Spare the rod and spoil the child? Well, it’s not that simple anymore

HE WAS only little – about two, I would say – and a bit scruffy, his feet barely touching the floor as he was dragged along the Tesco aisle by his mother who was carrying a shopping basket and also pushing a buggy containing a younger brother or sister. She let him go for a minute, distracted by the choice of soft drinks, and he sat down and started to pull plastic bottles of mineral water off the lowest shelf.

Realising what had happened, his mother picked him up by one arm and started hitting him across the bottom and the legs, again and again. He screamed in distress. Everyone in the same aisle froze. Was it horror? Embarrassment? I’m not sure. Then, just as swiftly, everyone looked the other way as she bundled her offspring towards the checkout, clearly beside herself with stress.

You couldn’t help feeling for her and the little lad. She didn’t beat him across the head, but nor was he endangering himself by playing with some plastic bottles. She had simply reached the end of her tether.