“Kids today are too soft” is a phrase that has been thrown around so much in recent years that it’s become a cliché. And there’s certainly room to argue that kids are being sheltered a bit too much lately. However, one mom seems to have taken this view way too much to heart and put both her child and her child’s friend in danger in the process.

A mom is ‘livid’ that her son was barred from coming inside during a 95-degree heat wave on a play date.

Gen X’ers and elder millennials often talk about certain shared childhood touchstones, and many them involve basically running feral and being ignored by their parents. There were literal PSAs in the ’80s that aired on TV every night at 10:00 p.m. asking parents if they even knew where their children WERE, for God’s sake.

It made us resilient, curious, and adventurous, of course, but it’s worth asking: At what cost? Gen X and millennial parents have understandably swung the pendulum in the other direction in response, tending to do everything they can to save their kids from experiencing any hardship at all.

And we have the statistics on everything from mental health to educational performance to show that this hasn’t worked out so great, so perhaps “kids today” DO need a bit of toughening up. But there’s toughening up, and then there’s locking kids out of the house during a heatwave and not even letting them use the bathroom. The latter is what a mom on Reddit found out went down on her son’s recent playdate, and it left her horrified and furious.

: 10 Feral Childhood Memories All Latchkey Gen-X Kids Will Remember

The mom told the kids to drink from the hose if they overheated and pee behind the shed.

“When I picked him up, he seemed upset but wouldn’t talk until we got in the car,” the mom said of her 7-year-old son when she picked him up from the playdate. Once in the car, he spilled the details — they were forced outside in the 95-degree heat for more than four hours.

“The boys asked to come inside multiple times because they were overheating, but she refused and just told them to ‘drink from the hose if they’re thirsty,'” the mom wrote. She wouldn’t even allow them inside to use the bathroom — they were told to “go behind the shed” instead.

The mom, of course, had one question: Why didn’t her son call to have her come pick him up? You can probably guess the reason. The other mom wouldn’t let him use the phone because “kids these days are too soft.” Her fair-skinned son ended up with a terrible sunburn despite her having asked the other mom to apply the sunscreen she left for the kid.

: Millennial Parents Accused Of Being ‘Too Soft’ And Raising A Generation Of Marshmallows

This is completely unhinged parenting that could have resulted in harming a child.

Just in the interest of honesty, you will never catch me saying that today’s kids couldn’t use a bit of toughening up because most parents today treat their children like they’re made of untempered glass, but this is absolutely ridiculous — and it could have ended in tragedy.

Even the U.S. Military — not exactly known for even being cordial, let alone coddling — has very strict rules about taking breaks roughly every half-hour if the temperature is over 85 degrees, let alone 95. This is because heatstroke can happen in as little as 15 minutes.

Dynamic Graphics Group | Canva Pro

Danger aside, this is also completely inappropriate. If a kid’s parent asks you to put sunscreen on them, you put sunscreen on them. If a kid asks to use the phone, you let him use the phone. Frankly, this woman is lucky she isn’t dealing with a parent willing to call the police.

Toughening a kid up — or any other parenting endeavor for that matter — is nobody’s business but their parents, and if you’re the kind of mom or dad who thinks it’s incumbent upon you to do so, you are orders of magnitude more insane than the parents you think are ruining their kids by being too “soft.”

The fact that her son felt safe and comfortable telling her about what happened on his playdate in the first place means she’s doing a lot of things right. Sounds like the boy whose mom thinks locking kids outside in a heatwave is appropriate parenting could learn a thing or two from her and her “too soft” son.

: 11 Things Gen X Kids Had In School That Made Childhood Magical

John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.