In this video, you see a mother and daughter (both actors) placed in a restaurant with hidden cameras and a bunch of unsuspecting customers. When the mother begins to yell at her daughter for getting an A-, others in the restaurant are quick to step in and defend the daughter while scolding the mother for her choices.
The biggest issue I take with this is the publicity of it. I think that this should have been a conversation that the mother saved for the house. The reason people got involved was because she was yelling, so they were forced to hear what she was saying. One woman even initially starts out by just telling the mom that she’s talking to loud. However, one she gets started, she continues on to criticize the mothers parenting style.
If I personally was in the position of a customer I would have asked the woman to speak quieter because she was disturbing the public but I would not say anything about the content of what she was saying. As long as she did not physically hit or hurt the child, I do not believe that it is any of my business and I should stay out of the way she parents her own children. That being said, If I was in the mother’s position and my daughter came back with an A-, I would not react in exactly the same way. I would tell my daughter sternly that an A- is not good enough and that she needs to get As. Once she understood how serious I was, I would put on a smile and gently help her learn what she missed. I think that children need some tough love because they are not always mature enough to understand what you are saying otherwise. However, yelling at your child and telling her that shes stupid will not help her understand the math problem she got wrong.
I was very glad that they had both an Asian family and a White family. Before watching this video, I would have expected the reactions to be different depending on race of the mother and daughter but instead we saw a difference in race based on the customer. I would expect that less people would say something to the Asian mom because they are used to the stereotypical Asian mom so are more likely to expect it from her. I personally, would be more surprised to see a white mom yelling at her daughter in this manner. Another thing I noticed is that the customers who responded were mainly white. This may be because there were more white customers in the cafe at the time this occurred but I found it very fascinating that one of the only Asian customers we see react, reacts to defend the mother. This man even says that he believes that people would intervene simply because the mom and daughter were Asian. This is the opposite of what I would imagine. If I had to intervene in one of the two cases, I would intervene with the White mother and daughter because I feel like less of an outsider so the mother may take what I have to say with more validity. Because I am not Asian, I do not know the Asian culture well enough to try and speak out against it.