AIBU this young mother should have thought a little harder about what toys to take to the library?

[Morgause]

Local studies department of the library all is quiet as people researching their families, local history or looking through old newspapers make quiet notes. The only sound is the hushed whispered request to the librarian. It's always like that there - a little oasis of peace and tranquillity in the middle of a big city.

Enter young mum with small child clad all in pink. Small child is very loud and questioning (but very cute). Eyebrows are raised all around. A shudder of disapproval meanders its way around the gathering. Mum explains loudly to small person that she needs to look at some things in the old newspapers. Small person not impressed (loudly). Neither are crusty researchers.

"I won't be very long", I've bought you some toys to play with. Sighs of relief all round.

Mum roots round in large bag and produces a xylophone. Small child accompanies herself to a rousing chorus of "Winkle, winkle ickle star" several times without once hitting the right note.

The sense of outrage was palpable. I left before the drum came out.

I found it quite amusing but I guess people who'd travelled a long way probably didn't. I can't help but think some books and dolls may have been a better choice than a xylophone.

The OP didn't actually say the small person was a girl. Maybe the small person was a boy, in which case apologies for jumping to a gender stereotyped assumption.

If the small person was a boy then not really sure why we needed to know he was wearing pink any more than we needed to know "she" was wearing pink.

It was a good story. It's a delightfully inappropriate toy to take to library.

"accompanies HERself"

To me anyone under 30 is a young mum. I have no strong feelings about pink. I have no idea what sort of buggy it was, I'm far too old to care about buggies but it was a sort of denim blue if that helps.

The subject of the anecdote was the mother and child. The affronted researchers were merely extras in the scene. No need for vivid descriptions of them.

I'm even more amused by the bristling outrage and determination to be offended from a few here than by the scene in the library.

So you don't share my sense of humour? I really don't care and it won't put me off posting anything else I find amusing. Or amending my use of language.

Ignore all the professionally offended op, some people have nothing better to do than be offended at the most silly silly things.

Morgause the mum was thoughtless and ignorant.

You story was well told

The moaners on here are only moaning because they are bored and probably have nothing else to do but argue about the use of the word pink.( you find them on every thread)

Carry on as you were.

Thank you Flossie and bigbuttons

How on earth did she think....Right, study area of library, two year old, what to take? Of course! Xylophone!!..... madness!

Did she look embarrassed? Or oblivious?

Heh heh heh

Whatever age mum she was, she is obviously oblivious to anyone else apart from her and her child.

When my dd was younger she was clad head to toe in pink because she wanted to be. She's now a goth. I have no thoughts one way or the other on pink clothes and don't see it as an insult.

Taking a xylophone into a library is fairly bonkers.

She was BU - that is annoying and inconsiderate - but you sound like a snob and other people are telling you that too. "Word picture" - pretentious bollocks! You may be "just saying" what is true but the things that you "just say" allude to a social stereotype. The fact that you noticed and chise to remark on the childs attire tells us that you do not share this mothers taste and come from a different class. describing her as a young mother invites us to think of the stereotype of the irresponsible benefits-scrounging single mother. Did you offer to read to her child for fifteen minutes so she could do her work? No. I guess not. YABU.

You live in a bubble yourself if you can't see what's wrong with this.

This did make me chuckle, as I've spent a large portion of the past 3/4 years in libraries and always felt a little shiver of glee when something kicked off!

My friend once sent me a very amusing Basshunter video and I watched it on my laptop on the very quiet top floor of a library. It was about 1.5 minutes in before I realised I didn't have the headphones in. The (thoroughly well deserved) glares I got that day...

Why the hell should the OP offer to entertain this woman's child for her?

I did smile at this but I think YABU. Our local library is being closed due to the council feeling it was underused and allocating sparse funding elsewhere. At least she was there. And I agree I think stating that she was a "young mother" twice makes you sound like a snob.

your word picture, as you put it, is basically saying that, regardless of the toy in question, the [young] mother and child [in pink] had no place there, and it's so totally unsurprising that they didn't know what was appropriate behaviour.

She was U. And you are a dreadful snob.

if you want to focus people's attention on the salient point, then I suggest you divest your word picture of extraneous detail that is neither here nor there. Less is more, as they say.

Of course, if you want to start a bun fight (your real objective, I would guess) carry on as you are.

Apparently you should have just said 'a parent brought a child into the library with a xylophone'. Much more boring version but at least neither young nor old nor mums or dads nor pink lovers or pink haters would have been offended

I for one appreciated the scene you painted. I love a good description and statement of facts to picture the scene in my head. I'm going to assume that the mum in question had little-to-no experience of libraries!

Thanks, PoirotsMoustache.

My intention wasn't to start a bunfight MrsOakenshield. I was surprised when one kicked off. If some strangers on a website think I'm a "dreadful snob" it really isn't going to bother me. They don't know me.

You sound like a rude old bag but I expect your friends think differently.

Yes,I loved the story!

My dd has a lot of pink, because lots of people buy her clothes (gps, uncles, aunts etc) and I'm not ungrateful bothered enough to say..Oh no thanks, she doesn't wear pink in protest to the gender stereo typing.

morgause that should just be bag, not old bag.

Oh Gawd. I've been ageist again.

If I had been there, I would have laughed.

Youthecat - that link made me chuckle a lot.

Having said that, there was a thread on here once about a family allowing their toddler to blow on a recorder on a packed train once. For some reason I couldn't see the humour in that at all.

Maybe it's all in the telling.

I don't understand what difference mother's age or colour of child's clothes has to do with anything.

Apart from the that, your story made me smile.

So I, a freelance consultant with two degrees, would be described as a young mum if you saw me with my toddler?

Aside from that, yes the instruments were an appalling choice, maybe she didn't realise that the archives were so far from the children's section? I love taking ds to the big central library because they have a better selection of books (for both of us) and a large space with puzzles etc that he loves playing in.

Funny story. I'm amazed at the ability of some people to be offended (frankly, young mother sounds like a compliment to me). Oh well, haters gotta hate.

So am I ithaka.
Whoever said the OP intended to start a bun fight...