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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:
HaroldLloyd · 06/11/2014 15:53

Bah I hate it when that happens.

BigRedBall · 06/11/2014 16:00

Woah. Ok. It seems things have got more hysterical than yesterday.

I think I'll leave my own thread now.

OP posts:
motherofmonster · 06/11/2014 16:05

i think the term 'going apeshit' applies to a lot of these posts

and pmsl at the tattooed penisioner..what on earth caused that??

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 06/11/2014 16:06

See what you started op my lamb? Next time restrain yourself or some posters will need beta blockers. Grin

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 06/11/2014 16:07

The tattooed pensioner deserves it's own thread. Smile

thedevilinside · 06/11/2014 16:16

Don't worry BigRedBall, many of us are on your side, this isn't just about empathy for the mother (and there may have been a minute chance she had a valid reason for being in Primark) It is about empathy for the poor child not to mention the cleaner and the shoppers in the vicinity who may or may not have contracted norovirus. It's about seeing the whole picture.

ConfusedintheNorth · 06/11/2014 16:17

You made assumptions and were incredibly rude. I once had a woman say something similar to me when I ran in and out of a shop with a coughing toddler. I was a single mother who had been out of work for 4 months, I was offered a temp placement but needed white blouses and black trousers to start the next day. I rather angrily replied that she should get her f*cking nose out of my business before I permanently removed it from her face!

Seriouslyffs · 06/11/2014 16:18

Thank you for asking monster I'd like to talk about it. Smile
I was unloading my trolley when the aforementioned tp put the divider down and unloaded her basket full. So I squished my stuff up and made a space before me and said, 'why don't you go first?' She said 'no, I'm alright' and I said, 'do, because I need to finish unloading my trolley.'
So she did and went ahead of me.
I was still unloading when she finished and said to the cashier, 'you want to watch that cunt, if I had my man here I'd have fuckin' had her.'
I'm sure I haven't forgotten the bit where I pushed in front of her or have her the stink eye, but she's probably a Mumsnetter and will come along and give her version of events.
Her basket was mainly veg, so I was rather surprised.

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 16:38

No, thedevil sympathy for the child would have been offering help. Not belittling the mother then walking away.

Why is it so difficult for people to grasp.

BigRedBall · 06/11/2014 16:39

thebody Maybe the GP on the thread can start dishing out the beta blocker and anti-anxiety prescriptions for those affected?

Seriouslyffs You'll have people come along telling you how she might have fought for our country during the "waw-aaa" and she might have been suffering from an ingrown toenail that left her in a bad mood, and you deserved it for not being understanding to her plight.

OP posts:
motherofmonster · 06/11/2014 16:42

She sounds a treasure... you should have thrown a cabbage at her Grin

Is it wrong that i would secretly like my own tattooed granny to take shopping and cause chaos??

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 06/11/2014 16:43

Good grief the pensioner sounds awful.

sides oh dear.

Oh so now it's norovirus!

Gets even more hysterical.

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 06/11/2014 16:46

Big if she was a GP in RL, she's not a particularly good one so wouldn't recommend that but you feel free to have some. Wink

motherofmonster · 06/11/2014 16:49

after reading the madness on this thread vallium might be a better way to go in presciption drug taking

BigRedBall · 06/11/2014 16:51

I'm not really affected. Thanks though.

OP posts:
andsmile · 06/11/2014 17:03

So the TP was let in fron tthen swore about you being cunt?

Maybe she thought you was a push caow

Maybe she hadnt had her tablets

Maybe that tattoo ink had fuddled her brain.

andsmile · 06/11/2014 17:04

a

pushy

Thebodynowchillingsothere · 06/11/2014 17:12

I am thinking the primark woman was an unregistered cm parked in a disabled space. Her cats shit in other people's gardens and regularly blind children.

The pensioner is a mil from hell and you reminded her if her dil. She ahas 4 Rottweilers and wants her grandchildren to stop at hers every weekend. She calls her ds, 35, her little soldier.

flipityflopity · 06/11/2014 17:34

Wow!
I'm a mumsnet newbie (as in yesterday) and after reading this thread I'm absolutely terrified of it! Is it always like this?! Hope so not!

Anyway, for what it's worth (not much) I think OP, ywbu. Although you clearly think otherwise so not sure why you asked?!
backs away and hides

Seriouslyffs · 06/11/2014 17:35

andsmile I think you're probably right about the tablets. I might have invented the tattoos, she definitely had lots of piercings and signet rings.
I can do posh caow, indeed I probably sounded like one, however this morning I looked like her sister. Unwashed and unmade up, grey track suit bottoms and yellow shoes. And a penguin jumper from Sainsbury's.

MiddletonPink · 06/11/2014 17:37

You can have sympathy for the child, you can judge the mother if you like.

But giving her a dressing down like the OP was wrong.

CrashDiveOnMingoCity · 06/11/2014 17:40

Why won't you answer the simple question of why did you post this when you clearly do not think you were BU?!

fourwoodenchairs · 06/11/2014 17:43

This reply has been deleted

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Raininginnovember · 06/11/2014 17:45

LOADS of people post when they think they aren't unreasonable.

I actually think the OP was unreasonable, but I have to say, in my 'youth' (such as it was) I was often treated pretty badly by the adults around me. Not abusively, but as if I were a nuisance, a pain, for actually just being a normal,well behaved child. I did behave well but I was a child. My mother had died.

I remember once, one 'carer' yelling at me in McDonald's and an elderly man quietly said 'how dare you speak to the young lady like that.'

Carer shut up and I felt wonderful. I went home glowing that someone had noticed me and stood up for me and been kind to me. It also assured me that the behaviour of the adults in my life was poor, not my own behaviour. It gave me a real lift.

Personally I think the OP was U as to be honest you really would have got a slap in my local Primark for that. But unreasonable to have 'stuck up' for someone small and defenceless because his mother might have been stressed? No.

Mumtums · 06/11/2014 18:27

YANBU. She sounds a scummy mother and will hopefully think twice next time.