to have told her to call social services?

[moogy1a]

Taking ds2 into loos at supermarket when a woman followed us and handed me his hat that he'd dropped.
"oh, thanks, I hadn't noticed he'd dropped it" I say with a smile
Mad Lady:"why don't you take more notice of him, I saw him drop it earlier and you had to pick it up. You should look after him"
Me: " well, I do my best" ( with a nervous laugh)
Mad Lady: " well you're obviously not doing your best as you're not paying him enough attention"
Me: " what the hell are you on about you mad old bat?"
She carried on having a rant so I ended up telling her to "shut up you nutter" and then said she should obviously call social services as I'm a bad bad mum.
Conversation ended with me saying "oh do go away you mad old bint"
WIBU? ( probably was with the old comments but she was old and frankly very unpleasant)
BTW ds was oblivious as he was busy having a wee .

You sound charming

I'm obviously going through an attracting nutters phase at the moment. Karma for having had a trouble free couple of years!

I coudln't walk away, ds was on the loo and she was in the doorway anyway!

I think the weirdest thing that has happened to me (and it's not very weird) is an old lady who started chatting to me and my ds (in pushchair) in Safeway and then after a nice chat with us both, criticised me for letting him talk to her because children shouldn't talk to strangers.

YWBU if you said all those things to her. I'd have called her those things BEHIND her back.

There are people like this. Thankfully, I can only think of one, when I was working in () McDonalds, as a teenager. Someone's food took a little longer to make, I took it over to her. "I asked for ketchup!" she said, in such a nasty, aggressive tone of voice you had to hear it to believe it. "I'll get you some now," I replied nicely, then gave it to her - "Yes, and YOU just make sure you LISTEN in future!"

I think YWBU though, because to be honest you just gave everyone a show. Just a "OK, yep," would have been SO much more effective. She obviously wanted a row!

Fortunately there wasn't anyone else in the loo. ( maybe that should be unfortunately as she might not have been so nasty if I wasn't on my own)
jan love that tale!

I've just seen your ofsted thread too. You do have a lot of " twats" and "tossbags" in your life, don't you?
Do you rant on at people like that in the presence of the children you look after? I bet ofsted would have something to say about that too.

Moogy, they do exist ! When my dd was 16 months she touched the leg of a mad old bat woman in front of us in Tesco. Woman went ballistic, shouting at my dd.
I was , but my dad was with me and gave her both barrels.
Ywvnbu

I always thought it was against talk guideline to bring up one thread on another.

Several people mentioned op's ofsted thread so I searched.

Yes. I eff and blind all the time in front of them and encourage the mindees to call each other "tosser". Does that sound likely or am I allowed to react like a normal person at the weekend when my mindees are at least 5 miles away. God forbid childcarers sometimes say mad old bat when they aren't working.
And yes, it is bad form and against the guidelines to bring up other threads,

In these situations I find it best to

Smile and nod! Seems to irritate people especially if they are looking for a reaction :o

I don't understand why people her so wound up by people that offer opinions like this.

It's so obvious an ott reaction to your son dropping his hat, don't you just assume that there is something else going on for the 'mad old bat' ?

Did you not think that it's remotely possible she suffered with Dementia/alzheimers, or had some mental health disorder? Was it really necessary to call her a mad old bat/bint? Nice touch

had a mad old bint shout at me like that , i moved my buggy out of her way , so she could get through in a cafe , then she starts shouting that she wasnt going to steal or touch my baby ,and i was out of order , fucking weirdo .

Lost child's hat - tick
Lost child's shoe - tick (one Wellington boot and one shoe, both recovered eventually, but I didn't notice for a good 15-20 mins that they were gone)
Lost child's favourite teddy - tick x2

Does that make me a bad parent then?

Good grief, do these people not have better things to do?

YANBU to tell her to go away

YABU to use mad and nutter, but in the heat of the moment things get said that with the benefit of hindsight we can think "I could have handled that better/differently".