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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

or was this woman with a stick?

268 replies

VodIsGod · 30/08/2013 14:45

Out with my 3 DSs today, aged 8, 5 and 3. All on scooters, they tend to scoot ahead and we have set places on our route where they stop and wait for me to catch up on foot. Part of the route is downhill and they pick up speed but all use their brakes as none of them are adrenaline junkies.

Towards the end of our journey, an elderly woman with a stick approaches me smiling but states that my children were out of control on an earlier section of our route, that they'd gone past too fast. I said that I was sorry if my sons gave her a scare but that I didn't think they were out of control and I was keeping an eye on them. She said they were unsupervised and that she has a friend who was knocked over by a 5yo on a scooter, broke both her legs and never walked again.

I again apologised if they scared her, she said they didn't scare her but were dangerous and that she had decided that if any child came within a foot of her on a scooter she was going to push them into the road with her stick.

I said that that was an extreme reaction and she said it wasn't extreme because her life was just as important as any child's.

I again apologised if the boys had scared her, turned and walked away. She was still talking at me but I couldn't hear her.

AIBU or was she? I keep going over and over it

OP posts:

coco27 · 01/09/2013 08:38

A footpath is for pedestrians whether in the park (which given the 'road' comment I don't believe) or elsewhere.SCooters should technically not be on them at all really.
I think comment from the lady was just trying to emphasise this point.Scooters belong on the road not the footpath and if you don't treat pedestrians with respect she will put them where they belong.

TartanRug · 01/09/2013 08:44

Both were BU. The OP for not really having control over her children, regardless of if they were in a park or not and the elderly lady for saying she was going to push children into a road.

But I sincerely hope that when I'm an elderly woman I don't encounter some of the people on this thread that seem to think the elderly count for nothing. Really sad.

TartanRug · 01/09/2013 08:47

Market Day, Sometimes there are very wobbly & elderly folks in the veg-stall queue and they really should not be there, they are way too fragile to risk falling over in the bustling narrow queues. I like to think that if I couldn't survive crowded pavement conditions I'd have the sense not to be there.

You're absolutely right of course. Old people should stay in and starve to death lest they get in your way.

Unbelievable.

Lweji · 01/09/2013 08:50

You're being unfair, the pp obviously takes the elderly people's details, and does the weekly shopping for them, so they don't have to leave the house...

TartanRug · 01/09/2013 08:59

Well I hope so Lweji. :)

Though I doubt it...

bruffin · 01/09/2013 09:24

Parents do seem to have a complete lack of common sense with those little scooters. I have seen them in ridiculously crowded places like Oxford Street and the Mayors Show usually very young children woth no control.
We were in brighton last week in the gardens and two little ones were zooming up and down the path and knocked into a few people. Yes it was a park but a very busy park at lunch time. Their patents were no where to be seen.

kali110 · 01/09/2013 09:27

Lets hope you dont get old then, or have someone fetching food for you. Least when you are old you will be happy to stay in your house all day so you dont get in younger peoples way.
Hope these things arent what you are teaching your kids because then you should be scared when you get old

SilverApples · 01/09/2013 09:44

'You're being unfair, the pp obviously takes the elderly people's details, and does the weekly shopping for them, so they don't have to leave the house...'

Tried that with my parents, but the buggers keep escaping and tottering round town being a hazard. Ungrateful, that's what they are.

rockybalboa · 01/09/2013 09:54

I was siding with the lady (knowing full well what my own DC are like on scooters) until I read the bit about her pushing any child on a scooter that comes within a foot of her into the road with her stick. The road?!? Crazy lady. And I bet you anything she absolutely has not got a friend who was rendered permanently unable to walk by a 5yo on a scooter.

Sallystyle · 01/09/2013 09:56

I fucking hate kids on scooters.

So many parents allow their kids on them the second they get out of the school gate. They push their way through the crowds and one child knocked over my dd and ran over her hand. I told the child's dad and he just said 'oh ok'

I can't even count the amount of times I have had to quickly doge a kid on a scooter.

I am sure there are many parents out there who supervise their kids on them properly, I just haven't come across many.

BreasticlesNTesticles · 01/09/2013 10:08

We have roads that are pedestrianized in our park.

I feel I should point this out in the interests of fairness to the OP

BeckAndCall · 01/09/2013 10:45

Sorry iI'm late to this thread - I was out visiting my Aunt yesterday in hospital after a fall ( not scooter related ). She can't come home until she can manage to walk to the toilet on her own again - she was perfectly able to do so until she fell but now can't manage it.

And MIL spent 6 weeks in hospital last year for exactly the same thing - fell, and then couldn't get her mobility back.

Neither of them has broken a bone - no one should underestimate the impact of a fall on an old person, and the first few pages of this thread seem full of posters who quite frankly haven't got a clue about the severity of it- no wonder the old lady was vociferous on behalf of elderly everywhere - that's the rest of their life affected, right there.

But she was BU to talk about pushing them in the road. But who hasn't said something stupid when they're angry and upset. Surely her ridiculously expressed intent is not the point of this though?

candycoatedwaterdrops · 01/09/2013 11:50

"Market Day, Sometimes there are very wobbly & elderly folks in the veg-stall queue and they really should not be there, they are way too fragile to risk falling over in the bustling narrow queues. I like to think that if I couldn't survive crowded pavement conditions I'd have the sense not to be there."

I'm not elderly but I am wobbly and disabled. You can fuck the fuck off if you think I am going to avoid busy places such as markets and central London all because selfish people cannot look where they are going.

Kleinzeit · 01/09/2013 14:10

YWBothU. OP, you apologised for the wrong thing. You deliberately apologised for scaring the old lady but not for endangering her. You basically told her it was all in her head. Her response was spiteful but that was probably a frustrated reaction to the way you repeatedly dismissed her genuine concerns.

limitedperiodonly · 01/09/2013 16:36

For half of last year and a couple of months of this one I was a wobbly middle-aged person at the veg stall queue and other bustling places like the Tube on my way to work to pay my mortgage.

Sorry about that. I'm better now but it's something for me to look forward to again if I manage to live another 30 years.

I must think about internet shopping and having a private income in my next life.

The woman said she wasn't scared. Actually I think she was and with good reason. I didn't realise how quickly you lose your confidence faced with idiots.

Either that's people who let their children ride scooters on pavements, whether in the park or not, wtf are the infirm doing in the park anyway? or adults who bash into you while texting or just generally not looking where they're going.

limitedperiodonly · 01/09/2013 17:10

Continued rant or thanks: I dropped my 90 year old mother off at a Central London tube station about an hour ago, as I do every Sunday. She's very independent and dreads the day she might have to stay in.

We are treated with absolute courtesy by Transport For London staff. They let me go down to the platform with her and her wheely case, not because she can't manage the escalators even with her decrepitude, but because it's a bit safer and nearly all TfL people are nice.

When I see her on the train, sometimes it's busy and sometimes not. People always help. In 20 years I can count the times I've had to ask for a seat for her on the fingers of one hand, and that was because people didn't notice, rather than that they were being horrible.

I'm expecting a phone call from her soon. I guarantee she'll tell me about a chat with a lovely person, probably one with children. She likes children. She just doesn't want to be knocked over by them.

Luckily most people we meet are a bit more thoughtful than the OP.

UPDATE: She met three people who offered to carry her case up the steps and one person who listened to her chunter on about Morrisons, Iceland and Greggs

ICantGoOverItICantGoUnderIt · 01/09/2013 17:12

valiumredhead re the mobility scooters, I saw a piece in the news about companies hiring these out to anyone. Totally mobile teenagers are hiring then apparently and running am

ICantGoOverItICantGoUnderIt · 01/09/2013 17:13

Sorry posted too soon!

...running amok in town centres with them. I think this is the sort of thing the poster was referring to.

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