A few minutes later, the toddler made his way back to the dog, who now was slowly walking around the entry way of the shop, and began smacking its rump just above the tail. Unfazed, the dog simply stood there looking around the room. I hesitate to call what the kid was doing 'abuse' as his two year old hands weren't doing much damage. I would also think that if 'Fido' were upset by the attention, then he would have barked or snipped at the child in response. The only barking came from his owner, who, again, came over to the child, and, this time, gave him a bit of a shake coupled with growling, 'Stop it!!' Mom, again, dragged the boy away from the dog while yelling at him. The kid's face was a red mess of tears. As mom and child came past me, he angrily stomped on my foot. That action produced more yelling from his mother.
The most interesting part of the scenario was that the mother of the child seemed to take no issue with the pregnant woman reprimanding her son. In fact, there was no communication at all between the two women. The pregnant woman is Swiss; the mom with toddler is from Afghanistan. If such a scene had happened back home in the States, then I would think that the mothers would have exchanged some sort of words and the toddler's mother probably would have expressed some sort of dissatisfaction with the way her son had been treated by the other woman. I envision a sort of 'don't-you-talk-to-my-child-that-way' response coming from the mother were she American. It could be that no words were exchanged because of language barriers. Or, more interestingly, it may be because kids in both of these cultures are allowed to be reprimanded by other adults.
