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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:
bearleftmonkeyright · 06/11/2014 09:23

Ah, so I did get it wrong. Sorry sicksquid, you really do think she was a trollop.

ShowMeTheWonder · 06/11/2014 09:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

firesidechat · 06/11/2014 09:53

So not ironic at all then. Shock

It's so depressing that this is what passes for a community of mothers, or even people, these days. Not practical help or support, but digs and superiority and instructions to hug.

If a complete stranger, with no relationship with either me or my child, instructed me to hug that child I would not be responsible for my actions.

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 09:56

I agree fire, it's all about people making themselves feel good and the detriment of others.

Embarrassing really.

firesidechat · 06/11/2014 09:59

I appreciate what you are saying ShowMe and I think most of us would be like that too. In the privacy of our own home, where it was manageable. This was in public, literally very messy and all sorts of others considerations come in to play. The main one being acute and mind numbing embarrassment.

Honestly if I was that mother I would have wanted the ground to swallow up both me and my pucky child. The temptations to just run away and pretend it didn't happen must have been immense. At least the mother was still there for the op to educate.

LaurieMarlow · 06/11/2014 10:36

No, it's not stellar parenting to be angry with a child for being ill, but I think we all know that.

The question posed is whether the OP was right to say something. And as I see it doesn't matter whether we're talking about a) a normally decent mother trapped in circumstances beyond her control or a b) callous bitch who doesn't care - Interfering is very unlikely to have improved things for the child regardless.

If it's A, the OP made a difficult day worse for the woman in question. If it's B, OPs involvement is very unlikely to have changed her behaviour and she may have taken her anger out on the child.

So the OP has done nothing but make herself feel better.

coolaschmoola · 06/11/2014 10:49

IF the woman was embarrassed (big if) then good. She got a taste of her own medicine.

Are you SERIOUSLY using juvenile tit for tat bullshit to defend your actions? I pointed out that she more than likely took her humiliation response out on the child, thus making things worse FOR HIM, and you think that is GOOD?!

WTAF is wrong with you?! Were you absent on the day they taught two wrongs don't make a right?

You've admitted that you are glad you humiliated the mother even if it caused the child to be upset more.... Wow. That's an impressive dive off the moral high ground. You opened your gob to judge because you felt superior and wanted to be nasty. Not because of the child. You decided that you wanted to embarrass her, no matter what your obnoxious behaviour resulted in for the child.

Bravo op. Hmm

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 10:57

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HaroldLloyd · 06/11/2014 11:01

If the child comes first you would help the child wouldn't you not try and have a crappy little row with the mother.

Squid thank fuck I am unlikely to ever bump into you.

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:01

...and I don't care how many assumptions or judgements or irrational conclusions people are making who support the OP's actions in bollocking this trout. Thank the Lord there are still people willing to tread on other people's toes in order to bring attention to a child's plight.

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:03

Harold, if you really would prefer not to bump into me then hang around Primark when my son is desperately poorly and I've been asked to pick him up from school.

Tit.

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 11:03

I think Squid is going to have a nosebleed in a minute with all that ranting Grin

LaurieMarlow · 06/11/2014 11:04

Yes sick squid, the children come first, again I think we all agree. But the point that's being made is that by interfering, the OP did not help the child in any way. Can't you see that?

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:05

'Tit' was meant for the trollop. Obviously.

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:06

What I can see is that some posters will do anything to demonise a person for stepping in when a child looks fucking dreadful and his mother is giving not a shiny little shit.

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:08

Why do you care so much about this woman that the risk of treading on her toes is so much greater than the risk of her continuing to drag that poor boy around further shops in her search for cut price knickers?

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 11:09

Of course I would demonise someone for being a judgmental and patronising arsehole for no reason when the person doesn't know the full story.

Most normal kind human beings would offer a sympathic hand. There was absolutely no point in belittling that mother.

MiddletonPink · 06/11/2014 11:10

Big thread haven't read it all.

In your OP you make out like it's after school.

Then say it was 12.30pm.

Something odd about that imo.

Tbh from the posts I have read the OP comes across as very self righteous and smug. And I find it hard to believe she would say that to a mother whose child had been sick like that.

Even a cold hearted cow would go and grab some tissues for him.

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:14

Oh bugger off with that softly-softly nonsense. It's so boring having to listen to this 'but we don't know the full stoooooreeeeee...!' wailing. Who cares about hurting this mother's feelings? This isn't a snapshot, love, this is a video-lapse performance of a boy's basic human needs not just being ignored but wilfully sneered at and neglected. A kind sympathetic hand? What, like the one she's showing her son as she assails him for vomiting in her, like, favourite shop eva?

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 06/11/2014 11:19

Oh sick squid you really have lost the plot. And not even in a humorous way!

WD41 · 06/11/2014 11:20

Why do you care so much about this woman that the risk of treading on her toes is so much greater than the risk of her continuing to drag that poor boy around further shops in her search for cut price knickers?

But this is the thing Squid. You have chosen to believe that she was looking for cut price knickers and state it as fact.

You cannot possibly know that to be a fact. How do you know that she wasn't shopping for a funeral outfit, things for hospital, clothes for an interview? Something that was important?

None of us know. And when you don't know, the normal thing is to give that person the benefit of the doubt and either ignore or help. You don't go up and berate a complete stranger unless you need to validate your own shortcomings by making yourself feel superior

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 11:21

Cripes, you really are angry aren't you Squid. Are you ok? Is everything ok at home?

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 11:21

Lost the plot, haven't heard that in ages Grin

Sicksquid · 06/11/2014 11:27

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FrauHelga · 06/11/2014 11:29

Did you read what countrymummy posted Squid?