To be cross with my Dparents for telling DS that cowcatchers are bad?

[Reluctant2ndtimer]

The dc and I have stayed at my DPs house and DS is in their bedroom showing them his train book. He told them he used to be an old train with a cowcatcher but that now he is an underground train.
Mum said 'cowcatchers are terrible dangerous things, they catch children.'
Dad went on to agree with her and they both started a bit of a rant about the dangers of them.
IABU to tell them off? He is only 3 and not likely to ever come across a real cowcatcher Ffs. He doesn't need to be told this IMO.
They had me terrified as a young child and not so young adult of escalators by telling me about children getting their legs eaten. Etc etc, I think they forgot how much children believe.
I realise that there are worse things in life and they are fabulous parents and gps in every other way but DS is my pfb

ffs get a grip.
and yes yabu

I used to worry about bears eating me if I stepped on the cracks in pavements! Since trains don't have them now I don't see the problem.

YABU. Completely.

I think they're probably talking about those big bars on the front of some 4x4s and they are bad - children have a significantly higher risk of serious injury if they're hit by a car with ones on them

He is 3, he wil hear people say things like this, it's up to you to put his mind at rest.

Oh yes, escalators eating children. Seriously, as an adult I still flinch going on them (even though I know IABU)

I think it is a rite of passage to be told riddiculous stories by grandparents.

If you think that is bad my Grand Parents told me the Sir John Barrow monument in Ulvaston was a helter skelter. So when I stayed at my nan's sisters house at the bottom of the lane looking up to it I got up early every day for 2 weeks really excited looking for the flag which mean the 'helter skelter' would be open. Only it isn't a helter skelter and the flag only happened on certain days to show the monument was open - but not at the time of year we were there.

Oh how nan, grandad and nan's sister laughed!!!!

I'm still mad 40 years later!!!!!

Gilb Me too!
Before I go on an escaculator I have to count to 3 and the step has to be in a certain position because I'm frightened I'm going to be out of sync with it!!

Wtf is a cowwcatcher?

But yes, pfb

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_(locomotive)

me three on the escalators, i used to kick up such a fuss that my dad used to have to lift me up and put me on them. at 36 i'm having to overcome it though because my DS (3) loves to "ride" on them...

DD went through a shocking phase of nightmares about 6 months ago because her SM told her Jack Frost woukd get her.

Somehow this all got blown out of proportion in DDs head and a whole story about how Jack Frost knocks on little kids windows at night and takes them away was giving her serious worry.

Only last week (in her new room) she had a nightmare that a tall man with no face ate her. She says it was Jack Frost.

So OP, YANBU.

I dont see the need in telling children stupid and potentially scary stories.

They will hear them all the time. You would have to ban all fairy stories and pretty much all children's literature -which would then be terribly bland and boring! It is your job as a parent to put his mind at rest-rather than imagine you can control his whole environment.

Cowcatchers are pretty insipid next to wicked wolves, evil witches etc.

Exotic Don't forget the bogey man!! Scared me shitless!!

Also There was a man who wasn't there.

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn?t there
He wasn?t there again today
I wish, I wish he?d go away...

My grandad used to receite this poem to me that I would almost crap myself going up the stairs to bed and nan's house!!!! I used to run as fast as I could and not dare to look round just in case 'he wasn't there!'

iknowwho my Dad used to say it like this

"As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
Dear God I wish he'd go away"

I think the "Dear God" was his own addition but that bit used to fill me with terror! It sounds so desperate!

My Nan told me about screaming Minnie...who was apparently some sort of shrieking child eating witch that used to hurtle around the streets of Liverpool.

My Nan was born in 1910 to Irish parents and I think "Screaming Minnie" was a mixture of an Irish Banshee and the noise made by incendury bombs during the war.

Whatever she was she was terrible to hear about when you were 6!

My DS has an amazing ability to be scared of anything

We went to Warwick castle recently with a friend and my friend and I were laughing at the tinny, tacky medieval music that they pipe out of speakers hidden in the bushes. I said without thinking "This music is really bad!" and then shortly afterwards DS looked very worried and said he didn't like the music, because it was bad music (in the tone of "the bad people")

He was then terrified of the music for the entire day nothing I could say would convince him otherwise!

Do you think he was actually scared? Or is the problem that you remember yourself being scared because of the way they told you about things? You talk about them "ranting" about the dangers, which is quite an emotive word.

If you think they have form for overstressing dangers in a way which is unhelpful, then I think it's fair to chat to them about it, and say "I know he can't be kept in cotton wool but I had nightmares from the way you used to "warn" me about things, and I don't think it's the best way to keep him safe".

My parents didn't do this, but they did "guilt" me into doing things and I had to pull them up a bit with DS when I heard them doing the same to him.

BigFatLegs My grandad used to say it more or less the same as your dad, As I was going up the stair..........,

I double checked the poem and posted the original version. Things alter through the course of history as people put there own slant on things.
Did you know that poem was written in 1899

Here is the full original version

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn?t there
He wasn?t there again today
I wish, I wish he?d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn?t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don?t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don?t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn?t there
He wasn?t there again today
Oh, how I wish he?d go away

Glad it's not just me with the escalator fear - actually I've mostly got over it through going on them every day on the Tube, but I'm still on some level convinced that if I step on the yellow line I'll be sucked in and mangled .

Ephiny That's because you WILL!!!! (Evil cackle!!)

Actually I think this is the same mechanism by which religion 'gets' you if you're exposed to it as a small child, you never completely get rid of that nagging 'but what if it's true' voice.

I've been an atheist all my adult life, but I'm still in some part of my brain afraid of going to Hell (it was the picture book about Fatima with the damned souls writhing and screaming in the flames that did it). I'll probably end up making a deathbed confession just in case...

Oh my gosh, I used to be scared of escalators when I was younger. I remember those adverts on tv warning you to keep your feet away from the side, and then there used to be a welly being eaten up in the escalator. I once went to John Lewis with my mum and saw a naked mannequin without legs and thought it was a real person with their legs eaten by the escalator.

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