To think that some people have no idea how to conduct themselves?

[Luckster]

I'm fuming this evening. I'm a teacher and work long hours like lots of other people so I'm totally exhausted and may have overreacted slightly to this.
Background information - dh is a cub leader. Not the only leader, but one of a team and one of them ( not sure which one but fairly sure it isn't dh has organised a visit to an activity centre tomorrow.

Having my dinner this evening and a woman knocks on my door. I don't know her but recognise her as a parent if a cub and know she lives somewhere on the road behind me. I answer the door and she starts off saying what's happening tomorrow then? I could tell she was worked up but as I have nothing to do with cubs I have no idea what they are doing and told her so. She was getting note and more upset and asked if dh was in. When I said no she pretty much tried to barge in. Basically she hasn't seen an email about times for tomorrow, has no idea what is going on and was crying and getting hysterical by this stage saying over and over - but I'm a nurse - what am I supposed to do?

She was really over the top and most definitely unhinged and then started ranting about it being unacceptable. I pointed out there was nothing that I could do and all I could do was speak I dh when he got home and see if he knew. I pointed out that he also works long hours and is a volunteer so sometimes he may not email in a timely manner but he is doing his best. (I refer back to the fact that I am pretty certain it is not him organising this event). Anyway she ranted on and on (hysteria!) so I told her she was too emotional and needed to get her shit together. I also told her not to darken my door again with her screaming and ranting and promptly shut the door and went inside.

Seriously there was nothing j could do to help her. I appreciate its frustrating and she just wanted to get organised but to yell and scream at a volunteers wife because they have no idea what is happening is just unreasonable.

She's pretty lucky I didn't tell her to fuck right off as I'm pretty conversant with swear words! I feel I was quite restrained to me. God knows how she'll react if I see her in the street again in our small village. Oh my god, I am actually so wound up. Seriously who goes and knocks on someone's door randomly and act unhinged because you don't know what time you are supposed to be somewhere??!! People are bloody hard work!

Thinking about it, dramatic events and upset strangers do impact on kids. I was about 8 and there was car accident outside our house. The cars were damaged and drivers and passengers shaken up, but essentially unhurt. All the people involved came into the house to wait for emergency services, one of the men involved was quite aggressive. It was a scary situation and I still remember it all these years later.

So do not think that the right thing to do is to invite the upset stranger into your house unless you absolutely have to like my mother did. Not in your kids best interests and if you can't really help you have unnecessarily upset your children.

Yes Kerala. Nobody would come before the safety/security of my DCs in my house, if it could at all be avoided. Amazed that so many would apparently prioritise this woman over their own kids. She obviously had no respect for OP so why would she behave herself any better once inside the house?

Ahh the good old Mumsnet 'Invite the mad, ranty stranger for a cup of tea/coffee', hasn't raised its head for ages!

I feel all warm and fuzzy now

It's up there with the mythical 7 day chicken surely?

Oh, I don't know Worra
I've seen it a couple of times recently.

worra it's like a competition to see who can be the saintliest person (in writing, anyway. I think the reality would be far from)...

I remember when I left exh and went back to my Mums. He showed up swearing undying love (lying git) My Mum got pissed off with him making a nuisance of himself and decided to water her hanging baskets but he got in her way.
Twas very funny seeing him getting a hosing down

It's up there with the 7 day mythical chicken surely

Also, don't forget about the regular threads where the class bully must be invited to the child's birthday, as it will cause untold emotional damage to the poor kid.
Never mind that's he's knocking seven kinds of shit out of the birthday boy every day.
That always cracks me up.

I don't answer the door at all whilst I'm eating so she'd have got nowhere with me

This.

I imagine if it's an emergency someone would be banging on the door in a way that would make me realise that it was.

The first thing that struck me when I was reading the OP was whether this mum is menopausal or a particular time of the month. It can cause you to be irrational when you would be perfectly reasonable at other times. Things that would make you tut and move on, make you feel really upset or angry. I don't really get PMS but I have absolutely noticed that there is one day a month when things will annoy me more than usual. Not anything like to this extent, but PMS affects women to differing degrees.

If PMS affects her to that degree, it's her responsibility to get herself to her GP pronto.

There are all sorts of ifs and buts and maybes, but she's still responsible for her own behaviour.

I'd tell DH to send a letter to all parents telling them not to come to the home address ever again, completely out of order

And as for people calling you unsympathetic I don't see why you should be, I wouldn't be sympathetic to someone ranting at me on my doorstep.

For me an ex legal secretary it could reflect on me badly and I know someone who was dismissed because she got in trouble outside work, brought the firm's name into disrepute and it got into the public domain. But that's more extreme.

The OP didn't "get herself into trouble", telling an aggressive door-stepper to fuck off is not akin to a street brawl or a fishwife slagging match! If you were fired for that you'ld have a good case for unfair dismissal.

And as for people calling you unsympathetic I don't see why you should be, I wouldn't be sympathetic to someone ranting at me on my doorstep
Exactly, and not only that, but if this probably just very rude and aggressive woman really was going through the kind of acute crisis posters are imagining, a cup of tea in a strangers house is not going to fix it!

I'd tell DH to send a letter to all parents telling them not to come to the home address ever again, completely out of order YES!

In MN land there's no such thing as someone who is just a bit of a c**t! They all must have underlying LDs or MH issues, which frankly is a bit of an insult to people with LDs and MH issues, most of whom don't go around being rude to people!

Next week on mumsnet
OP: I've just been a victim of road rage, I feel really shaken up!
MN: OP YABU! You should have gotten out and given them a hug, you don't know what they're going through!

Eolian through my mum's job I met some teachers who I wouldn't trust to look after my pet cat, so they're not all angels.

No, teachers aren't angels. They are normal human beings like you'd find in other jobs. Some are fantastic, some are crap and most are somewhere in between. Like in all jobs. They are allowed to think angry thoughts and swear in their heads, and out loud too if they are not at work. I'd be no more bothered by hearing a swear word from my dc's teacher out of school than from any adult, whether I lived in their village or not.

I saw some seriously hysterical women get into an argy bargy in Greenock once, right outside the train station. Two of them were stood against the wall, smoking cigarettes, when a car pulled up and two further women got out of it and the air turned blue.

I was sat on a bench with an older lady, her son and his daughter having a polite chat.

We didn't try to calm them down, but we were sympathetic, we didn't film it all.

In MN land there's no such thing as someone who is just a bit of a ct! They all must have underlying LDs or MH issues, which frankly is a bit of an insult to people with LDs and MH issues, most of whom don't go around being rude to people!

Or if they're over 40, 'early dementia'

TinselTwins I think you can't read...

In her OP but she clarified she said she wasn't sure what to do if she saw the woman in the street in her village... Hence maybe a slanging match.

Just recently me and work colleagues had an experience (i wasn't there) whereupon a man was very rude to our receptionist at work whilst at food stalls in farmers market near my old workplace. He abused her and followed her and her colleagues had to step in to tell him to calm down... The other upside to that was 2 of the colleagues including the one being insulted and followed were young and black the man was white. The paralegal who was there (black and Jamaican) actually said he or she could have reported this man to the police but wasn't sure if he could be bothered enough to do this (police station a 3 minute walk) but he also said "it could reflect badly professionally on me if it got out of control therefore I realised I had to have control" and the receptionist said the same but just because she's polite and hates confrontation generally.

Depends on the context of the swear word Eolian I'm well aware that teachers aren't Angels but if they swear randomly in the street or get into a slanging match... Hmm it could get interesting. A simple "oh fuck it" in sainsbos is different to a slanging match and fuck off in the street, in my opinion.

I do think DH like I said before needs to tighten up (what procedure was in place before) for parents of Cubs and situations like this.

I can read perfectly well, I'm just not overlaying bonkers interpretations like you are

She never said that she was worried about seeing her in the street because SHE HERSELF would be embarrassed

She said that she was worried about seeing her in the street because the woman was clearly unstable, the OP is afraid of conflict, and didn't want another scene from the woman

The OP NEVER said that she would herself have been embarrassed of having said "fuck off" - she just didn't want to provoke an even more unstable reaction from the unstable woman who might continue it another time!

You may be able to read WORDS, but your COMPREHENSION isn't up to much…

Next week on mumsnet
OP: I've just been a victim of road rage, I feel really shaken up!
MN: OP YABU! You should have gotten out and given them a hug, you don't know what they're going through!

And invite them to come home with you, and give them tea and some of the 7 day chicken.

The OP was spot-on in how she dealt with the situation, and deserves, at the very least a sincere apology from that woman.

'Or if they're over 40, 'early dementia' '

Or menopause/perimenopause. 'Come in, so you can continue to be aggressive to me, but in front of my children, too. Can I get you some tea, estradiol, Xanax?'

This thread is getting bleddy ridiculous. Some people need to remember they are grown up and stop acting like maids in a playground spat.
All the point scoring has me in fits of laughter and remembering when my dd was in Yr6

Sorry but I think this thread is rather amusing! Always is when holier than thou saintly types (real or imagined) come up against your average woman

I think the OP reacted perfectly, really appropriately and firm yet pretty polite in the circumstances. I'm not sure that I'd have taken it so well.

It doesn't matter WHAT the woman's problem was, you don't have to be polite, sympathetic and cuddly to someone yelling in your face on your doorstep.