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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

child pointed toy gun at me

493 replies

morningtoncrescent62 · 03/12/2016 14:14

I know that telling off/not telling off other people's children has been done many times on AIBU. But genuinely not sure whether I was in the wrong here. On the bus this morning, woman got on with two children aged about 5, dressed up, obviously excited about going somewhere. One of the children was dressed as a cowboy, complete with toy gun. I'll admit I hate seeing children playing with guns, but I know not everyone feels the same. They sat behind and across the aisle from me and I was reading a book and trying not to be distracted - they were fairly noisy but not unreasonably so in the circumstances.

A few stops before I was getting off I looked up to find the child with the toy gun pointing it at me and pulling the trigger repeatedly. The woman hadn't seen as she was rootling about in her bag. So I said to the child, not sharply but firmly, 'Please don't point your gun at me, it isn't very nice'. The woman looked up and apologised. Then she took the child on her lap for a cuddle and started a loud conversation with the other one about how adults sometimes talk to children instead of the adult who is with them and this is bad and wrong. Which is OK if it's her position, but nothing at all about how sometimes when you point guns at people and pretend to shoot them they don't like it and they ask you not to. I was tempted to say to her that if her child was too young to be asked by strangers not to point his toy gun at them, then he was too young to be allowed to play with it in a public place - but I was about to get off the bus so I didn't.

So, MN jury, WIBU to speak directly to the child?

OP posts:
ChocolateForAll · 03/12/2016 21:23

Oh FFS. If you saw a child dressed as Queen Elsa would you worry she was going to turn you into ice? This thread is preposterous!!

Suppermummy02 · 03/12/2016 21:23

Saying Woody is causing hurt is like saying a 5 year old dressed as Harry Potter cant wave their wand in public or a Fairy can't cast any spells.

Those children are causing untold chaos! Confused

DioneTheDiabolist · 03/12/2016 21:29

YABU OP, had you said it to my DC, I would have used it as an opportunity to remind them of my No Engaging The Bus Nutter rule.

SuzieQ99 · 03/12/2016 21:39

OP. I think you were right. I can imagine the scenario and how you felt. However, people these days no longer believe the ethos of 'it takes a village to raise a child' so we are probably all best just shutting up and putting up. You might have got a cheeky mouthful back from an agressive and defensive mother just to make things worse. And re other posters, pointing a gun is not the same as pretending to be a nurse or a fairy. It's an act of aggression which is no more attractive in children than it is in adults.

grannytomine · 03/12/2016 21:45

It's nice to have a thread from a bus nutter rather than about one

That made me laugh.

StillStayingClassySanDiego · 03/12/2016 21:57

Silver yes i mentioned it up thread about 4.50pm, it's a great book.

Diemfdie · 03/12/2016 22:39

dione but you wouldn't do that out loud, though. I think that's where the mum on the bus dropped it ... possibly because she was embarrassed and didn't have a plan.

IcedVanillaLatte · 03/12/2016 22:54

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut Presumably you've never had it shouted at you in the street?

maninawomansworld01 · 03/12/2016 23:16

I think yabu. He's a child playing cowboys and Indians, nothing sinister at all.
I know people get all weird about it but I just don't see it.

I was never allowed toy guns though, and neither are my kids.
It's not because of any ideological objection but because we are a farming family and at some point they will have access to real guns.
It's part of their conditioning from a young age to never ever point a gun at anyone, be it fingers, a cap gun , a nerf gun whatever... because one day it'll be a real one. It needs to be absolutely unthinkable in their heads to point a gun at someone.

DioneTheDiabolist · 03/12/2016 23:18

Yes I would and I did a couple of weeks ago when a bus nutter interrupted our conversation to tell DS that "Hitler wasn't as bad as people make him out to be".

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 03/12/2016 23:26

I'm sorry IcedVanilla I don't understand your question.

IcedVanillaLatte · 03/12/2016 23:46

Nutter.

I'm assuming you've never had it yelled at you on the street by people jeering at your medication-induced movements. Or had it whispered behind your back in groups.

It's not quite like loony, or bonkers, or crackers. It's got a nasty undertone and it's still used as a personal insult.

Bejazzled · 03/12/2016 23:47

My friend was slapped really hard on the back of his head by a bus nutter. Not an accidental nudge , a full on open handed smack!
He turned round and the person was innocently staring out the window as if nothing happened 😟

Apparently it's not unusual Confused

Bejazzled · 03/12/2016 23:48

Unfortunate cross post

SantaPleaseBringMeEwanMcGregor · 04/12/2016 00:02

YANBU to correct a child when they are behaving poorly and the parent is ignoring them. I also, personally, do not thing YABU to ask a child not to point and "shoot" a toy gun at you, but perhaps the manner could've been better. "That makes me uncomfortable," or, "Oh, that scares me!"

Also, that mother was an utter, passive-aggressive twit for doing what she did.

DioneTheDiabolist · 04/12/2016 00:10

I'm not convinced that the mum should have been passive in response. And I don't condone aggressive, so maybe passive aggression was the best way she could have dealt with it. I'm sure the OP is glad she didn't become aggressive.

Suppermummy02 · 04/12/2016 00:37

Several comments that the parent was being PA, seriously? How was she to know the person abusing her DC wasn't a nutter? She did the sensible thing and apologised to potential nutter, then explained to her DC that you have to be careful because you dont dont know how to react to people like that in real life.

Diemfdie · 04/12/2016 01:04

Erm. She apologised and then undermined the situation by correctly the OP in public.

'Look, darling, this is how we continue to engage with someone whom we think has such low self-control that we've labelled them 'the bus nutter'. You should definitely mirror this on an innercity bus when you're fifteen'.

Diemfdie · 04/12/2016 01:06

'who'

(Sorry! I changed the sentence and didnt proof. )

BertrandRussell · 04/12/2016 07:18

"I think yabu. He's a child playing cowboys and Indians, nothing sinister at all."

That's for another thread, but "nothing sinister" in playing cowboys and Indians? Seriously? How about a nice game of Nazis and Jews?

BertrandRussell · 04/12/2016 07:27

And what the mother should have said is "That lady is right. Never point a gun at anyone, even a toy gun"

But I don't expect a basic rule of firearms safety, adhered to by anyone who deals with real guns to be understood by people who casually use the term "bus nutter".

Fascinating how the people handing out abuse on this tread are not those who would calmly and politely ask a child to stop doing something they didn't like.....

Charlottelouisa · 04/12/2016 07:37

Omg! You are lucky because if you would have said that to my child, you would have known about it ....
what a liberty , not only was he playing with a toy gun which was harmless while dressed up, but a stranger having a go at that child. YABVU

BusyBeez99 · 04/12/2016 07:38

I would have done a dramatic death. A toy gun doesn't mean that one day they are going to go out and buy a real one

blueturtle6 · 04/12/2016 07:42

Ignoring the toy was a gun, if it was a soft toy and child was waving in someone's face, it is annoying and OP is within right to ask them to stop.
I've told children off for pushing toddler just as I've told my toddler off if she's naughty or stopped her if shes annoying someone (ringing the bus bell etc).
So Yanbu for asking him to stop yabu to if you were unhappy at him having a gun.

BertrandRussell · 04/12/2016 08:01

"Omg! You are lucky because if you would have said that to my child, you would have known about it ..."

So if your child had been "shooting" someone with a toy gun and that person asked them politely to stop, they "would have known about it...."?