What's the most barking thing you've witnessed at a mum's group?

This thread, all 18 pages has had me snorting & chortling through the last 3 evenings! 9 week old DS2 feeding at daft times still & crap telly - much better entertainment here at MN!
Nothing really crazy to contribute i'm afraid, I take DS1 to 2 naice groups where everyone is a bit lah lah with 1 or 2 groups of cliquey organic/trek round South America with a 6 week old/DC can do trig before they went to pre school types whose DC are generally the first to have a melt down/bite/be spoken to in loud voices "Good boy Milo, excellent meditation" when they are given time out for walloping someone else's DC. The sorts that NEVER speak to you if you see them round Sainsburys. Been to a few Sure Starts which were fab just crazy busy - 1 music session was run by a hippy dippy lady in her late 60s who was either very tired/drinking/early stages of dementia because you never knew what you'd get each week, she'd forget the words, blatantly make them up or just repeat repeat repeat until her helper gave her a poke!
Turtle boy is the winner for me for sure - genius! Plus it MUST have been CRUMBS on the dining table. Surely!!!!?

OTT nan at one group with her 2 and a half yo, looking at a book:
Nan: And what's that Ben?
Child: Duck
Nan: yes Ben we all know it's a duck. C'mon you can do better than that. You know all your ducks
Child:
Nan (to me. Like I give a shit) he really does know all his ducks
Oh really Ben. You do like to show me up don't you? It's a mallard isn't it? A MALLARD

At a different play group, I really made a tit of myself. We were given flasks with lids on to drink our tea. Cos it's not safe to drink from a mug around children. I took a swig of it and oh my lord it was hot. Scalding in fact. So scalding that as I felt my lips turn to blister my reflex was to yell out 'Fuuuuuuuuuu..' but displaying sterling self control and mindfulness I turned it into a shout of fuuuaaaaaalalalalalalala. I rarely feel embarrassment. I did then

I have a few;

Being gently encouraged to join the teenage mother's group at the Sure Start centre when getting dd weighed - I was 30 at the time

Going to a breastfeeding support group where the gathering was solely made up of women who had met there 5 years ago and whose kids were now at school, so they kept going to the group to meet up. There were 6 of them and one of me with a newborn. They were absolutely lovely but it was a bit overwhelming to have the advice of 6 well meaning ladies focussed solely on me and I'm ashamed to say that I promised to go back but didn't.

The 'drama teacher dad' at a soft play party who attempted to stage manage the kids play i.e. "good sliding isaac, now you go next ellie!'...leave the kids to it and have a cup of tea ffs

I'm at under-5s session with ds age 4 and baby dd, about 3 months. Basically having a nice snooze in the baby area while ds has fun.
Woken up by mother I'd never seen before in my life, demanding "Why don't you have your baby's ears pierced?"
"Ug? Why would I do that?"
"So your baby will be pretty."
"Are you saying my baby girl isn't pretty?"
"Well...you know..." [sucks teeth and tuts, like workmen do before telling you how much it'll cost] She gets up and wanders off, shaking her head sadly.
I am reliably informed by all professionals who have met her, and the rest of the world, that dd is absolutely gorgeous. :)

Apart from that have only experienced barkingness from HVs, like the one who made everyone more confused at the end of the weaning session than they were at the beginning (apparently there's three grades of puree which must each be given for a set number of weeks or the baby will be confused. Asked about BLW, she said she'd never heard of any such thing but sounded terribly dangerous - this is the trained advisor on weaning), and the one running a group which had mums almost all with PND in it, and decided to tell us all that as we were out of the house we obviously didn't have PND, which she knew all about because she'd had it, and been ditched by her husband, her child was then ill, then her mother was ill, then the dog was ill, then the house fell down... it went on for ages, while everyone went from being upset to just astounded, and when she got to the bit where her father died we were trying not to laugh...

Oh RichMan, that's priceless, thanks for the explanation.

martha - tiger mothers will do!

lindamccartney that experience has sent me into a panic

just remembered this: not involving children, but definitely barking!

we had a college reunion at our house on a Saturday night, 20+ of us , having a chat and a drinks, lovely.

you know how from time to time people disappear to have a fag or go to the bathroom. etc

one of the girls started talking about how she needs her hair cut soon, coz it is now really annoying her due to hot weather etc - then she left the room.

next thing you know she's coming out of my bedroom with a pair of scissors, sits on the floor and starts cutting her own hair!
I kid you not, she didn't even try to cut it shorter or straight, she was cutting chunks of hair, randomly, scattering it on the floor!
some patches were so bad, you could see her scalp and by the time she finished she looked like a ragdoll attacked by a dog.

and if that's not weird enough, she got hold of my small mirror too and was grinning manically at her own image while she was carrying out this bizarre performance, then she checked her each side of her face, lifted a lock of hair, carefully considered it's length, hummed to herself and decided to leave it!

coz cutting that bit would have ruined her hairdo for sure! we were stunned, but still she turned around and said " much better, don't you think?"

placemark :) Thanks for the laffs, everyone! Crazy old world, innit!

We were at a mother and toddler group at a church hall, which is also used for wedding receptions, parties etc. It has a lovely garden area and it was a sunny day, so we put some play equipment outside to let the children run about out there.

We realised that whatever party/wedding reception had used the outdoor area over the weekend had left a few minging pint/ wine glasses sitting on a picnic table. I went to collect them up, but this one mother beat me to it. But this mental nut job woman, instead of taking them inside to stick in the kitchen about 5 paces away, proceeded to fast-bowl them in the bushes - where the kids play for gods sake - and some smashed!! . I went mental and shouted she was off her head and she shouted back that the glasses were dangerous so she was getting them out the children's way. Yeah right - it's a hell of a lot more dangerous the have a load of broken glass scattered through the bushes where children crawl than to pick them up and put them back in the kitchen.

Not a thread to read while BFing a grumpy baby - he's very indignant each time I laugh!

We were at a HV clinic/ playgroup when DD, now 3, was a baby. She was just commando crawling and must have been about 8 months. Using immense effort, she dragged herself over the church hall floor to investigate the HV's rather impressive sparkly sandals. As she reached out to touch them, following her marathon, the HV shouted at her 'Those are MY feet and they belong to MY body. We DO NOT touch other people's bodies!'.

Of course, said HV went on to unceremoniously disrobe DD for her unecessary weigh in, touching her body, obviously!

It took them ages to do the slide

That's the kind of entertainment I like in my playground

"woo merchant" is just a word for people who peddle stuff that has absolutely no evidence backing it up at all- so placenta capsules, homeopathy, amber necklaces etc.

I can sort of understand eating a fresh placenta, although I imagine that most people have access to more appetising forms of nutrition so it wouldnt be necessary, but drying it out into a capsule??

LOVE this thread!!

Relieved I have not spotted anything that would indicate me as a 'Barmy mum' yet

what's a "woo merchants"?

yes, I'd heard that in some cultures people eat placentas - can't quite remember who, why and what the ritual is - but unless it comes with fava beans and a red chianti count me out!

RichMan, care to elaborate on the placental thingymabob?!?

Well apparently, there are some people who eat their placentas. And the woo merchants have jumped on this bandwagon so you can get your placenta made into capsules which you then take as a dietary supplement. Lets ignore the flaws in that one for now.

As if that were not bad enough, there is also a homeopathic version, so you're paying vast amounts of money to have your placenta taken away, diluted so much that it's basically not your placenta anymore, and then sold back to you in 200 daily capsules.

I should add, our baby group is a bit odd, because it's run by a consortium of woo merchants alternative practitioners, basically as a way for them to get referrals for their other businesses. However, their clientele is really not very woo at all, so it doesnt really work for them in the way they probably intended, but as a "meet up and chat' group, it's really popular.

I saw a couple with their one year old (I knew she was one as they had been celebrating her birthday i the same restaurant my friends and i had just been with our toddler - lots of very loud comments about how their darling would know how to behave in restaurants etc etc) in the playground. they insisted she go on every single piece of equipment and the poor girl was terrified of some of them!

At the same playground i saw parents with a toddler who scrubbed every single piece of equipment with antibacterial wipes before he could go in it. It took them ages to do the slide!

A mum in a playground today.
Had an 18 month old on reins.

She never once let go of them. We were in a fully enclosed, child friendly play area, where did she think he was going to go?

Anyway, he clambered up the tiny climbing frame steps and she followed, grasping the reins still, had to shuffle her way across the little bridge thing, then squeeze herself down the teeny slide, all the while holding the reins tightly.

I was sniggering away to myself. Cheered up a pretty shit day

Kipper the monster, hahaha!

Love, love, love this thread!

My only mildly amusing story was from a library sing and rhyme session where they kept bigging up the fact that there was going to be a visit from Kipper the dog. When he finally arrived, the threadbare well-used Kipper suit was clearly far too small for the poor member of staff they'd roped in - there were several inches of extremely hairy forearm exposed between sleeves and paws, the suit didn't do up at the back, and the chap couldn't see out of the head. As soon as he appeared, half the kids burst into tears of terror, and Kipper then proceeded to stagger blindly around the room, knocking kids flying and trying to shake hands with bookcases. DS fortunately found the whole thing quite entertaining, and I think we were the only carer and child sufficiently untraumatised to appear in the photo at the end!

I don't mind about the scarf (sorry I didn't remember the name of them) so no criticism whatsoever about the scarf (each to their own, I tried a baby sling and I don't know how many variations of it and DS wouldn't stop crying when he was in it), what I found ridiculous was the fact she thought I was a bad mother for using a pushchair.

Funnily enough, 6 months later I saw judgy pants crossing the street carrying her own offspring in an infamous... pushchair.

Chandras I'm a bit like that Don't carry my babies in a pram till they are past 3 months old approx.... But I wouldn't dare say that comment to someone who had their baby in a pram.

I'm hoping she wasn't trying to be so rude.

My babywrap wasn't too dear (got it for £20) but some can be around £100, likely less expensive than a buggy :)

Chandras, chances are that 'scarf' was a babywrap and cost a lot of money!

She sounds like she was rather judgey towards your pram though!

chandras yet there she was, carrying her baby in a scarf! what a hypocrite! (her, not you!)

Santa quack, hehehe!