User Reviews

Please Don't Hit Me, Mom is an after school TV movie made in the early 1980s when TV movies were good. Nancy McKeon, Lance Guest, Patty Duke and her real son, Sean Astin star in a good movie most people should see. While it is very informative and has good acting by all, there was a few little things I didn't buy.

The Reynolds family (Duke, Guest and Astin) move into a new neighbourhood beside Nancy Parks (McKeon). Nancy and Michael (Guest) hit it off and she babysits Bryan (Astin) while Michael is at basketball practise. After Nancy notices apparent signs of child abuse inflicted on Bryan, she learns more about the subject and the best way to report it. It is really good in that respect. What Nancy learns about reporting abuse and the telltale signs make this an educational watch. This does briefly show the abuse, but nothing a ten-year-old couldn't handle.

Please Don't Hit Me, Mom is one of those rare movies that has a minor flaw that diminishes the overall quality. Patty Duke is overly stressed and she takes it out on her son. Okay, that's a very classic reason why abuse occurs. But she has an older son in late high school who is twice her size! He just lets the abuse happen and tries not to think about it. Only younger and smaller siblings do that. Any older sibling would stand up to the parent right away. And the fact that lance Guest is twice Duke's size makes it even less believable. All he would need to do is just grab a hold of her wrists and put a scare into her if she starts any abuse. He finally stands up to her near the end and takes Bryan with him to live with their father. McKeon calls a social worker and Duke flips out about the whole thing. Bryan and Michael come back home to get some stuff, Nancy comes to babysit and Duke slaps Nancy in the face when she admits to reporting the abuse. Only then does she realize that she needs help and has been a bad parent. Really? Your son is covered in bruises, is highly anxious and you think there's nothing wrong? Really!? That ending is cheesy and was wrapped up way too quickly. Should have been a longer TV movie.

3/4

I too watched because this was Sean Astin's earliest films. It is also free to watch from multiple sources. I cannot fault the acting or the lack of seriousness due to the time the movie was made and that it was an educational overview.

The viewer understood the seriousness by the bruising on the child. Given that this was a young child, they did a really good job of showing the signs of abuse that a child may show or the behavior they would exhibit in normal social settings.

I think if this were redone, it may be able to go into today's statistics, the reality, and the positive/negatives of CPS or CFS.

Overall, it was a decent show case. I was kind of concerned for Sean as it looked like he had be hit into that counter fairly hard. I do not know much of the woman who played the mother, but given the bruises, I think she could have gone further with her words, although they did touch on verbal and physical. The only negative was the ending- in no way would confronting an abuser would result in a positive ending without significant help. Drugs and alcohol usually play a part and in personal experience, they do not believe they did anything wrong. If this were a real case, and the family moved to hide, the older son and the mother would not have allowed a stranger or outsider in the home to babysit.

Just some thoughts, but again, good information, accurate behavioral cues that would hold up 40 years later.