Unsolicited comments from strangers - what’s your rudest/funniest one?

[maria199]

Bit of a funny one really but yesterday I was about to go for a walk near a nature area and I was putting my 4 month old in her pram. She had just been in the car for a little while so when I put her into the pram she started crying (don’t worry - she loves the pram and was fine as soon as we started walking!)

As I was putting her in a woman in her late 60’s/70’s walked past with an elderly man and she says to the man “oh a little crying baby! must be hungry!” She then asked me how old my baby was so I told her 4 months old and she says to me “she sounds hungry!” I said “no she’s just been fed (she had), she just doesn’t like being put down” (in a friendly way) and she says to me “oh you’ve spoilt her then!” and laughed. I was a bit taken aback because how can you spoil a 4 month old baby?? 😂

Anyway, she walked on and it wasn’t exactly a malicious comment but it did make me think why on earth do people always love to comment, especially to people they don’t know!!!

It just made me curious - what are the funniest/rudest/weirdest interactions people have had from strangers when out with their baby?

To be fair I did explain to DD2 about seasons the other day and why I don't buy fresh berries all year round (I do get frozen ones though), after her complaint that frozen strawberries are just not the same*

*frozen berries are better in gin. She'll learn.

And i bet no one ever asks the DHs if their Dc have the same mother.

The hairdresser asked if he was the father of your children?

When I was 30 an older neighbour asked how old I was, and told me I had better hurry up and have a baby as I wasn’t getting any younger. It actually made me laugh!
When I was pregnant with my second child a work colleague asked me if it was planned. It wasn’t a particularly close age gap but she clearly thought so!

The old man who stopped me one day when I was walking my daughter to school and asked how old she was now. I told him and then he told me he and his wife used to watch me walking through the park to take her to nursery and basically how terrible it was to take her to nursery.

I can laugh because I don't care what he says but it was incredibly rude.

When I was pregnant with ds1 I was so excited I was showing my scan photo to anyone who stood still long enough! One old lady said ultrasounds were dangerous and I should have had an x ray.

My ds2 was failure to thrive and had development delay. Someone at a bus stop asked me how old he was. I told her and she asked if I was sure as he looked much younger to her.

I have 5 boys and so many people give me a head tilt and either say "didn't you want a girl then" or they pat me on the arm and tell me "it will happen one day". I wanted 4 dc (dc5 is the result of a delay with dh's vasectomy!) I didn't care what sex they were and at 43 and my youngest being 11 I will not be trying for any more.

When i was a kid, a woman who was a stranger to me but vaguely knew my mum as a child. When she met me and my mum, she immediately said 'oh, she must be adopted'.?!!

Out and about years ago in the last stages of pregnancy and a man said to me "Don't worry about it coming out, it will be like shelling peas"

Out and about recently and a man said "you must have been reallly good looking once, have you thought about plastic surgery?"

Worked in a nightclub when I was about 18, it was always packed and the demographic was students who were mostly around my age, it was unusual to see anyone over about 22 in there. One night I was serving and a guy who was at least mid 30's waited in the queue at my bar, when I came to serve him he told me he didn't want a drink but I should know I was too fat and ugly to work in that place and the girls who work there are meant to be nice to look at. Not that it would have been acceptable to say to anyone at any weight but I was also a size 10 at the time. Blows my mind still that the pathetic specimen actually stood in a queue for the power trip of insulting a teenagers looks. I was gobsmacked I just stood there staring as he made his way back into the crowd but spotted him later and got the pleasure of seeing security escort him out for harassing female staff.

Then when DS was about 6 months, we all had a cold, I was exhausted, kids were both grumpy and unwell, DH at work and we needed more calpol so we had to go to a shop.
Asked a staff member in the pharmacy if they had any dummies for screaming DS, she gave me a disapproving look and said directly to him 'oh you don't want a nasty dummy do you. You want mummy!', he was in a sling, had been fed/changed etc but was just upset.
I lost my rag and snapped back 'I asked if the shop stocks them not if you personally approve so why don't you do your job rather than dishing out parenting advice no one asked for'. I momentarily felt bad as I'm never rude to retail workers but she was an arsehole and just tipped me over the edge.

Had a couple of interesting comments from distant family some years back. So I was single when DS was tiny (ex had walked). When DS was about 3 months old, a relative asked when I'd be "providing DS with a sibling" as "it was cruel to leave him an only child". I pointed out that I was single, that it wasn't that easy to just go have another baby, and I was processing that ex had walked, me being a lone parent etc.

Same relative asked if I'd be returning to work. Again, I pointed out that I needed to work to support DS and me (ex wasn't paying a penny in CM). He helpfully told me that his kids didn't get shipped off to childcare, they were at home with his wife etc. I reminded him that he and his wife were in a loving strong marriage, he was making a HUGE amount of money as a banker, and they could afford for his wife to be an SAHM.....and that alas, I wasn't in the same situation.

I was really shocked at him, as he's normally a lovely, decent and very considerate/intelligent guy.

Astonishingly, twins can have different fathers!

Ask him has he ever thought about surgery to prevent the use of his ugly gob.

Going through airport security on our honeymoon, one of officials looked at me, then at my husband, and proclaimed 'Cradlesnatcher!'

Yes he is older than I am. By 3 years!

So odd and disconcerting.

Oh yes I used to get asked occasionally if DDs had the same father (they do and look alike in the face) . One is dark haired, one is blonde.

My DN is black and the same age as DD2 and I used to entertain myself being asked the same question when out with all three of them on my own, by either replying "Yes" and almost see the cogs whirring in their brains or "No, three different men," and watch their faces.

Absolutely. And "old bats" really @AmusedMember?

I wonder if blueberries come under economic, education, occupation, status or cultural capital? I don't feel more educated eating blueberries. And they're a cheap fruit at Aldi, so economically not that posh. I think both bin men and the queen can eat 'em. I guess it MUST be down to cultural capital. Not sure how, like.

I keep on checking back to see if the ageism has declined. It hasn’t. Please-every time you write old, or old bat or anything like that, think about what it would sound like if you wrote “black”.

Comment probably made because the child wasn’t eating crisps or chocolate. Still a daft comment though.

I went for a run in a nature reserve on Christmas morning. An old man called out to me "don't think that'll make up for all the food you'll be eating later". At least his wife looked embarrased. I wished them a Merry Christmas and carried on running.

😂 What a great way for your son's teacher to deal with an awkward comment!

At our local garden centre coffee shop/restaurant. Queuing up to get takeaway boxes as I hadn't managed to eat the slice of coffee cake I'd bought and DC and DGC hadn't eaten their brownies. The man in front of me said don't do it I can see you looking at the coffee cake. Yes I am morbidly obese but it was a bit rude. I did tell him I was getting take away boxes but I don't think he believed me

Unfortunately the cake was a bit dry the next day when I ate it 😭

Edited to add he did buy himself a brownie though

Not even a stranger, elderly relative, popped into visit him and was just standing near his bed and he said ‘you can sit on the bed you’re not too fat’ not sure if that was a compliment or not 🙄

Both of the outright nasty comments I’ve received have been from people who were at least 80 🤷🏻‍♀️

both in relation to my youngest who had a large strawberry birthmark on his face, when he was little enough to be in a pushchair. The first was two old ladies in a lift at the hospital. One turned to the other and said, loudly: “Look what she’s done to that child’s face, it’s wickedness”. The other was an old man on a train platform who sneered at my baby and said “he looks like he’s been hit by a train, haha”. Both reduced me to tears (I was very sensitive about it, because DS2 nearly lost his eye and it was really frightening).

Is it ageist to point out that it’s only old people who have said these things to me? I don’t think so.

Being criticised relentlessly by my ex best friend in public over my parenting her daughter was 7 so she ‘knew it all’. It was constant have you thought about this or that or the other - total waste of time

If they’d both been black?