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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To have told a woman to take her shivering child home to bed in Primark

742 replies

BigRedBall · 05/11/2014 17:55

I went out today to get a few bits and bobs and ended up in a Primark. Got to the lifts and saw a woman waiting with a pushchair and on it was hanging a school bag. Looked to her side and she had a school aged child with her who was visibly ill, shivering, moaning. I assumed she'd picked him up from school and was dropping by on way home, but then realised school bag was from a school other side of town.

We went up together and the boy was whimpering now and looked really bad. The mother didn't seem to notice/care.

So I was walking around and the tanoy went off asking for a store cleaner to go to "area bla bla bla" for a clean up. Didn't really take any notice until I walked to the other side of the shop and the same woman was standing there with a now crying baby in pushchair and crying/ shivering child who had been sick all over the shop floor. There were splatters of pink sick on clothes, the mirrors, it was disgusting and she was stood there on the phone to someone and was telling the boy off.

I don't know about anyone else, but when my children get ill and shiver like that with fever, the last thing I'd do is traipse them across town. I'd give them a hug and put them in bed and hold their head if they were being sick. Goodness knows vomiting is draining even for an adult.

I felt so angry for the poor boy. So I walked up to her and said "instead of bringing him to the shops from school, you should've taken him home to bed. I'd take him straight home and give the poor thing a hug".

I think she was more shocked than anything.

DH thinks I wbu and is shocked I'd say that to someone. I don't think I am. Also, I now feel sick and think I have his germs.

OP posts:
BigRedBall · 05/11/2014 22:29

Now I followed her around. Hmm....

OP posts:
AgentDiNozzo · 05/11/2014 22:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SomeSortOfDeliciousBiscuit · 05/11/2014 22:30

And yes, I have read the thread in it's entirety, before the thread police start jumping on me and saying I can't possibly have the opinion I've just posted, because I haven't read the thread...

MollyHooper · 05/11/2014 22:30

I know...

It's crap when people start calling you a bad mother stalker because they don't get the full picture.

Isn't it?

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 05/11/2014 22:30

How do you know which child spewed?

Mrsstarlord · 05/11/2014 22:30

Everyone else is hysterical? Not you, who has struggled so much to control yourself that you have forced someone to listen to your judgement on their parenting? Not you who has then come home and written about it on a forum?
It's everyone else who is hysterical?

HaroldLloyd · 05/11/2014 22:31

DNA swab?

AgentDiNozzo · 05/11/2014 22:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MollyHooper · 05/11/2014 22:32

Gosh I am over using the strike outs tonight.

snort

BigRedBall · 05/11/2014 22:33

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

sharonthewaspandthewineywall · 05/11/2014 22:33

Her comments may not have caused her any long term harm or distress but neither would they have done any good. It's not like the brave and heroic life saving OP stopped the child running in front of a car or reported a badly neglected child hence saving him from a life of misery. She just served to make someone feel bad for something that was too late to change

Ir1na · 05/11/2014 22:34

And arguing of the kind on this thread is a VERY major reason why I (and probably a lot of other people) are Extremely cautious about intervening in anything other than a life-threatening situation. Hmm

FloatIsRechargedNow · 05/11/2014 22:35

YABU - no matter your rage, could you not have offered to help or have offered some soothing words to the sick child instead?

Maybe she was on the phone to her DP that he needed to hurry up and pick them up as son had been sick in Primark?

Maybe the boy had scoffed a bunch of sweets (how vibrantly pink was the barf?) and his mum was cross with him because she had warned him that it would make him sick?

How do you think that little boy felt to see his mother belittled when he already felt like crap - I bet you made him feel even worse.

MrsDeVere · 05/11/2014 22:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mrsstarlord · 05/11/2014 22:37

Quite calm thank you BigRed, just surprised at your seeming lack of self awareness.

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 05/11/2014 22:37

Yeah it's pretty shit just marching up and ripping into someone like that and very unlikely to help the situation at all.

You could have approached her from a place of kindness and concern rather than ranting and criticising. Do you agree?

Poor soul. Bad enough being sick but having someone shouting at his mum must have been very confusing for him. Regardless of how shit you deem the mother to be, he won't feel like that.

HaroldLloyd · 05/11/2014 22:37

I don't think she needs to calm down OP, she's not the one taking potshots at randoms in shops. Smile

CrashDiveOnMingoCity · 05/11/2014 22:37

My favourite part of this thread is the pink vomit description!

Aridane · 05/11/2014 22:38

I'm with the OP's husband here.

YWBU, judgmental and did nothing to help the situation.

Still, it made you feel good...

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 05/11/2014 22:39

Maybe he'd been taken out of school to go to an appointment, got sweets for behaving then gobbled the lot and barfed?

16789877 possibilities.

SomeSortOfDeliciousBiscuit · 05/11/2014 22:40

The comments wouldn't have done any good? I disagree. If the situation was exactly as it appears to be (a mother dragging a sick child around Primark for no reason), then the OP's comments may have made a difference in making the mother realise she wasn't doing her sick child any favours.

I would rather intervene and be thought of a judgemental cow if I was wrong, than let the chance to make a difference go by. It's not just life-and-death situations that are important.

I'm probably giving the impression that I constantly go around, offering advice and criticisms on others' parenting. I don't. But if I see something with my own eyes that I decide, on the balance of probability, is actually what I am seeing and there are no hidden things going on, then yes, I say something. I won't apologise for that as I believe it's the right thing FOR ME to do.

Waltermittythesequel · 05/11/2014 22:42

Again, OP, if you're so sure you were right, why post this thread?

It wouldn't be for lots of internet back patting, would it?

Also, are you going to apologise for taking the piss out of someone's grammar? Especially since your own is shit.

ddubsgirl77 · 05/11/2014 22:43

Ynbu we had a family in shop 1 night 2 kids older vomited all over the floor was called over and a 1st aider was called and the mum said oh yes she was sick at school picked her up and seen the gp and then we came shopping nothing we can do and told her to see pharmacy but seeing as gp had told her it was a bug and this was gone 8pm poor kid had been dragged out and was told she had been sick on the bus at the doctors as well as scho poor kid needed to be at home in bed not passig the bug around by being sick all over supermarket floor!

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 05/11/2014 22:43

The right thing FOR YOU to do might really adversely affect someone whose situation you don't know.

YourMaNoBraBackOfMyCar · 05/11/2014 22:43

Op you posted that you went to primark to get 'Knockers' for your dd. No one said shit. Why pounce on someone else's mistake?! Weird.

Irina, I was on a works night out when there was a big fight at the other end of the pub. As I worked there I went down to see if I could help and because I'm nosy. There was a bloke lying on the floor face down. He was drenched in blood and completely silent. There was another bloke stood over him swinging a bar stool over his head and hitting the man with it. People were just stood watching. I pushed the man aside and he fell over. My boss grabbed the stool off him. He came back and started trying to stamp on the mans head. I shielded him with my body. He kept trying to drag me away by my hair but I held on tight. Eventually 3 blokes pinned him down outside to wait for the police. As I turned the bloke over I noticed that his ear was beneath him on the floor. I screamed for some ice and clean bar towels. I picked it up and put it in the ice. Sadly it couldn't be saved. I didn't know it but I was pregnant with ds ( my eldest). Maybe subconsciously I felt the need to protect someone so defenceless? Anyway what we didn't know at the time was that there was a man with two broken legs in the toilet. This man went on an unprovoked rampage. He was a well known criminal and people advised me against it but I went to court. Out of a pub full of witnesses only 2 were willing to stand up for a stranger against some psychopathic chancer. I told the people who were trying to convince me not to testify that if something so horrific ever happened to a loved one how much would they appreciate someone standing up for them?