Rude old man shouted at 4 year old DS

Weaving across the path, waving his arms around, generally being unaware and in the way (totally normal thing to do age 4 but the reason 4yos need guidance from a parent).

I think, once you get older you give less of a shit about calling out bad parenting or annoying behaviour. My df is early 70s with no filter - I can’t decide if he just doesn’t care as he’s got incurable cancer or it’s the brain tumour changing his behaviour. Old guy may have been unreasonable but as you have no idea what your dc was doing, it’s hard to give you any credit for assuming he was in the wrong and not your son.

And sorry to add - the buggy thing is fine. Not sure why people uppity about that

Who is?? And one of what mums?

Any number of things - Decided to do a cartwheel in front of him when he had a hip replacement last week?

point is, it doesn’t really matter. The man’s reaction isn’t what you should be worried about - You as a parent should know and anticipate hazards. You couldnt and didn’t.

It’s absolutely fine to use a buggy in these circumstances imo. Really irritates me when people get all high and mighty about this, especially when most of them drive their children everywhere.

You need eyes on your 4 year old, 10m behind is not good! The man was very rude also.

What does that mean?

Eurgh you are one of those mums.

It was unreasonable of the man to shout. Horrible for your son. You are right to defend them.

I do agree though that I’d keep my kids in front of me so I can see them - at that age they could be distracted and dawdle off or someone could grab them. If they are in front you can keep and eye and remind them to be safe (stay away from curb; don’t pick up anything gross) or you can notice if anyone approached.

The other guy was definitely unreasonable to be shouting at someone's kid in the street. Being old isn't a free pass to shout at kids that aren't his. Personally when walking out anywhere it isn't the best idea to have your 4year old lagging 10m behind where you can't see him either. Stop and let him pass you so you can see where he is

It doesn’t matter how quiet the road is 10m is too far away in either direction at 4 years old. Behind is especially poor parenting as you can’t see what’s he’s up to or what other people are up to. There are plenty of crazy people out there in the world and you would have had no idea if that old man was one of them until it was too late. You should take this as a lesson and keep your children safer going forwards.

I do agree the man was rude and you were right to defend your son but honestly i can’t get past the lack of attention you were paying to your young child and the potential for it to go very wrong.

OP has declared himself to be a big man.

Don’t they all…

YABU to refer to him as old, I am in my late 60’s and do not appreciate that being described as old.

And yet, your child pissed off a stranger so much they yelled at them. But you didn’t see the approach of the stranger, keep your eye on them as they passed, make sure your child was behaving or understand what had pissed the stranger off so much.

Keep your child in front of you.

It's redundant, actually.
Codger means old man.
Old codger ... old, old man? 😆

And what's being 6 ' 1 " got to do with any thing , why are you coming on here , can't us women have anything for ourselves

Well, unless you have eyes at the back of your head, if they were in front, you’d at least have a chance of seeing them move towards the road and being able to stop them on time. You honestly sound a bit dense to make that comparison.

10m in either direction on a road (busy or not) isn’t ideal with a 4 year old. If you couldn’t see him, how do you know what he did or didn’t do to annoy the man? Maybe he deliberately moved in front of him or put his foot out?

Or maybe none of those things happened and the man was just being horrible. The point is, you don’t know because you couldn’t see, but your first instinct is to blame him and effectively claim that your child is perfect and can do no wrong.

You're missing my point. I was referring to the child. Would the 65 year old have shouted,
"Get out of my way!" to another man?

Yavu calling someone who could be 65 an old codger that’s shocking.
Also you should be keeping your eyes on a four year old in the street.

10m in any direction is dangerous.

I have been trained to teach children that age road safety and the biggest message is HOLD YOUR ADULTS HAND. Children that age have not yet learnt the skills needed to be safe near a road on their own.

Why on earth would an ‘elderly’ (your words) man, step into the road because you don’t have eyes on your four year old child.

You’re both in the wrong, to be fair. No, he shouldn’t have shouted at your son, but equally you should have been keeping an eye on him, even if it’s not a busy road, accidents happen in a split second.

Also, you lost the argument when you called him an “old codger” - there’s no need for that, or the talk about him being lucky you’re not the kind to kick off about your kids. It doesn’t make you look cool and yeah, you should control your child in public.

10m is way too far behind to leave a 4 year old. Perhaps you need to learn a lesson here.