Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to have called a woman in TK Maxx an "effing idiot" for this...

193 replies

dontsqueezetheteabag · 07/08/2013 12:46

she had her child in one of those shopping baskets that have wheels and a pull up handle. Child must have been about 12 months old. Woman turned round to look at something on the shelf and let go of the handle on the basket. Child stood up in the basket and it tipped backwards. The poor child fell with it banging the side of her little head on the tiled floor.

I was TRUELY appaulled by this and muttered "fucking idiot".

Why the HELL would you let your child stand in one of those baskets???!!!!

OP posts:
ImNotBloody14 · 07/08/2013 13:11

oh so you did help? whilst muttering 'fucking idiot'? i hope that child didn't hear you. and no i don't act bothered when my dcs hurt themselves- it doesn't help them calm down if i'm wetting myself with panic.

limitedperiodonly · 07/08/2013 13:12

What is TK Maxx? It sounds perfectly ghastly.

WorraLiberty · 07/08/2013 13:13

Ahh you don't have kids but you've looked after a few

Righto

NoComet · 07/08/2013 13:14

I'd have muttered too and quite possibly not under my breath.

I spent many years very carefully strapping DD1 into trollies because she tried to kill herself if you didn't.

It gets my goat when people just don't think how hard shop floors are.

Original poster
dontsqueezetheteabag · 07/08/2013 13:15

Worra - when I do have children, hoepfully very soon I will NOT be letting them into a shopping basket in a shop. How irresponsible.

OP posts:
Original poster
dontsqueezetheteabag · 07/08/2013 13:16

Thanks Star.... I actually cannot believe people on here don't think what the woman did in the first place (letting the child into the basket) was totally the wrong thing to have done and directly lead to the child being hurt.

OP posts:
mynameisslimshady · 07/08/2013 13:19

When you do have kids you will make mistakes all the time, and you will hate judgy people commenting on you not being the perfect parent. The woman knows she made a mistake, why did you feel the need to stick the boot in?

Babysitting is totally different to the 24/7 of parenting so not comparable.

ImNotBloody14 · 07/08/2013 13:20

who said what she did wasn't the wrong thing? Confused

nobody here has said she was being perfectly sensible have they? they've just said you WBU to call her a fucking idiot.

KellyElly · 07/08/2013 13:21

dontsqueezetheteabag Maybe you won't do that but chances are like any first time mum you will do something stupid and a momentary lapse of concentration will result in a bang or a bump which you will feel awful about and beat yourself up over. Maybe that's why those of us who do have children are a bit more sympathetic to this kind of thing.

WorraLiberty · 07/08/2013 13:23

Has anyone on this thread said the woman was right to put the child in the basket OP?

No

The point many of us are making is that people sometimes do stupid things, then they learn from them (hopefully).

When you have kids, I can guarantee you'll be judged as a fucking idiot due to some of the mistakes you'll make.

Those people may think "fucking idiot" or they may mutter it under their breath.

They may also run home and start a thread on a parenting website, inviting others to agree that you are indeed a fucking idiot.

Meanwhile, you'll already feel like shit due to your fucking idiocy.

LRDYaDumayuShtoTiKrasiviy · 07/08/2013 13:23

In my experience of not having kids, it is pretty easy for you and me to think 'hmm, I am well-rested, not at all knackered, haven't been worn down by constant demands all day, and in my considered opinion doing x is daft'.

So what I do is, I think 'hmm, is it possible I'd do something really stupid if I were knackered and sleep deprived'? And is it possible I would feel a right idiot once I'd done it.

If yes, give them the benefit of the doubt, judge it as a stupid thing in your own head, and move on.

It's not like she's going to do it again in a hurry.

MammaTJ · 07/08/2013 13:24

I don't have children, however I do have expeirence of being out and about with very young kids

Ah, so you don't have experience of relentless sleepless nights, then dealing with a baby all day.

Come back and stand in judgement when you do. Until then YABU!

adeucalione · 07/08/2013 13:24

I've made dozens of stupid parenting decisions over the years. Of course they didn't seem stupid at the time - no one would intentionally put their child in harm's way - and they've usually involved misjudging risk in some way.

Consequently I would have seen a mum who thought 'ok I give in you can ride in the basket and it will be fine if I just don't let go of the handle'. And then got distracted and let go of the handle and felt rubbish.

It's well documented that when we make mistakes ourselves it is due to a set of perfectly understandable circumstances but when someone else makes a mistake they're fucking idiots.

Fuzzysnout · 07/08/2013 13:27

"What is TK Maxx? It sounds perfectly ghastly" limitedperiodonly I think I may just love you a little bit.

OP have you not been made aware of the unwritten MN rules which say it is a mother's right to allow their pfb to stand in any shopping trolley or basket they choose, no matter the chance of serious head injury? It comes just before the one about naice ham and after the one that states that on any post about someone's abusive, stupid or downright offensive behaviour, at least one poster must ask 'did you offer to help them?' in a smug tone. YWNBU by the way.

phantomnamechanger · 07/08/2013 13:28

YANBU to think it, YABVU to say it, even under your breath

FrogsGoWhat · 07/08/2013 13:31

While dealing with a very clingy whingey DD who NEVER fucking slept - I often made stupid mistakes like this.

YABU. Yes she made a mistake and her child got hurt. Although I presume you are assuming it was the mother and not eg an aunt or childminder?

DesperatelySeekingSedatives · 07/08/2013 13:31

You sound like a fucking idiot yourself tbh.

SirChenjin · 07/08/2013 13:31

Oh so very true Fuzzy.

higherhill · 07/08/2013 13:33

I'm sure we've all done stupid sleep deprived stuff if we're honest. I once forgot to strap toddler into car seat and did'nt notice till we pulled up on the drive. Another time forgot to strap ( bit of a theme here) him into his buggy, so we set off down the hill near our house, he rocked backwards and forwards a few times and then catapulted himself out of buggy on to the pavement....thankfully no harm done on these occasions, he was ok and I berated myself for stupidity for ages afterwards...it happens.

Original poster
dontsqueezetheteabag · 07/08/2013 13:34

flamed

FFS

OP posts:
WeAreSeven · 07/08/2013 13:34

Yep, the judgiest ones are the ones that don't have children themselves.
Up all night, buggy forgotten, child whinging to go in basket..........
and accident seen by Miss-I've-babysat-loads.

Pagwatch · 07/08/2013 13:40

I mutter under my breath at times. It's not really the same as calling someone something.
I clicked onthe thread hoping for tales of a fantastic stand off, like an episode of Eastenders but even more polyester. Actually the titles should have been
Aibu to have sucked my teeth a bit.

shootfromthehip · 07/08/2013 13:40

A deserved flaming IMO dstt- I've relented to things that I would never think possible, simply because of the sheer weight of fighting and saying no all of the time. It's not nice to have voiced your disapproval in such an ugly way: trust me, the tears and screams of that little one who have been punishment enough for the parent.

Feminine · 07/08/2013 13:41

I have 3 and have been sleep deprived.

Still haven't put them in anything not designed for babies.

I totally understand car seats, buggies ....the child falling!

In this case , it was a preventable accident.

op I'd ask to get this thread pulled or hide it.

poppingin1 · 07/08/2013 13:43

I saw something far worse than that once.

Was in Ikea with DH and DD in pushchair last year when we saw a family of around four adults, one teenager and one toddler in a pushchair walking onto that conveyor belt style escalator at the exit.

They had very large boxes with them on a flatbed trolley and a load of stuff had been piled onto the pushchair, as well as the adults carrying at least one blue ikea bag each.

DH is very against using the conveyor thingy when we have the pushchair so we always use the lift which is right next to.

You honestly cannot miss the lift as you pass right in front of it to get to the conveyor thingy. So we were just commenting on why the large family had chosen to use this apparatus instead (we even watched them take quite a few minutes to figure out how they were going to get on the thing) when as the pushchair loaded with stuff got halfway down, IT TIPPED! There was the most awful scream from the poor toddler and the security guard ran to use the emergency button to switch it off. We all tried to help as the buggy was quite heavy to lift back onto its wheels.
When we saw the little girl I was horrified. The left side of her face was very swollen and her eye had ballooned incredibly!

When DH and I finally got outside, they were waiting for a paramedic.

Honestly it was so awful to see, it still sends shivers down my spine when I think about it.

Swipe left for the next trending thread