I was dropping my 2yr old at nursery this morning; to get in you go through a gate and down a passage where there is an outdoor cupboard where the buggies are stored before you get to the entrance to the building. So this morning as I'm folding the buggy down my dd knocks on the cupboard door and says something like 'hello, who's in there'. A man (not a parent of another child) says 'ooo it's a monster, that's where the monsters live'. I just brush over this with dd saying something like he's just joking there's no monsters then turn to him and say 'please don't say that I her, what a daft thing to say to a small child'. He then basically said I was being ridiculous and a fool', to which my well thought out comeback was 'no, you are'.
Anyway I take dd upstairs and settle her into nursery, when I came down I went out another way (I needed to use the toilets) that took me through reception. The same man was there chatting to the receptionist, obviously about me as when I came in he said 'oh here she is'. To which I just said 'excuse me!' He then went on to say 'I think there must have been some misunderstanding earlier', I replied 'no misunderstanding you told my 2yr old there was a monster in a cupboard she has to walk past everyday and I asked you not to'. He then went on to say that he worked with children and that scaring them with talk of monsters and then discussing and overcoming fear was a strategy they used. I then said that even if that was true he wasn't in some kind of therapy session with my dd it was a comment to a child that he had no idea about. He then accused me of only saying anything because he was a man and I wouldn't have said anything to a women. I asked why could he just not accept that it was an ill thought out comment and apologise, he just carried on trying to defend what he did so I just walked off then.
Was I wrong? Should I have just let it go?