Going to the dentist is rarely a fun time, but as long as everyone in the office does their job normally, it isn’t a big deal.

What would you do if you were there with your little brother, and when he told the dentist that something hurt, a younger kid in the next chair started crying about any potential pain, and then his mom freaked out on your brother?

That is what happened to the older sister in this story, so she stepped up and confronted the mom, telling her to back off, causing things to escalate until that mom got escorted out by security.

AITAH for telling off an overwhelmed mother in front of her children and my brother?

About a week ago my parents asked me (19F) to take my brother (13M) for a dentist appointment to get his teeth cleaned.

Makes sense.

The dentist he goes to deals mainly with kids or teenagers but occasionally serves an adult. I assumed, sense I was taking him either way, I would book an appointment as well for a cleaning and to consult a dentist on Invisalign for my teeth.

Anyways, the day arrives, my brother and I arrive at the dentist, sign in and are waiting in the waiting room when a young mother (looked to be around 25) walks in with three very young kids. (I’m talking around 2-5).

Kids at that age can be a handful.

The mother seems pretty overwhelmed and two of the kids are screaming at each other. She is struggling to control the kids, and honestly, I felt bad for her.

The whole time we were waiting in the waiting room, the mom is completely checked out, scrolling on her phone at a high volume while her kids sit on the floor terrorizing each other.

Some parents need to be judged.

Now, I’m not one to judge people’s parenting methods, believe me I’ve been around enough young children to realize sometimes it just becomes too much. But I noted that it wasn’t necessarily appropriate to allow your kids to act so crazy in a public place while people were trying to work at the desk.

Luckily, soon someone calls my brother and I back together with the mother and her three kids. There are two open chairs next to each other so I sit down to go first while my brother watches the movie displayed on the TV screen next to me.

At least she is trying to parent.

The mother sits down with her three kids, all of them still arguing and messing around with the chair. To be fair, at this point the woman was trying to control her kids and get them to sit and watch the movie but she didn’t seem to really care and the kids obviously wouldn’t cooperate.

Soon, two dentists come out to do the cleaning, the kids have calmed down some and everything is going smoothly. Now a day or so prior to the appointment, I had cut my gum while trying to pry apart to Lego bricks for my brother, lol simple mistake.

It is always good to mention this type of thing.

So, I decided to mention this to my dentist before she began cleaning, just in case she noticed any blood and to make sure she wouldn’t clean too hard over that area as it was pretty close to my tooth and I didn’t want the wound to keep reopening.

So, my dentist begins cleaning and she’s being very gentle and luckily, the kids beside us have calmed down and the first one is in the chair getting her teeth cleaned.

Ouch! I don’t blame the kid for being nervous.

Then the dentist brings the brush a bit too close to my gum, and some of the bristles rub over the cut. I make a quiet noise of discomfort and she just simply apologizes and says that she didn’t mean to hit my gum.

Simple mistake, right? No. The young kid on the chair next to me immediately sits upwards looks at me wide eyed then turns to her mother and yells loudly. “This will hurt!?”

Good, it was handled.

Mother looks up from her phone. Kids and adults in the room look up watching her and I turn slowly. Mother quickly assures her child in a rough tone that nothing will hurt and she just needs to sit there and behave.

Kid looks a bit afraid but sits back down. Mother then turns to me and gives me a sharp glare. I sigh and choose to ignore it understanding that it must be rough for this mother to deal with her kids.

All smooth so far.

My cleaning and Invisalign consultation goes smoothly and when my brother gets into the chair for his cleaning, the dentist is working on the second kid.

Now my brother is getting his teeth cleaned, and the dentist is using a tool to clear the plaque off his teeth. My brother has very sensitive teeth so he mentions that it hurts when the dentist goes too rough.

Why are all these chairs in the same room? Usually they are separated.

Now the kid next to us shoots up from her spot on the table and begins to cry, wailing that she’s scared it will hurt because “the people next to us are in pain”.

Mom looks absolutely livid. Mom stands up.

This is absolutely inappropriate.

Everybody in the room is now watching her as she walks over to my brother points a finger in his face and tells him not to act like a baby because it will make her kids upset.

The other people in the room, including the dentists, all look visibly uncomfortable and all three kids are now crying.

Great job standing up for her brother.

My brother looks taken aback, and I quickly stand up from my position on a chair next to him and stand in between the mother and my brother, pushing her away from him.

I ask her in a stern voice to please not touch my brother and to back up. She gets immediately defensive and starts screaming at me.

What is wrong with this lady?

Now both dentists working at our tables are standing up asking the woman to calm down but she just won’t let it go.

She continues to berate me and my 13 year old brother, blaming him and I for making her kids cry after she’s put in so much effort to calm them down.

Yes, there is no reason for that.

I speak up and simply tell her, “I understand that it must be difficult controlling three young children here by yourself. But it is completely unacceptable for you as an adult to go after a 13-year-old boy for simply having a conversation with his dentist.”

I tell her its not okay to completely ignore her kids and that “It’s immature and quite frankly rude to people who are working here and anybody else who came here for an appointment today as they don’t want listen to your children acting so crazy. If the comments my brother and I were making to our dentists truly disrupted your children, you could always talk to us kindly and ask us to please not say those things around your kids as it’s scaring them. Blowing up in our face is just completely unacceptable and not something you should do to anyone.”

Mom doesn’t like being called out for her bad behavior.

Mother gets absolutely furious and starts screaming once again. The dentist is located in a large office building so someone at the desk makes a call to security and security has to come up and remove the mother and her kids from the office.

The dentists and workers apologize to me profusely and we end our appointment on good terms. My brother and I leave but he still seems a bit shaken up by the whole encounter.

Hopefully he will understand.

The ride home was pretty quiet and I’ve explained to him multiple times that it wasn’t his fault for what happened.

But I still feel bad for going off on that mother in front of her children and in front of other people in the dentistry office.

She was standing up against a bully.

I wonder if I made the wrong decision or if I hurt my brother and made him feel ashamed for what happened.

AITA?

No, the lady was way out of line and someone needed to put her in her place. It should have been the dentist, but if they didn’t do it, the sister had every right.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

The mom embarrassed herself.

This does seem weird.

The sister handled herself well.

This person would have also stepped in.

Yeah, she can deal with her own kids.

Standing up to a bully is always the right move.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.