Mom talks about smacking son around during Baltimore riot

[Jesus Malverde]

BALTIMORE (AP) — A mother who was caught on video smacking her 16-year-old son around after he threw objects at police said when they made eye contact, he knew he was in trouble.

"I'm a no-tolerant mother. Everybody that knows me, know I don't play that," Toya Graham, a single mother of six, told CBS News. "He said, when 'I seen you,' he said, 'ma, my instinct was to run.'"

Graham received wide praise from people on social media and even the Baltimore police commissioner, who said more parents should have taken charge of their children like Graham after the riots started.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Mom-talks-about-smacking-son-around-during-6229919.php

[tazkcmo]

1. They'll beat and arrest her later.

If she had done the same thing absent the riots and the kid was throwing rocks at a tree she would have been arrested for child abuse and may not have lived through it. Screw the commissioner.

[marym625]

2. +1000

Absolutely no doubt about it.

Fuck The Police

[Protalker]

3. Parenting in display

The young man by his actions knew his mother had his best interest and did not retaliate. This is where change needs to start.

[TM99]

4. I am so fucking appalled at the many people who

are supporting this behavior.

She is a 'no-tolerant mother'. So she is an authoritarian whose first response to her child making her afraid is to beat him around?

His first instinct 'was to run'. If a kid came to me and told me that was their first response when they saw a parent coming, I would be investigating that much more deeply.

Let's play a little game shall we? What if this was a father with his teenage daughter.

"I am a no-tolerant father. Everybody that knows me, know I don't play that". Would there be the same level of support for that behavior and statement of authoritarian discipline?

What if the teenager daughter said her first instinct was to run from her father as he came at her to smack her around for her admittedly stupid youthful behavior.

This site would be on fire about violence towards women, authoritarian discipline, and using violence as a means of punishment. Could he use the excuse that he was just scared for his daughter's life?

Now let's talk about race. This bullshit perpetrates a very definite racist attitude that identifies black women as authoritarian and often times angry & violent women. My father was black and my mother is white. My grandmother was an outspoken woman who many thought acted like this. She did not. She never raised a hand to my father, his four brothers, or two sisters. When I was a damned unruly teenager, she got through to me. Not with violence, but taking me to the parts of town were violence was the norm. She showed me where friends and friend's kids had died. She showed me another way. She understood what MLK spoke of when he preached non-violent civil disobedience.

I am saddened and yet not surprised at all that this story has the support and traction is does. We can not condemn police violence on one hand and then applaud parental violence, no matter what the reasons or excuses given, on the other with a straight face. If we want to end the cycles of violence, we must speak out against all of it.

[PADemD]

5. What would you have done at the very moment

that you found your 16-year-old child rioting and throwing rocks at the police?

[TM99]

7. I sure as hell would not have struck them physically.

I would have talked them. I would have given them some sort of reasonable punishment depending upon their behavior with natural consequences instead of brutality first and an apology later for 'loving them so much'.

[underahedgerow]

6. Right? Because teenage kids always use great judgement and never, ever do stupid things

even when raised by the very best parents!

FFS judging this woman on one minute in her life is despicable. We don't know her, we don't know her son or their circumstances. We know one minute out of their life where she took control and knocked that kid up side the head to save his life. If my kid made that kind of BIG mistake, you can sure as hell bet that I, who have never, ever raised a hand to my child or anyone else, ever, would knock my kid up side the head if I caught her doing such stupid, stupid shit like this.

People of all types, mentalities & cultures get caught up in the heat of mob mentality. Kids sneaking off to join the army when their country is at war, villagers with their pitchforks to chase down the witches, 'mob mentality' is a fever that can grip a person leaving them irrational and feeling all powerful.

Is she a bad person? Is her son a bad person? We don't know, but I do appreciate a desperate, angry and ashamed mother doing the best she can for her kid in one single moment, in the most horrific situation imaginable, so just leave it alone until you've been in her shoes. We have no right to judge her entire life on this one single incident.

Damn. Anyone criticizing her and judging her should be ashamed of themselves. Knock it off and find something more important to do with your time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I posted this in the OTHER thread filled with people absolutely bent on shaming this woman and trying to call her a bad parent. Shame on any of you who dare judge without being in her shoes. None of us are perfect parents, none of us make the correct decisions every single day about every single thing in life. We all just do the best we can with what we have to work with. Some succeed better at some things than others. In this moment she made the best decision she could to effect the change that needed to happen in an absolute emergency.

In fact it's a shame a lot more other parents didn't get out there and drag their kids home by their ears, including the cops for trying to turn a bunch of high school students into 'thugs and criminals'. Their momma's should have knocked them up side the head as it turns out.

It's not like a time out in the naughty chair would have accomplished a whole lot.

[GOLGO 13]

8. I applaud & support this mother's actions

The son knew he was totally in the wrong as soon as he saw her. This is a child on the cusp of becoming a man and a possible statistic. She saved him from himself. Her actions were heroic & noble.

I salute you Ms. Graham.

[riderinthestorm]

9. Reminded me of a frightened parent smacking their child for running into the street

when they were a toddler.

I don't know anything about this woman but her sheer terror and horror at seeing her son there comes through palpably.

I don't agree that smacking your child is the correct first response but I've seen enough terrified parents whose first reaction is to punish their children after they've been pulled to safety from a life threatening situation, to doubt that first reaction.

And I wouldn't judge that one moment of their life as the window into the rest of their parenting.

[onyourleft]

10. I support...

...this woman wanting to get her son out of there. I would have done the same thing. However, there is no excuse for hitting anyone in the head, ever.

[snooper2]

12. wrong

BULLY GETS A HIT OF HIS VICTIM AND IMMEDIATELY STARTS CRYING

[99Forever]

11. Gee, wonder where this kid learned to use violence to solve problems?

Fucking brilliant.