run, well that would be worse....so I just gritted my teeth, held her hand tight, and kept walking at a measured pace to the van. Finally she stopped screaming (that is the purpose for ignoring stuff like that, it shows them they won't get the response they want so they stop), and I buckled her into her child seat in the van, leaving the door open. I opened the front passenger door and sat on the passenger seat to wait for my wife, and the cops as I imagined they were probably on their way. Good thing cell phones weren't really a thing then or 200 people would have probably already called 911. By now my daughter was quiet and I was DONE, if you know what I mean.
A well-meaning group, 2 couples just leaving market night, had been at their car, heard her screaming, came over to investigate, and got to the van about when I did. The women stood behind the van, and the men approached me, asked me if everything was all right. I looked at my daughter, who now had a look of shame on her face, staring at the floor, and I said "if you want her, you can have her." I showed the men some pictures we had taken a week or so earlier and explained the situation, that her mother was coming soon with the other kids, etc. I offered to give them my keys.
The women walked up to my daughter and talked to her for a second, then got big smiles and asked her "so this is your daddy, right?" My daughter nodded slightly and whispered "uh-huh", still looking at the floor. Then the woman asked "you are in big trouble now, aren't you?" She nodded gravely and eeked out another "uh-huh". The women chuckled, the guys wished me luck with her when she was a teenager, and they left.
I will never let her forget it.