When a member of the public questions your parenting?

crazy_kenny

My daughter is 3.5 yeas old and on Saturday last we were out doing the weekly shopping in the local supermarket. We usually do our shopping early on a Saturday morning but on this occasion it was after 4pm. At this stage of the day our daughter is pretty tired and irritable as she does not take a nap during the day anymore. She was a little loud and moaned for about 10 minutes.

During this time a number of other shoppers just looked at our daughter. However one old lady circa 70 years old said "Can't you shut that child up, she is like that the last hour. You need to discipline her." I was in shock as was my partner. I blurted out "mind your own business and moved on." My partner got upset as our daughter has an underlying medical condition and this lady questioned our parenting style.

We tried to continue on with our shopping as normal but our minds were elsewhere. The rage started to build inside me and after a few minutes I went back to confront this lady. I lost the head and f****d her out of it. Her daughter came to her aide and I f****d her out of it too. It felt great after doing this but I know it was not the correct thing to do. I was just so frustrated and annoyed.

Did this ever happen to you and how did you deal with it?

racso1975

Nope never happened thank god. Though I suspect I would mirror your reaction. As you said probably not the right thing to do but anybody with half a brain realises that you do not confront somebody by requesting they shut their child up.

See got a glimpse into your life and that gives her no right to comment. I suspect if you discussed the disciplining she probably meant smacking. Then you would have had somebody else on your case.

Loads of people think they know best and know how to handle upset children. Fact is you know your child best.

RentDayBlues

Nothing to this extent but I do feel older people are a lot more interfering than others, with regard to everything. Clearly once you've lived a number of years you are entitled to do and say as you please!

I've had one instance in particur where my toddler threw a major tantrum in tesco, I couldn't pick her up as I had the baby in a sling on me. So I had to let her continue. Most people looked on sympathetically, but one woman muttered "disgraceful". Like you I couldn't restrain myself so I asked her did she have a problem. When confronted she walked off red faced

I would like to think if someone spoke to me like that woman spoke to you I could keep calm but I'm not sure. I suppose the best way with a lot of these people is to either ignore them or answer them calmly.

I know this is totally wrong but I do think fair play for you standing up for your child, even if it wasn't the most PC way

custom_build

crazy_kenny wrote:

We tried to continue on with our shopping as normal but our minds were elsewhere. The rage started to build inside me and after a few minutes I went back to confront this lady. I lost the head and f****d her out of it. Her daughter came to her aide and I f****d her out of it too. It felt great after doing this but I know it was not the correct thing to do. I was just so frustrated and annoyed.

mightn't be be best example for your daughter. I think you were right to be aggrieved but you completely lost any moral high ground by acting so aggressively toward an old lady.

Moonbeam

I dunno.
I have 4 and they are far from perfect and often throw tantrums if they are tired and in public but it does annoy me when I am out and other people let their kids run riot and seem to have no issues with their kids doing what they want at the expense of other peoples sanity.
I was in SUpermacs with my lot (5,3,1 and 4 months) last week for a treat and they were tired and hungry so were being a bit annoying before their food came but once it came they sat and giggled and ate,there was another family with much older kids who were letting them run riot,be loud and drive everyone else mad.
I understand that some kids are autistic or have sensory issue but that is not boldness.
I also would not have gone and verbally attacked the old woman,I think sometimes we just need to make allowances for them as they do for us.

FactCheck

I also have a 3.5 year old.

If she was tantrumming or even "just" misbehaving loudly and we were both present, one of us would take her outside after a minute or two to calm her down. If it was just me alone with her, I'd whizz through the rest of the shopping, making sure that other customers see I'm trying everything I can to keep her quiet.

I chose to have children. That doesn't give me the right to inflict a screaming toddler on the rest of the world. I go out in public with her constantly, and I am very tolerant of children being generally lively and even loud. But it is completely obnoxious and unacceptable to force dozens of other people to listen to a child scream and yell. Especially when there are two of you and one can just take the child away.

I cannot believe you screamed obscenities at a 70 year old woman. What on earth were you thinking? To be honest, to have been so upset by what she said, I think you must have known deep down you were in the wrong.

A toddler can't always control having a tantrum. An adult should always have the self-control not to bellow swear words at pensioners. Only utter scumbags get into screaming matches in the street.

That said, if I see a child having a tantrum, I'd never say what that lady said. Mostly because we all have bad days and hearing a child yell won't kill me. I'm pretty good at just ignoring it. But partly also because I'd be afraid the parent would turn out to be really rough and start swearing at me.

Hordak

crazy_kenny wrote: »

My daughter is 3.5 yeas old and on Saturday last we were out doing the weekly shopping in the local supermarket. We usually do our shopping early on a Saturday morning but on this occasion it was after 4pm. At this stage of the day our daughter is pretty tired and irritable as she does not take a nap during the day anymore. She was a little loud and moaned for about 10 minutes.

During this time a number of other shoppers just looked at our daughter. However one old lady circa 70 years old said "Can't you shut that child up, she is like that the last hour. You need to discipline her." I was in shock as was my partner. I blurted out "mind your own business and moved on." My partner got upset as our daughter has an underlying medical condition and this lady questioned our parenting style.

We tried to continue on with our shopping as normal but our minds were elsewhere. The rage started to build inside me and after a few minutes I went back to confront this lady. I lost the head and f****d her out of it. Her daughter came to her aide and I f****d her out of it too. It felt great after doing this but I know it was not the correct thing to do. I was just so frustrated and annoyed.

Did this ever happen to you and how did you deal with it?

I've never done it, but I would. I think you did the right think, TBH. Maybe not a popular opinion...

bp

We all lose control sometimes we are only human. Maybe try online shopping or leave the 3 year old at home if you have to go late.

Stuff happens but maybe try explain to your child that mammy should not have behaved that way so that she knows it's not acceptable behaviour.

As for the old woman ignore her - I doubt she had the perfect child who never once cried in public

OldNotWIse

It's not pleasant having other people's screaming children disturb your peace but its a fact of life and there's no point having a go at parents to "shut them up" - I'm sure they would if they could and I'm sure the situation is more stressful for them than any judgmental outsiders. But I wonder what kind of lesson a child will learn seeing her parent verbally abuse an elderly woman.

custom_build

Hordak wrote:

I've never done it, but I would. I think you did the right think, TBH. Maybe not a popular opinion...

I think it might not be the "popular opinion" because in civilised society it is an inappropriate way to react.

Dermighty

Every second parent thinks their kids have adhd or add or autism or something when in fact it's ****ty parenting and kids that need a kick up the ass.

I couldn't care less what anyone thinks of my parenting.

JeffKenna

I think your reaction was totally overboard. While the lady should have minded her own business it was really wrong to verbally attack an OAP like that.

Milly33

Ah don't kick yourself over it, sorry I don't have kids but sounds like you just had a bad day and took it out on someone maybe the next time you see the lady try and apologise and leave it at that. She cant be that bad off if she managed to make her way over to you and tell you to control your kid... Everyone makes mistakes no one is perfect don't feel do bad try what you can to fix and if you cant then at least you have tried

crazy_kenny

FactCheck wrote: »

I also have a 3.5 year old.

If she was tantrumming or even "just" misbehaving loudly and we were both present, one of us would take her outside after a minute or two to calm her down. If it was just me alone with her, I'd whizz through the rest of the shopping, making sure that other customers see I'm trying everything I can to keep her quiet.

I chose to have children. That doesn't give me the right to inflict a screaming toddler on the rest of the world. I go out in public with her constantly, and I am very tolerant of children being generally lively and even loud. But it is completely obnoxious and unacceptable to force dozens of other people to listen to a child scream and yell. Especially when there are two of you and one can just take the child away.

I cannot believe you screamed obscenities at a 70 year old woman. What on earth were you thinking? To be honest, to have been so upset by what she said, I think you must have known deep down you were in the wrong.

A toddler can't always control having a tantrum. An adult should always have the self-control not to bellow swear words at pensioners. Only utter scumbags get into screaming matches in the street.

That said, if I see a child having a tantrum, I'd never say what that lady said. Mostly because we all have bad days and hearing a child yell won't kill me. I'm pretty good at just ignoring it. But partly also because I'd be afraid the parent would turn out to be really rough and start swearing at me.

Our daughter was sitting in the seat in the trolley facing me. She was not screaming or having a tantrum. She was whinging and moaning. I was encouraging her to stop. To diffuse the situation we opened a bag of crisps and she was finished at the end of aisle 2. We do not believe in taking her out of the situation as you do but if it works for you well done.


In todays world I would be afraid to open my mouth to a complete stranger criticizing them. You could get a lot worse than a tongue lashing. Maybe this will teach her not to do it again. I could see her daughter was mortified when she said it. I'm just so upset with myself I didn't leave it there.

Yer Aul One

Fairly impossible thing to ignore. As someone said above though, public aggressive behaviour is for scumbags but we have all been there.

Especially having a little bit of time to think about it, you should have gone back and explained the situation to her and really try embarrass her. When she was up at the till or something. Her behaviour was totally out of order but then you took the award!

But agree with sentiment above, don't kick yourself over it. Your OH getting upset by it prob pushed you over the edge. We want to protect the ones we love. If it happened tomorrow, I reckon you would do it differently. Just one of those things!

FactCheck

Well, I don't believe in rewarding bad behaviour and bribing kids with junk food. Next time, you might want to try removing them from the situation rather than teaching them that moaning results in a treat.

By your own account, the rest of the shop was looking at your daughter. Whether you call it "just" misbehaving or full-blown tantrum, she was being disruptive and behaving inappropriately. Now I am very tolerant of when you just get stuck in a bad situation and have to extricate yourself and the kiddo as quickly as possible. I wouldn't even have looked at her even if she was screaming the place down. But you had a choice. There were TWO of you and you both just ineffectively bribed her and let her disturb everybody else for at least 10 minutes.

The lady was in the wrong to say what she did. But you were in the wrong twice over - both to have inflicted your daughter's misbehaviour on the rest of the shop when it was avoidable, and to have screamed swear words at her in the street.

You didn't even teach her anything. You know what she and her daughter went home and told their family "Oh you won't believe the family of total knackers we saw at the supermarket today. They were completely ignoring their kid screaming and shouting, just shoving crisps at her while she got more and more upset. Then when Mam said something, the man followed us out of the shop roaring and swearing! Absolute scum". Now, is that a truthful account of what happened? No way, but you can bet that's what they interpreted it as and that's what they'll say happened. And you have no one but yourself to blame for that.

Why do you even all go to the shops together in the first place? It's not a family outing, it's hell on earth on a Saturday afternoon. Get it delivered online or one of you go in the evenings. Whatever you do, try to avoid taking a cranky, exhausted toddler into the chaos. Of course she misbehaved. You are just setting her and yourselves up to fail going into that situation.

Hordak

custom_build wrote: »

I think it might not be the "popular opinion" because in civilised society it is an inappropriate way to react.

Every action has a reaction, and I think the OP's reaction was appropriate. It wasn't as if that old biddy's comment was just a simple 'tut' - it was descriptive & direct. Her age is irrelevant IMO.

Having said that, I've never been required to do it - when our kids act up like that, they get brought outside until they stop. I'd never inflict their misbehaviour on others - ever. I'm always very concious of it.

But a supermarket is a big place - so it's not as if the biddy was sitting beside her in a restaurant for an hour, FFS!

eviltwin

JeffKenna wrote: »

I think your reaction was totally overboard. While the lady should have minded her own business it was really wrong to verbally attack an OAP like that.

I don't see what her being an OAP has to do with it.

Its happened to me before, my daughter has AS and she has had a few meltdowns in public. I remember once a woman telling me she needed a good slap, I told her she had AS and she told me that was no excuse. Its frustrating dealing with people's ignorance but I try not to take it to heart.

Some people in this world are just born complainers, they complain about everything. Kids moan, toddlers especially. That's life!

crazy_kenny

Dermighty wrote: »

Every second parent thinks their kids have adhd or add or autism or something when in fact it's ****ty parenting and kids that need a kick up the ass.

I couldn't care less what anyone thinks of my parenting.

Our daughter was born with Turner Syndrome so don't even go there. Its hard enough for our daughter to access any services in this country not to mention fight every year for a medical card. Don't come in here making statements like that when you don't know the facts.

pwurple

This is one of the reasons that I absolutely can't stand supermarkets. I do my very best to never bring children there, but sometimes it's unavoidable. An hour stuck in a trolley for a 3.5 year old is pure hell though, so I'd do my best to avoid that if I could! Could one of you do shopping in future and the other one go elsewhere with the child, like the local playground? Especially if you are having to placate her with crisps.

Nothing wrong with standing up for yourself, but I think you should have kept it calm rather than raging and losing it. Easier said than done I'm sure.

JimBobPlayer

FactCheck wrote: »

By your own account, the rest of the shop was looking at your daughter. Whether you call it "just" misbehaving or full-blown tantrum, she was being disruptive and behaving inappropriately. .

The child is 3!!! Behaving inappropriately? Lol. Perhaps the baby didn't read the Memo - "How to behave appropriately while Mammy is shopping 101."

JeffKenna

eviltwin wrote: »

I don't see what her being an OAP has to do with it.

Its happened to me before, my daughter has AS and she has had a few meltdowns in public. I remember once a woman telling me she needed a good slap, I told her she had AS and she told me that was no excuse. Its frustrating dealing with people's ignorance but I try not to take it to heart.

Some people in this world are just born complainers, they complain about everything. Kids moan, toddlers especially. That's life!

Of course it does, while the OP is getting bothered because her child has a disorder did she stop and think maybe this women has alzheimer's disease or the like?

FactCheck

crazy_kenny wrote: »

Our daughter was born with Turner Syndrome so don't even go there. Its hard enough for our daughter to access any services in this country not to mention fight every year for a medical card. Don't come in here making statements like that when you don't know the facts.

This is just another reason though why it's not fair on your daughter to drag her around a supermarket when she's exhausted. Next time one of you just play with her outside or in the car or better yet don't bring her at all.

If you had quietly said to the woman "my daughter has Turner Syndrome which makes her hyperactive sometimes" you would have kept the high ground. Instead you made yourself look like a scumbag who brawls on the street. It was completely the wrong way to handle it.

And if you had said that, you might have found the woman's daughter coming up to you and saying quietly "Sorry about that, my mother has dementia and can't really cope with busy places sometimes."

JimBobPlayer

OP - I think you were right. The woman was rude by telling you to SHUT THE CHILD UP. That's carte blanche in my book to be rude in return!
Not sure what the syndrome is that you mention, but what I've found useful was letting my one run around - 'Get me the butter' and off they go - proud as punch of having something to do. In fairness, supermarket shopping is a nightmare for a child. All those things! And you're confined to a damned trolley lol.

On a side note, again while my one was about 3, she was throwing the mother of all tantrums in Tescos while I was up at customer service. I was ignoring her. Some bint of a manager came up and said to the teller - 'Who owns that child?' 'I do' says I. 'She's having a tantrum and is being ignored'. I then proceeded to continue to ignore both the brat and the snooty manager.

'Who OWNS that child?' WTF???

vibe666

all young (and older) kids have mood swings, you just have to make the best of it and do what you can when you can. if it means putting off a shopping trip to avoid a situation like this occurring, or one of you staying at home with the child whilst the other does the shopping, then that's what you do.

life is hard enough bringing up kids without making it more difficult for yourself and putting your kids and yourself in an entirely unavoidable situation.

nobody likes screaming kids, particularly when they belong to strangers who don't seem to be doing anything about it, but nobody likes intrusive strangers telling us how to raise our own, but on both sides, who knows what that person has been doing the rest of the day to get to that point.

if someone elses kids are screaming, then i'll go to the opposite end of the supermarket and get on with my shopping without having to get too close to them and end up upsetting myself (or them).

if our own kid(s) are upset or causing problems in public, one of us will take them elsewhere to calm down where they won't get on anyone's tits, or we'll come back another time and do whatever it is that needs doing later. or shop online.

hoodwinked

crazy_kenny wrote: »

Our daughter was sitting in the seat in the trolley facing me. She was not screaming or having a tantrum. She was whinging and moaning. I was encouraging her to stop. To diffuse the situation we opened a bag of crisps and she was finished at the end of aisle 2. We do not believe in taking her out of the situation as you do but if it works for you well done.

i have to agree with the others saying you shouldn't have rewarded her for disturbing other shoppers,

taking a child out of the situation can be very helpful, it gives them and you a breather to calm down, maybe you should give this a go instead if your way results in you shouting at other customers,

JimBobPlayer wrote: »

The child is 3!!! Behaving inappropriately? Lol. Perhaps the baby didn't read the Memo - "How to behave appropriately while Mammy is shopping 101."

at 3 the child has a lot more cop on than you are giving them credit for, and children can behave appropriately when their parents teach them how, obviously there will be blips, and exceptions but in this case there were two adults and one child, there was no reason to force their child to continue with the shopping trip that was causing such distress to the tired child, and shoppers around them, to say one felt the need to approach them, the fact they were placating the child with crisps shows they really didn't handle this in the best possible way as parents.

crazy_kenny

FactCheck wrote: »

Well, I don't believe in rewarding bad behaviour and bribing kids with junk food. Next time, you might want to try removing them from the situation rather than teaching them that moaning results in a treat.

By your own account, the rest of the shop was looking at your daughter. Whether you call it "just" misbehaving or full-blown tantrum, she was being disruptive and behaving inappropriately. Now I am very tolerant of when you just get stuck in a bad situation and have to extricate yourself and the kiddo as quickly as possible. I wouldn't even have looked at her even if she was screaming the place down. But you had a choice. There were TWO of you and you both just ineffectively bribed her and let her disturb everybody else for at least 10 minutes.

The lady was in the wrong to say what she did. But you were in the wrong twice over - both to have inflicted your daughter's misbehaviour on the rest of the shop when it was avoidable, and to have screamed swear words at her in the street.

You didn't even teach her anything. You know what she and her daughter went home and told their family "Oh you won't believe the family of total knackers we saw at the supermarket today. They were completely ignoring their kid screaming and shouting, just shoving crisps at her while she got more and more upset. Then when Mam said something, the man followed us out of the shop roaring and swearing! Absolute scum". Now, is that a truthful account of what happened? No way, but you can bet that's what they interpreted it as and that's what they'll say happened. And you have no one but yourself to blame for that.

Why do you even all go to the shops together in the first place? It's not a family outing, it's hell on earth on a Saturday afternoon. Get it delivered online or one of you go in the evenings. Whatever you do, try to avoid taking a cranky, exhausted toddler into the chaos. Of course she misbehaved. You are just setting her and yourselves up to fail going into that situation.

We all don't have the luxury of shopping delivered to the door. Both parents work during the week so the Saturday trip shopping is a family outing unfortunately.


While I don't particularly agree with everything you say, thanks for your input and other options I could have used.

OldNotWIse

eviltwin wrote: »

I don't see what her being an OAP has to do with it.

Its happened to me before, my daughter has AS and she has had a few meltdowns in public. I remember once a woman telling me she needed a good slap, I told her she had AS and she told me that was no excuse. Its frustrating dealing with people's ignorance but I try not to take it to heart.

Some people in this world are just born complainers, they complain about everything. Kids moan, toddlers especially. That's life!

You're right, being an OAP has nothing to do with it. It is inappropriate to verbally abuse anyone like that.

JimBobPlayer

hoodwinked wrote: »

i have to agree with the others saying you shouldn't have rewarded her for disturbing other shoppers,

taking a child out of the situation can be very helpful, it gives them and you a breather to calm down, maybe you should give this a go instead if your way results in you shouting at other customers,



at 3 the child has a lot more cop on than you are giving them credit for, and children can behave appropriately when their parents teach them how, obviously there will be blips, and exceptions but in this case there were two adults and one child, there was no reason to force their child to continue with the shopping trip that was causing such distress to the tired child, and shoppers around them, to say one felt the need to approach them, the fact they were placating the child with crisps shows they really didn't handle this in the best possible way as parents.

Well aren't you the expert!

indigo twist

As others have said, the most appropriate course of action would have been for one of you to take the child elsewhere - you don't need all three of you present for some basic grocery shopping! I imagine feeding her junk food in an attempt to shut her up only hyped her up even more - perhaps you could learn a lesson there, don't do it again?

And shouting obscenities at a stranger is a really scummy thing to do - especially when it was an elderly person. Would you have had the courage to do the same to a young male thug if he'd said the same things? I doubt it. Because you wouldn't have had the same physical advantage over him - you wouldn't have been able to intimidate him in the same way you were able to intimidate that little old lady. The fact that you say you felt great after doing this says an awful lot about you.

eviltwin

JeffKenna wrote: »

Of course it does, while the OP is getting bothered because her child has a disorder did she stop and think maybe this women has alzheimer's disease or the like?

You could say that about anyone of any age, don't stand up for yourself as maybe they have some condition that makes them come out with ignorant comments. I appreciate its frustrating to see a child in a full on tantrum but as a shopper you can walk away. That's far better than being pass remarkable.