To have told this couple they were incredibly rude?

[pinkballetflats]

Shopping at Aldi today. Unable to park in mother and child bays - full. 8.5 months pregnant. 8 year old DC with me.

So, my trolly is fully, I'm struggling to keep it under control against differentiating cambers. I get to the car, DC is next to me, space on drivers side is empty. I open boot, give keys to DC, I am stood on drivers side of boot slightly blocking free parking space. I have to lunge to stop the trolly which with it's own mind has decided to start rolling towards the car parked on the passenger side. I become aware that a car is stopped behind my right shoulder and as I've moved to rescue the cart, it pulls in to the space on the driver's side of my car. DC now has the keys and needs to get into the car (the car park is busy, and DC can be a bit impulsive and I'm not leaving him at the back of the car with me while I try to unpack and prevent the trolly from hitting the car on our left. DC struggles with keys, I'm reminding him that there is now a car parked behind him and to be careful opening the door. You can see the female passenger getting impatient. I keep reminding DC to be careful but no...he hits their car with the door. I immediately being to apologise loudly and leave the troly risking it rolling into the car parked on our left.

The woman glares as DC, mouths something at him that I can't hear, I shut the door and quickly get back to the trolly while still apologising. The woman turns towards me, glares, and then turns around again.

At this point I think...fair enough, I'll speak to them when they get out of the car. I start unloading - there is no damage to their car. She get sout - nose quite literally stuck up in the air and I hear him say "You gone on, dear...I'll handle this."

He gets out, and comes around and begins to make a very big fuss of getting down on his knees to carefully inspect the car...running his fingers over the door. I continue to apologise, and he continues to ignore me. Eventually he gets up and walks past me towards the back of his car. I apologise again and turns to me and says how incredibly annoying people like me are who cannot supervise their children correctly. I'm pretty aghast actually - thinking they could see the predicament \I was in. Something snapes and I ask him if he actually is criticising my parenting abilities. He replies yes he is. I reply with "If there was any damage I would have obviously offered ot rectify it." He just walks past me and strolls off....nose in the air.

I left them a note on their windscreen - I pointed out that

a) They had the rest of the car park to choose from
b) They could see I'm heavily pregnant, on my own, with a child in a busy car park and that I was struggling
c) When someone apologises profusely for a mistake they made that a bit of grace goes a long way.

At that point I let my indignation get the better of me and told them them make this world a less pleasurable place to live.

I'm still incensed...

WIBU?

Surely by leaving them a note you've increased the chance that they will be annoyed with you enough to get the supermarket to find your reg no. on the CCTV and make a claim against your insurance if they think there's any damage whatsoever to their car?

I think YWBU though I appreciate it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You were rude and so were they. Ideally you should have held on to your ds and found a safe way to 'park' the trolley then supervised your ds getting into the car and then unloaded the trolley. You weren't juggling triplets. So I think if I'd been the person whose car door was hit, I might have been irritated that the parent hadn't supervised their child to stop that happening. I don't think you can expect people to leave the space next to you free whilst you unload shopping and kids into the car.

yanbu

I wouldn't have left a note, would have just told them no doubt

I wouldn't pull into a space with a child in it attempting to enter his own car.
Wtf is the matter with people. You wait a minute until the child is in the car don't you?
Christ there are some self important arses in the world. Were they chairing a UN summit in aldi or could they pssibly have hung on a moment?

YABU and they were BU. They were rude, least you attempted to be polite though. DS is 10 and I still open the door for him. There's not a set age where children can be trusted to open the door themselves, each child is different. You know your child and I agree with the previous poster than from what you said it doesn't seem like it was an unforeseeable event.

Also your car may have blocked their view so when they swung into the space your DS wasn't as visible as you were when you were blocking it slightly before you lunged for the trolley.

FWIW, I love my car, it's my second baby.
If someone let a child get into a car themselves and bang a door into it, I'd be cross.
If a pregnant woman had to make sure her child was safely in the car rather than standing in an empty parking space and did that by leaving a trolley that then rolled into my car I wouldn't have given a fuck, a child's safety is more important than my beautiful and ever so sexy lump of insured metal.

pagwatch only the OP knows where her chid really was. Personally, i think if she had given the child the keys before she was aware of the car behind her, I can't see why the child couldn't have got in the car more quickly.

The fact that he opened the car into the couples door implies he didn't start opening the door until after they had parked. More likely he was fannying around and the couple decided to park as his intentions weren't clear.

I agree that there are some self important arses in this world but in this instance I'm not sure the other couple were in this category.

Bear, there isn't much space between parked cars. If you saw a child 'fannying about' right next to where you were going to park, the correct thing to do is to wait for the child to get out of the way.

Don't don't start driving a car at them.

How do you know that didn't happen excuse? He might have been beside the OP when the other couple parked.

The fact he hit their door after they parked implies he didn't actually open the door untll they stopped. Surely OP had time to tell her son what to do if she had time to tell him to be careful not to hit the other car.

It sounds like a lot of fuss about nothing to me.

Being pregnant does not entitle you to special treatment in a supermarket car park when your son whacks someone else's car. Equally, accidents do happen and there is no need to be unnecessarily rude.

if they pulled into the car parking space while your ds was standing there, that was dangerous and likely to end badly, a bumped door being the least worse outcome
my kids are crap at opening car doors with keys too, and would faff like that

he didn't bloody whack the car...or fling the door open...he was careful...the door touched the other car door.

DS is very poor with verbal instructions...and I was flustered. And IME mist children do not get into the car in a split second. Id given home through keys, he was already on his way down as I noticed them.

I don't expect preferential treatment...they obviously did though...I do expect common courtesy. I shouldn't have let their colossal knobishness get to me and left a note. IME going to be more forceful in future...self entitled knob expects to drive into parking space when child is trying to get into car = me standing in space until DC is in car.

obviously Over over-reacted at their rudeness...probably be

Thank you for that Bear. Only the op knows where the child was.
I will carefully file that under 'no shit Sherlock'

I still think pulling into a space where there is a child , even if that child is fanny arsing around, is self important fuckwittery.

First it was 'I keep reminding DC to be careful but no...he hits their car with the door'

Now it's 'the door touched the other car door'

Get over it- you were wrong and they were rude but in return you were obnoxious with your note.

I couldn't be arsed to leave a note, I would have had my say at the time, then left it.

I don't expect preferential treatment...they obviously did though...I do expect common courtesy

How were they expecting preferential treatment?

They parked in an empty space and -

They just didn't expect to have a car door hit their car. Pretty reasonable - most people don't like potential or actual damage done to their car.

There are some right wankers on MN tonight.

Ah, give it up OP.

You should just be grateful they didn't run your son over. Fucking human beings beng fucking slow when people have urgent shopping needs. Aldi won't twatting well wait you know!
Christ, you will be expecting a little human empathy and gentleness next.

Because they could see DC was already there and trying to get in the car...a few seconds would not have killed them.

Touched...hit....how about "the edge of the door fide not make contact with the other car with enough force to make more than a 'dinking' noise.'

There. Clarified. Bear, you're right I sjoulgnt have even left the note...I should gave gotten in their way so they couldn't park or told DC to not move until I asked them if they could back back put for a second so DC could get in. Ill standu ground next time...it'll send a much better message than a passive aggressive note.

Well their car is obviously very precious to them, and sometimes apologising( however profusely) doesn't make it all better!!

I would have probably flicked the v at them as we left the car park though.

So what if they could see your DC? He's not a toddler. Most people manage to get into a car when another is parked next to them.

If your child is incapable of this then you should have called him back to stand next to you. Seeing how you are obviously aware of this as you wouldn't let him get into the passenger seat.

The majority of people if they were sat in their car and the car door next to them hit it and made a "dink" noise of course you would get out and check your car.

Checking the car? No problem, Cartwright, I was checking myself - I felt bloody awful. Being obnoxiously rude, glaring at me, treating me with obvious disdain, and telling me what a bad parent I am...when DC was ALREADY there at the side of the car....self-bloody-entitled.

In your opinion they were obnoxiously rude and self-bloody-entitled. In my opinion you were. Doesn't help though does it- just let it go.

Agree let it go.

You already wasted time over it by writing a note, and now you have been debating it all day over the internet. No need.

The couple probably read your note, laughed, ran over it and got on with their day.

OP, they weren't self-entitled. You don't expect someone else's child to possibly damage your car in a public place because you expect the parent/person in charge to be in charge of the child.

There is nothing in your note to them that accepts that you or your child did anything wrong. You think they should have avoided parking next to another car, you think they should have been fine about it because you apologised and also you think they should have extra sympathy for you for being pregnant and having a child with you. That makes you sound self-entitled. You were just putting shopping in the boot and your dc was getting in the car.

They still think people who don't supervise their children correctly are annoying and your note just confirms for them that some of those people don't even accept they are in the wrong.

On a positive note, you'll know now not to trust your ds in that situation so it's less likely to happen in the future when you have a baby to deal with as well. If I were you, I'd forget about the couple, assuming you don't hear anything more, and just be more careful with your ds when necessary.

OP, I know you were upset by this couple and I don't blame you. They sound obnoxious.

There's no need to keep defending yourself on here either, it's a thankless task; you could apologise and explain until you are blue in the face and people will keep piling in to have a go.

Hide the thread, get yourself comfortable (as much as possible ) and do something nice to relax.

Personally yabu, your son damaged his car, it wudnt have hurt when he got out of the car to have said 'I'm so sorry, is there any damage?'

Then if he was snotty you have the right to get arsy.