Weird old lady

Because it’s Mumsnet🙄 become such a tiresome place!

Lewey Body Disease? So sorry for your loss. Such a cruel disease.

@Babadookinthewardrobe but why do her feelings trump a child’s?

I think that’s maybe a generational shift that’s happened. You can see it in the reply’s and I don’t think the two groups will ever agree.

I can still remember the person who grabbed my cheeks when I was little. She owned the local shop and every time we went in she would sort of pick my cheeks and put her face close to me.

I hated it. I was about 3.

It scared me and I still remember the feeling.

😂😂😂😂

I believe in tolerance towards others @Fisharenotfoods and I think posters trying to conflate her friendliness, even if ott, with sexual assault are absolutely grim.

@Babadookinthewardrobe I am more than happy to stand corrected and like to hear different view points.

Why do you think it’s ok to touch someone without their consent?

Eh? 🤣 she was old and acted weirdly? She was a weird old lady.

I don’t know how some posters manage to make it out of their front door since they perceive the slightest eccentricity as a threat.

FGS, the old lady is Jimmy Saville now!

As a mother, you have a responsibility to teach your children that all adults have the right to touch them whenever they want. And if the child is "shy" or refuses to go near the stranger, you must teach them that they are being rude. Children exist to make adults smile.

Or not... you could do exactly what you did and protect them from the paws of weird strangers.

"But it was normal back in the day" yeah, so was Jimmy Saville and all the other creepy paedos!

Au contraire @Offtheroof - it’s all the same in the world of the perpetually offended.

Weird old ladies and sexual assault are not quite the same thing, but I imagine, or at least I hope, you are intelligent enough to understand the difference! 😂😂😂

Maybe she had dementia? I was in a cafe with my 4 yo dd recently and an older man was asking me loads of questions about her. When his daughter came back she said to me 'sorry he has dementia'

I'm guessing weird because she likes to grab random kids, old because she's well...old and lady because she's female? 😂

Yet another thread I click on just to find out if it's about me.

Omg she was old?? Ewwwwww. I hope you’re okay hun. She probably lives in a gingerbread house.

I used to hate random elderly people poking at me as a small child. As much as it enriches the day of the elderly person you weren't wrong in prioritising your kids by shielding them.

(One of my earliest memories is of a strange old whiskery lady nose to nose with me while I was left outside the shop in my buggy, i was terrified (showing my age here 🤣).

This sort of thing doesn’t bother me at all.

@Offtheroof I hope to meet you in real life and slap you across the bum and give it a good squeeze. After all sexual assault against women was much more acceptable in the 70s/80s right? It can build your resilience 😂😂

I’m in my 60s and we were like public property as little kids. Cheeks squished, hair smoothed, hands kissed, given food, sweets by strangers etc. I adore kids and smile and talk to them if they engage with me and their parent is ok about them doing so. The other week I did lift the woolly hat up that had slipped right over a baby’s eyes, while their mum was getting stuff further down the supermarket isle. I’d not touch a child unless they were in immediate danger, but the baby was starting to cry and wiggling her arms in distress at not being able to see all of a sudden so I decided a quick lift of her hat wasn’t too invasive.

We do have an ageing population so meet more people with dementia when we are out and about as well as maybe having relatives with Alzheimer’s or dementia and who are used to different times when it comes to kids. We can be tolerant and understanding but there’s boundaries where no one should be expected to allow their children to be grabbed or touched randomly or distressed by someone’s behaviour. Its not a good example to set to allow them to be manhandled by anyone who thinks they’re little and cute.

Don't be so ridiculous.

Interacting isn't the problem here. It's the woman taking hold of a child she doesn't know that is the issue.

Why is no one pointing out this is so obviously not normal behaviour that most likely explanation is that the lady had cognitive and disinhibition issues associated with aging. Let’s stop with the weird comments .

yes, it is not acceptable . Yes it’s right that children have boundaries. Yes it sounds like OP , whilst shocked, took a sensible option to remove herself and her children from the situation.

my poor dad has just died from LBD. He was mild mannered and gentle. Until he began to mentally decline. He was doing very strange things, and he became quite disinhibited at times early on. That included saying random bizarre stuff to people, or seeing things that weren’t there . We had no idea despite seeking medical advice what was going on as mos5 of time he was fine, till it was quite persistent. Towards the end he was delusionally agressive and violent- but by then was sectioned with a deprevation of liberty in place. One thing I learnt is that the prefrontal cortex is the last part of brain to develop in our 20s and most likely to be effected first by cognitive decline with age. The pre frontal cortex is important for cognitive control — the ability to suppress impulses in favour of more appropriate actions. If you’ve spent time in a nursing home, as I have over last 3 years, you’ll see all sorts of inappropriate behaviours from residents of stuff they’d been horrified at the thought of doing just a few years earlier.

Back in the seventies and eighties, interactions like this with "weird old ladies" were a dailiy occurance. I suggest you do some work on your resilience! 😂😂

@Bababear987 I dunno. Not an expert. But I’ve seen, taught, experienced stepping in to shield a child from a misjudged ‘kind’ touch and knowing when the hackles are raised and you have to protect them. Teaching children about eh frailties of old age from a young age is no bad thing.

The 'weird old lady' is probably telling her family this evening about her strange encounter with a weird stand offish family at the supermarket today. Chill!