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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

who was being unreasonable? stranger told my son off (shouted in his face)

155 replies

FindingEmo · 29/10/2016 23:45

I'm not sure if the woman was unreasonable or if i was.

It is my son's 3rd birthday today and we went to a theme park to celebrate. Ds2 had fallen asleep in his pushchair so dh stayed with him while I queued up for a ride with ds1. Behind us was a couple with a little girl probably about 6 or 7 yo. Early on ds1 said hi to her and she didn't reply so after that he ignored her. It was near the end of the day and he was tired so held him most of the time but towards the end he got excited to get on the ride and got down. The girl was stood by the barrier looking through a gap and Ds went up and stood by her and tried to look too. The girl moved and ds only being 3 followed her and they both tried to look through a gap again. Obviously i was close by as we were queuing. All of a sudden The woman leans down and yells no don't do that just inched from ds face. Ds starts crying and I grabbed hold of him. Straight away I yelled at the woman for doing that to my son and she said well no one else was going to tell him off. I asked why he needed telling off and she said ds had bitten her daughter. I didn't see it and id been watching them also the girl hasn't reacted at all, no crying saying ow or even moving away. I told the woman she should have told me if she saw ds doing something she didn't like and I would have sorted it. We both yelled for a bit (she got right in my face) until i turned my back on her to end it and she didnt try and continue it. I know my son isn't an angel and can be naughty but as far as I'm aware he didn't bite the girl but even if he did was I wrong to yell at the woman for shouting in ds face. He sobbed for the rest of the queue, luckily he cheered up when we got on the ride.

OP posts:
ohtheholidays · 30/10/2016 01:22

If your son had bit the little girl she would have screamed not just stood there and made no noise and carried on standing next to the child that was supposed to have bit her!

YWNBU but the other mother was!

SpunkyMummy · 30/10/2016 01:22

If he was indeed trying to bite her? Yes, I think that's "ok". Maybe not ideal but still ok.
She didn't grab your son or pull him back (which, if he was indeed biting, would have been understandable but decidedly "less ok"...)

And in the case of the dog... well, I'd probably be doing your son a favour. A dog might just decide to bite back.

aurynne · 30/10/2016 01:23

I cannot imagine why anybody would make up that their child was bitten by yours in the circumstances you described so yes, I think it is pretty safe to admit that your child DID bite the girl.

Your child will survive and avoid lifelong trauma for being shouted on the face. He will also learn a valuable lesson, that when you hurt another living thing there are risks he will get shouted at, or even hurt. Would you have preferred he got punched in the face by the girl? That's the sort of response I would have had when I was 6 if any other child had bitten me.

Original poster
FindingEmo · 30/10/2016 01:28

Aurynne - actually I would have prefered the girl to hit him he would have learnt his lesson without an adult yelling in his face.

OP posts:
BillSykesDog · 30/10/2016 01:30

worra, we'll just have to agree to disagree. It sounds to me like she was just nasty and made up an excuse for shouting. But obviously you've taken away something different from it than I have.

At least we've managed to disagree without calling people who disagree with us a 'sad minority'. What is it with Mumsnet tonight? People who don't agree with the hive mind seem to be getting a hell of a lot of abuse. People must be getting stressed at the end of half term.

ThereIsNoFelange · 30/10/2016 01:31

If she really did "scream in his face", it was probably accidental or sheer instinct. If I saw that, I'd get down to their level to separate them for sure. Not because I'd want to scream in anyone's face. That's just what you do, isn't it?

ThereIsNoFelange · 30/10/2016 01:32

Is it not like a zillion times more likely that he did at least attempt to bite the girl, than the mother is just randomly making it up for an excuse to shout 😕

SpunkyMummy · 30/10/2016 01:38

actually I would have prefered the girl to hit him he would have learnt his lesson without an adult yelling in his face. that's simply selfish.

He may have learnt his lesson without an adult shouting in his face, yes. But the other child would have been bitten...

Don't you think the child and the child's mother may prefer the solution where the girl doesn't get bitten?

Original poster
FindingEmo · 30/10/2016 01:40

Felange - I'm not deniying he may have bitten her, I'm also fine with her telling him to stop but if she did it on instinct she wouldn't have had time to take several steps forward lean down to his level and yell in his face.

OP posts:
Original poster
FindingEmo · 30/10/2016 01:43

Spunky- what's selfish about not wanting an adult to yell in my son's face? I do not want another child to get bitten and if I had seen him do it I would have stopped him.

OP posts:
SpunkyMummy · 30/10/2016 01:50

Yes, but you did say you would have preferred her to hit him as a reaction to being bitten...

So, you'd prefer the scenario where your son may actually hurt somebody!
If that isn't selfish.

AppleMagic · 30/10/2016 01:01

Having been bitten a few times by my 2yr old I would panic if I saw another kid about to bite mine. Biting really fucking hurts and can leave lasting marks. It sounds like she overreacted but as you didn't see the incident you don't really know what happened. You would prefer that he had actually bitten her and then she'd hit him? So you'd rather two kids had been hurt than one got shouted at?

AppleMagic · 30/10/2016 01:06

Also I think biting and getting in someone's space is typical 3yr old behaviour but if an older kid was annoyed enough by my toddler that she moved away from him I'd have made some effort to distract him from following. He was being annoying and you were ignoring it and it escalated.

AmeliaLeopard · 30/10/2016 01:09

Shouting is something which should be rarely used imo. With me it is reserved for attracting attention in a busy place or to prevent an injury. In this case it sounds like both - busy attraction and biting. 'Inches away' is hard to define, but in a queue it closeness easily happens and my natural instinct is to get to the level of the child and make eye contact. I know many children who react with shock rather than temper or crying when they are hurt so it isn't exactly inconceivable that the other child was hurt without you noticing any signs.

If the other woman was telling the truth YABU. Of course if she was making shit up then YANBU.

It is a shock when someone else tells your child off, but it is also a horrible experience when your child is hurt.

DistanceCall · 30/10/2016 01:30

I tend to think that your child did bite the other girl (why on earth would the other woman scold your child otherwise?) And having someone be loud in his face isn't going to traumatise your son for life, FGS.

kali110 · 30/10/2016 01:44

You would rather the other child had hit your child? Shock really?
I don't think this woman 'shouted' (i think mine and your definition of shouting would be different somehow) at your son for no reason.
I don't think she made up biting for no reason, her reply gives the impression that he did something to her dd.
Just because he has never bit before, does not mean he didn't this time, especially as he was tired.
Just because her dd didn't cry does not mean he didn't hurt her! Some kids do not react to pain by crying!

user1477282676 · 30/10/2016 02:11

IT's ok to tell another child not to bite your own...it's not really ok to yell in a small child's face BUT neither is it OK to leave your three year old to irritate another child and not watch him closely.

My friend does this. She thinks her (large) 5 year old son is "just a baby" and gets outraged when he's told off...which is unfortunately quite often as she lets him run around queues and cafes.

OlennasWimple · 30/10/2016 02:15

If I saw a child about to bite mine (or mine about to bite another child, for that matter) I would certainly raise my voice to try to stop it. It's not the time for a "now darling, please don't do that, it's not very nice" type parenting...

WanderingTrolley1 · 30/10/2016 03:21

Yabu.

The mother was probably acting with her gut instinct.

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 30/10/2016 03:44

Funny how it has gone from 'yelling inches away from his face ' to 'screaming in his face' in the course of a couple of posts when the op didn't get the response she wanted.

But to humour you - yes short of violence or the overt threat of violence I think whatever she did to stop your son biting her daughter was fair enough.

MudCity · 30/10/2016 04:19

To answer your question, yes you were wrong to yell at the woman. It achieved nothing except an argument (and no doubt attract attention from everyone else in the queue). Not confident your son learned anything from it either because instead of dealing with him, you yelled at the woman. If he did bite the girl then he hasn't actually learned much from it.

shrieklesoda · 30/10/2016 04:44

I strongly suspect that if the little girl did hit your child, you would also be outraged. Because the mum would inevitably say 'well he bit her first' and you'd say 'well I didn't see him bite her' and an argument would result.

I have no idea if you're being unreasonable about the shouting because it's hard to tell if the woman raised her voice or screamed so hard in his face that her breath nearly knocked him off his feet. If you asked half a dozen independent witnesses there is a good chance that some would say the former and some would say the latter.

What I do think is that it's incredibly unlikely that the woman was somehow annoyed that your child wanted to stand next to her child. Why on earth would she be? Therefore I'm inclined to believe that he either bit her or tried to bite her. And her scolding him was absolutely the right thing to do. I don't understand the posters who say that it's not acceptable because the parent is there - what if you approach the parent and say 'your child bit mine' and they just deny it or shrug their shoulders? The moment has passed and you can't then speak to the child yourself, so your child learns that you won't step in to defend them and the other child learns that they can bite and get away with it.

Giselaw · 30/10/2016 05:24

OP, if you feel so strongly that it's wrong to scream when it comes to random children, why did you scream in the face of the little girl's mother? After she was bit by your son, that must have really frightened her. Or is that acceptable because it wasn't "inches" from her face? And because she didn't cry as hard as your child?

Whatthefreakinwhatnow · 30/10/2016 05:42

Right, so according to you OP, your son did nothing wrong, a stranger just decided- completely unprovoked- to shout at a small child? Why? In your mind why would anyone do this?!

I think little you need to work on your objectivity and be honest with yourself, because clearly your son provoked the reaction he received.

You'll do him no favours getting all outraged not his behalf and not acknowledging poor behaviour.

honkinghaddock · 30/10/2016 05:50

Shouting because your child is getting hurt is instinct. Deliberately doing it in the child's face isn't reasonable but it is possible that it happened that close because she had got in close to separate them. In that situation I would just have moved my own child ( rather than shouted) but my own child responds badly to the noise of shouting so it isn't something I do.

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