Mom Karen Alpert ‘Confronts’ Stranger Who Disciplined Son In Epic Open Letter


When mom Karen Alpert took her 4-year-old son Holden and his friend to the playground, she never expected that another mom would have the audacity to discipline her son.

Holden was so eager to take over the monkey bars that he cut in ahead of others without waiting his turn, and another mother saw it and asked him to stop.

“He’s a nice, sweet kid, but he really wasn’t stopping to think about this other child,” Alpert admitted to Good Morning America.

Karen Alpert, author of the book I Want My Epidural Back, said she saw it going on in the corner of her eye and noticed the other woman reacted before she had a chance to. To that, Alpert had a clear message that ended up going viral.

“Thank you.”

“You walk over, and you’re so angry at them for doing that instead of thanking the other parents for helping,” Alpert said when describing why she penned this now epic blog post on her blog BabySideburns.

Here’s how the open letter started, and you’ll see right away why it has won the hearts of parents everywhere.

“Dear stranger who disciplined my kiddo at the playground today,

“Woah woah woah, lemme get this straight. So today your daughter was trying to do the monkey bars? Okay, got it. And my kid was trying to do the monkey bars too? Simple enough. But since your kiddo is new to the monkey bars and takes forever and sometimes gets scared and stops right in the middle, my son had no choice but to go past her and sometimes bump her a little and she would fall and be all sensitive and start crying? Hmmm. Alrighty then.

“Now before I continue, I just want to say that yes, I know I should have been there when this all went down, but unfortunately I was on the other side of the playground with my son’s friend who was crying. So no, I wasn’t there, but does that give you a right to discipline my kiddo? Does that give you the right to talk to him sternly and tell him to knock it off? Does that give you the right to act like you are the person in charge when he is actually MY child?

“Ummmm, yes. YES IT DOES.”

Karen Alpert makes her point throughout the rest of the post that children do not have the right to defy rules of basic courtesy just because their parent isn’t around to react, and she told GMA that she hopes her post will give more parents the courage to step up and take on a more authoritative role when it’s necessary (i.e. in the face of a misbehaving child).

To date, it appears that other parents are getting that message as Alpert’s post has been shared on Facebook more than 28,000 times as of this post. It has also received 374,000 likes, 61 recommendations on Google+, 1,081 shares on Twitter, and 815 on Pinterest.

Most of the commenters were thrilled with the rug-pull that Karen Alpert threw their way, fearing at first that the mom of two was going to be like a “typical” modern parent and adopt the “my child is a special little snowflake, how dare you” approach that has become so common in 2016.

With many parents afraid of disciplining their own children, it’s only natural that one would give pause when it comes to disciplining someone else’s, but it’s the position of Karen Alpert that other parents not only can, but should call another child on the carpet regardless of emotional proximity in the relationship.

That’s because “even if you aren’t his parent, you are the adult,” Alpert writes, adding this means “you are smarter than he is.”

“And yeah,” she adds, ” I know there are probably a-holes out there who would be all pissy about some stranger getting mad at their kiddo, but not me.”

What about you, readers?

Would you be angry if you saw another adult disciplining your child, or would you take the Karen Alpert approach? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Share this article: Mom Karen Alpert ‘Confronts’ Stranger Who Disciplined Son In Epic Open Letter
More from Inquisitr