To be really angry when I see flowers being picked in public places?

[Sativa]

Today I saw a small boy of about 4 or 5 picking a daffodil from a park to present to his mum/nan (hard to tell). All very lovely but if everyone stopped to pick one there would soon be nothing left but a few leaves!

I like seeing the Spring flowers and I taught my children to leave them where they were for everyone's enjoyment.

.....so I screamed like a banshee out of the car window "Stop picking the flowers !"

I think you need to chill.
There are plenty of flowers to go round.

Long thread in active convos about this already.

In fact it was just above this one on the list.

You screamed like a banshee at a 5 year old? yes, sounds reasonable to me.

I am quite chilled generally but I just feel this is selfish behaviour.

I'm going to look for the other thread now !

I think yabu but I would have liked to see you doing the banshee screaming out the car window, you big loon

YABU to have screamed, but YANBU in general. Also don't like seeing people trampling all over them. Agree they should be left for the enjoyment of all. You can buy little bunches of them for £1 anyway.

It's one flower, you sound like an incredibly unpleasant person.

So is one flower ok? Where is this rule written ?? What if someone chose to pick 50 ? It's only 50, there are millions of flowers in the world. He'd already picked one and as the 'responsible' adult with him thought this was acceptable, he went back to pick more. There were only about 5 daffodils in all; like I said if everyone had this attitude there would be no flowers left in the parks & public spaces. If you're happy with that fine, but I'm not. It's the principle

Yanbu - by my reckoning it goes about 90/10 yanbu on this subject.

"It's one flower, you sound like an incredibly unpleasant person."

And you sound charming yourself Gruffalo

Thanks Minty

YANBU they are not there to be picked. His mother should have dealt with it.

.....so I screamed like a banshee out of the car window "Stop picking the flowers !"
At a 5 year old?

YANBU but the screaming was very OTT! A woman once screeched 'don't just dump that there!' Because DS had dropped his cup out of his pram aged 2. I was on the ground before she'd shouted and when she kind of realised she turned bright red (I have never seen someone blush so much, before or since) and we kind of laughed awkwardly.

So a small child can't pick a flower in a park anymore?
How depressing.

I doubt he'll be permanently traumatised.....

I think if you can find the other thread, you will see that YANBU.

Am actually surpried that there are people on this thread who think that it's okay to pick flowers in a park

After all, it's only one
Poor children deprived of all fun

hmmph

And just for the record I also scream at children who chase pigeons/ducks/peacocks etc while their parents are standing around seemingly oblivious to it. Poor darlings....

Its not depressing ForwardScatter! Don't be so silly. There wouldn't be any flowers in parks if all children were allowed to pick them for their mummies. That would be depressing.

Forwardscatter - no, no they can't. They can look and smell and appreciate but they can't pick. What's depressing is a bunch of flowerless leaves.....

Nope small children can't pick flowers in a park. Apart from anything else its illegal. The thing is where do you draw the line with what's acceptable and what's not, 1 flower or 100? Would it be acceptable to steal 1 sweet from a shop? because that is the same issue taking something that is not yours.

minty, we clearly have a very different view of what's depressing and what's not.
But I suspect we can both live with that.

A daisy or dandelion is fine! But specially planted flowers not really - but it's the parent's responsibility to say so. Mine didn't like the idea of 'killing' a flower when I gently explained!

I'm with you OP, the flowers are there for everyone's enjoyment. If you want flowers go and buy some.

On your side Sativa. If I had seen a child do that, I would have told them off too, likewise if my children had picked flowers from a public display I would not have objected to another adult telling them to stop.