Bad behaviour

To the older — late 60s-ish — lady who was sitting in seat A9 at the Levin Little Theatre on Saturday September 17, for the 2pm show of Seussical the Musical:

I hope that you are feeling rather proud of yourself after roughly pulling my fiveyear-old daughter down the steps of the stage, where she was quietly watching the show, and telling her nastily “go back to your mother”. She was not being disruptive. She was not being noisy. She was not leaping and jumping about, distracting other show-goers. She had, instead, quietly approached the steps to the stage to get a better view of the show.

This was the first show that she had gone to, and she had actually been very well behaved for that. And I had thought that a 2pm Saturday matinee showing of a childoriented production, would be a great introduction for her, as well as providing a nice few hours of mama-daughter quality time, on a raining afternoon.

Given that this was a show geared towards children, your reaction was very much an over-reaction. Although my first response was to tell you at the time to keep your hands to yourself, I chose to not disrupt the other theatre attendees and speak with you afterwards but you had left before I could catch up with you and told you to keep your hands to yourself, and to never touch a child like that again. My daughter said “Mama, that lady wasn’t very nice; she was mean and grumpy. I think she needs a hot chocolate and a muffin to feel better.” Why is it a five-year-old knows to not hurt others, but a grown older woman doesn’t? (abridged) KATE GREENSLADE Levin