‘This makes my stomach turn’: Mom takes abusive husband down by recording him yelling at their daughter over a grilled cheese sandwich

Warning: This article includes mention and video evidence of domestic abuse. Please read with care.

It’s a sad reality that some people just shouldn’t be parents. They lack the basic human decency to nurture a child. Instead, they unleash their own unresolved issues, insecurities, and anger on the most vulnerable targets — the very kids they’re supposed to protect.

Recently, a mom, known on TikTok as Vigilante Momma (@carolyneldridge95), shared a horrifying glimpse into her family’s dysfunction. In a 54-second video that’s gotten over 400k likes, we hear her husband verbally and physically lashing out at their daughter. The reason for this tirade? Wait for it… a grilled cheese sandwich. This culinary critique session included yelling and a sound that no child should ever make — a heart-wrenching “ouch” from their daughter. The cameraman? Their eight-year-old son, stealthily recording this horror show from what should have been the safest place on earth.

What’s perhaps more tragic is the tiny videographer behind the doors. An eight-year-old feeling compelled to expose his father’s tyranny, probably hoping someone, anyone, would put a stop to it. I don’t care what stresses this so-called father was dealing with — money troubles, work issues, a receding hairline. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, justifies terrorizing your child over a sandwich. It’s pathetic. It’s cruel.

This video clearly struck a nerve, with thousands of commenters sharing their own heartbreaking stories of growing up with abusive parents. One user recounted how their father would seize upon any excuse to verbally and physically attack them, while their mother remained silent, complicit in her inaction. “It messed me up & I still find it so hard to love myself,” they confessed. 

Another commenter shared a similar story, expressing the ongoing struggle to heal from the trauma of an abusive parent. “I forgave him but I’ll never forget,” they wrote. The sheer volume of these stories is a gut-wrenching reminder of how pervasive domestic abuse is. Behind closed doors, in households that may seem perfectly normal from the outside, children are living in terror, walking on eggshells around volatile parents who can snap at any moment. As one commenter put it, “I can’t imagine that level of fear and adrenaline in your own home, at the hands of your own parent.”

According to the World Health Organization, a staggering one billion children worldwide aged two to 17 years have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect in the past year alone. That’s half of all children on the planet suffering. In the United States, the numbers are just as grim. The National Children’s Alliance reports that one in four girls and one in 13 kids in the U.S. are estimated to experience child abuse. But those are just the reported cases. So yeah, it’s great that this mom exposed her abusive husband online for the whole world to see his true ugly colors. Public shaming is the least he deserves. 

In an update, the mom revealed that the court granted her full legal custody of her son and granted her daughter’s mother full legal custody of her daughter. Though the judge granted the husband “standard visitation,” the mother expressed her determination to ensure that these visits would be supervised. At the end of the day, this mom did what she had to do to protect her children.

If you are experiencing domestic abuse, or if you believe someone you know is being abused, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE or spoken with online via the hotline’s website. Mobile phone owners can also text “START” to the number 88788.