WIBU here?

[IfYouLoveSomebodyLetThemSleep]

Our drive has lots of blackberries growing on it, the children that live on the street were taking a big interest in me giving some to DS so I invited them to pick some theirselves (after checking for allergies and the usual speech about always checking with an adult before you eat wild berries). I gave them a bowl and told them to get picking.

Next thing I know one of their Dads is storming across the street shouting about them being poisonous, the kids were all crying by that point, thinking that I'd poisoned them.
I calmly pointed out that they are obviously not poisonous as they are blackberries, can be bought at most shops etc. He carried on shouting about not being so reckless in future, how I could have poisoned all the kids.

I apologised for upsetting him but really, there was nothing to be upset about. I still don't think I was being unreasonable for letting the children do something as normal as picking blackberries, or was I?

No good deed goes unpunished...

Well I'm glad the majority of you have I wasn't BU, I was beginning to think I'd done something awful.

I just feel a bit sad now as all the kids think I've been trying to hurt them :(

One of the difficult things children have to learn is that some adults - including parents - are wrong. If the local kids know you as a good sensible person they are likely to know, deep down, that you would not hurt them. It is more likely that they will distrust somebody who shouts and screams and panics.

What is wrong with society at present? It's picking blackberries for heaven's sake! What a bullying and unreasonable idiot that man was. Sorry you got shouted out OP-I'd love a neighbour like you.

Ywnbu at all! The father is an ungrateful idiot, you sound like a lovely neighbour.

The trouble is, whilst you intend to show the child how to pick blackberries, you never know what they might pick which is unsuitable to eat and you don't know how well other people's kids learn the lesson about asking an adult. Other parents might tell their child "never pick anything from the bushes and eat it", knowing their child is impulsive and wouldn't remember about checking or about different fruits.

Yanbu, I can't believe anyone thinks you were. Personally I find picking blackberries boring so I'd be delighted if DD came home with a bowl full. Admittedly she's only 2, so maybe in a few years!

what a twonk,

Suggest he looks up a recipe for apple and blackberry crumble, google blackberries images, and a nice bottle of wine will help with the apology.

How does anyone get to be old enough to breed, and not know what a blackberry looks like.

I bet he feels embarrassed when he finds out.

Goodness me. When I was little, I knew what blackberries looked like, where to find them and when they were ripe. Because adults showed me and explained... YANBU.

Crikey- where are all you folks who've got ripe blackberries? We've got tiny green bullets here still .

Crikey- where are all you folks who've got ripe blackberries? We've got tiny green bullets here still

South. The BEST blackberries I have ever seen along Lee Valley at the weekend. Seriously huge and super sweet.

YANBU. Do you think he knew that they were blackberries because the OTT reaction would suggest not?

Yanbu

I would be mortified if that dad belonged to my house

Yanbu

Yanbu I wouldn't have had a problem with it.

YABVVVU.

They are called BRAMBLES

YANBU-if the children are old enough to be playing out without an adult then the parents can hardly complain to you about 'allowing' them to do something. He sounds crazy! Would he have preferred you and DS gleefully picked and ate them all whilst the others sat and watched? I can't believe some posters think you shouldn't have let them join in, threads like this make me think twice about helping anyone else out...as a friend once told me 'never does a good deed go unpunished'.

I would let children pick them if we had them growing near us but I'd only agree after they had gone home and asked. It'd only be with children where I know the parents though.

Ridiculous stupid man.
Who doesn't know what blackberries are (or as primalass correctly said brambles)
Ive picked them since I was a child, and will be picking more when they come to fruit in a month or so. we have millions round here.

Sweet Jesus. You mean some of you would expect a NT child with no allergies to go home and ask a parent before eating a blackberry?!

This is why we have late teens unable to function on their own....

I mean, the only possible excuse is if the children were like 3-4, but if they are playing out alone I'm guessing 8+, in which case...

OP YANBU, at all. Tell him to keep his precious darlings inside and off your property if he feels like that, and never to come onto your drive and speak to you like that again. What a control freak.

chump dad, cool neebs op

YANBU. In what world should a child not be taught that they can eat blackberries?

But only the one's higher up than a dog can cock his leg.

yanbu

I'm with RevoltingPeasants - I really really don't get people who suggested that you should have sent the kids home to ask whether they were allowed to eat a blackberry? wtf?

If the OP's DS had asked her for an apple from Tescos (i.e not the tree) for each of them should they ask too?

But I really wonder if a lot of people don't know what blackberries are / don't 'trust' picking themselves. I can't believe how many there are, with no-one picking them. :(