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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think I wasn't in the wrong here? (Soft play woman)

90 replies

AnneNonimous · 22/04/2013 17:50

I am entering the realms of soft play with DS now he can walk. Today me and a friend took our DC's to a local soft play. It's quite big so pretty expensive with a separate section for children under 3 and a huge play place for older kids.

I took DS (just turned 1) into the younger section where a woman came in with her son who looked a good few years older than 3. He decided he wanted to make a house with all the soft blocks in the area (and I mean ALL of them) and proceeded to do so while his mum sat reading a magazine. DS already has a thing for joining in with the older boys so toddled over to play and the little boy stopped him from touching any of the blocks. He followed DS around blocking all the soft play equipment. I waited for the mum to say something but she just stared at my DS as if she was expecting me to stop him. After a few minutes I led him away and said loudly 'come on DS some boys aren't taught to share' to which his mum replied 'oh do shut up he's playing with them'.

I told her since he was too big to even be in that area and my son is 1 years old I would have expected him to be able to share SOME of the equipment that was in there. She went back to her magazine and completely ignored me.

It was my first time at one of these places but I have a hard time believing that that's how they work!!

WIBU or was she??

OP posts:
sudaname · 23/04/2013 11:06

Have also learnt today that you cant put an emoticon under strikeouts , this Hmm was meant to be struck out.

How about -Hmm-

Close enough.

sudaname · 23/04/2013 11:21

Hail Oh Great One, our new Cult Leader

Chants the mantra repeatedly with Clementine:

The trouble with loud PA statements is they don't leave anywhere for the other person to go. Except to the land of cross

MrsMangelFanciedPaulRobinson · 23/04/2013 11:22

I think you were both being unreasonable. She should have told her son not to stop your ds playing on things, and your passive aggressive statement was unnecessary.

MyDarlingClementine · 23/04/2013 11:37

Its also a good PA statement to fire back at someone PA ing, one's self.

Pandemoniaa · 23/04/2013 11:41

YANBU in theory, no. But welcome to soft play. I'm afraid that there will nearly always be older children in the toddler area. What you do is not make PA comments but ask that the older child allows your little one to play given that this is the toddler/Under 2 (whatever they call it) area.

stickingattwo · 23/04/2013 11:44

YABU - mainly for the PFB-ness and the passive aggressive comments.

You can always get a member off staff involved if a parent won't move their child ( & that child is genuinely too big for the area)

rainbowslollipops · 23/04/2013 14:34

I don't think your ds will be effected by it. He's going to experience many things like this in his life. Soft play blocks will be the least of his worries.

pigletmania · 23/04/2013 15:57

Yanbu at all, what an incredibly rude woman. I would have alerted te staff

pigletmania · 23/04/2013 16:07

Does not matter if te boy was building something, they are not his blocks, welcome to the world of sharing. I personally would have told te boy that he must share and grabbed a few blocks for ds to play with

pigletmania · 23/04/2013 16:29

No I would have satchel them from te boy but say to him "please can we have some blocks to play with" if he said no I would have said "these blocks belong to everybody and so we must share them" at the same time as taking a few for my dc

ChocolateCakePlease · 23/04/2013 16:38

YABU to assume the boy was too old to be in there. My ds is very tall for his age - he starts school in September and is already taller than the reception kids at the school now. I remember last year when we took him to a theme park (he was 3 and a half) and was tall enough to go on the rides with a height minimum of 110cm. So the boy may well have been the right age but may have just been tall.

I stopped taking my ds to my local children's centre play session because he would set up the wooden train tracks to play (because he was an age where he could play with more structure) and would happily play alongside kids similer in age. Then little ones of 1 or 2 would come along and brake up the track or come and crawl/stand all over it. Not the childs fault of course because at that age they aren't old enough to understand but the parents would just sit there and do nothing or just find it funny. My ds and the other older 3/4 year olds would then get frustrated because their game was constantly broken up.

I said to a parent once about it and they came back all snotty "she's only 1 she doesn't understand" to which i replied "Yes but you are not 1, you are an adult who can see your child keeps braking up and walking all over their game when you could just take them over there to play with the toys designed for a 1 year old."

So in this case purhaps the mum could see her child was playing a game, saw your child was quite young and probably didn't think he would want to play the same game and as you didn't say to her or her child that he wanted to join in then she probably didn't think about it. If you had said to her child "can my ds play too" he probably would have let him but your PA comment set the parent into defensive mode.

AaDB · 23/04/2013 16:50

Softplay is Lord of the Flies training for DC and I cannot understand why they like it so much. Confused

I recently took Mini AaDb to one and found him being held by two boys whilst a third punched him in the throat. Parents could not be found or did not want to identified. Can't wait until he outgrows them.

ChocolateCakePlease · 23/04/2013 17:10

This has reminded me of a situation i had at soft play a few years ago with my dd when she was 2. It was a small soft play, only room for around 10 tables type of place. My dd was in the play area playing whilst a was drinking my coffee. A mum came out all cross, gave me a dirty look and sat down with her friend. When i took my dd to the toilet which was downstairs, as soon as i was out of sight i heard her say to her friend that my dd had trapped her sons fingers in the playhouse door in the playarea and she started slagging me off to her friend making the usual assumptions perfect parents make in these places.

When i came back i said to them that i heard what they said and asked her why she didn't just come out and tell me what had happened because it would have been sorted out straight away? They didn't know what to say to me because i had actually gone up to speak to them like a grown up to sort it out rather than relying on dirty looks and whining as soon as my back was turned.

It turned out my dd had shut the playhouse door without realising the boy had his fingers there.

sudaname · 23/04/2013 17:37

MyDarlingClementine l hope you didn't think l was getting a dig at you l was just saying l thought it was funny that we were both putting things under strikeouts and that might be a good idea to channel our PAness but did the Hmm after it to myself really as if to say - but on second thoughts that's not really getting rid of my PAness just hiding it.

MyDarlingClementine · 23/04/2013 18:09

Suda absolutely not, and I had not seen that you had also highlighted the famous words before me.

Grin
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