To still be angry with a vicar?

[sananbaz]

Back story: DH family is very religious. Church every Sunday, Church functions, lay preaching etc. Our family (me, DH, DS9, DD6) are not religious at all. FIL regularly invites us to go to church, occasionally tries to bribe or coerce the DC, but is fairly good natured when we say no.

This Sunday, we accepted the invitation to go to a cristingle service as DC wanted to see their cousin. Service went well - I enjoyed the singing, DC enjoyed making the orange candle things (I'm sure they have an official name!). Afterwards, there was tea and coffee in the hall, but we needed to leave so only went in to say goodbye to the family. The vicar came over with a plate of mince pies asking if anyone would like one. Some people took one, but the vicar kept wafting the plate under my son's nose - who blatantly didn't want one. When the vicar put it under his nose for the fourth time, I said no thanks, he doesn't want one (DS has social difficulties). Vicar started trying to persuade him to have one, so I explained that actually he couldn't have one because he was allergic. The vicar looked at me incredulously, stooped down putting the plate under DS's nose and his face close behind it and said, oh, these are so delicious, they're really lovely, you're really missing out.... All said in a sneery, nasty way. I told him not to be so cruel, gathered the DC and we left. I resisted the urge to knock the whole plate out of his hand - this church is my IL 's life and they would have been mortified. I found out later that the vicar had also frightened my 2 yo nephew by shouting at him when he ate the sweets off the orange. We've already said that we will not be going back again (first time I've ever been but DC have gone 2-3 times before), which obviously has upset the IL's.
AIBU to still be angry at how cruel this vicar was? My DS has had a life time of being told he can't have things because of multiple allergies, why would someone think it was (presumably) funny to be cruel and make fun of him? A vicar of all people! Are they not meant to be kind??

Actually, the reason the DC go with the IL's to church occasionally is because I want them to make their own choices about religion

And there I was thinking that DCs only get taken to churches for school admission purposes. YAB very R

The thing that made me angry was that he seemed to accept that he couldn't eat the mince pie (eventually), but then seemed to think it appropriate to rub his nose in the fact that he was missing out. If any other adult had done this, e.g. the shopkeeper scenario, I would have definitely said alot more - I just didn't because of the impact it would have had on my IL's.
Franciscrawford - there was no need to say my son was allergic as soon as the mince pies appeared as he knows not to eat them and a no thank you should have been enough. He has complex reactions to foods and is under Great Ormond Street, but he isn't anaphylactic so doesn't need to move away from the food (just the unhinged (or unhedged ) oaf of a vicar!).

The man is a total idiot.

I think I would send him a note/letter explaining how his actions have upset you and your son and could have led to your son being physically injured. If your son had anaphylaxis he could ultimately have killed him.

What a horrible man! Thankfully there are some fabulous vicars out there, but yes, the church has its share of idiots as well. You were unlucky enough to meet one.

If he had just asked 1-2 times ... fine, but pushing it under your son's nose, and carrying on even after you told him your son was allergic to them, he was being an arse.

We had an absolute whack-job of a vicar when I was younger, I was convinced he was part of a cult. I was christened by him but I didn't actually go to his church, he used to come to the school I was at to do really crap assemblies which basically came down to 'come to my church or you will burn in hell'. He (and his wife) used to confiscate halloween costumes from children who went to his church. He also managed to get a couple of children who were trick-or-treating into his house and took their costumes off them (really dodgy). He burnt the costumes, said they were the work of the devil.
A girl I knew at school, her and her family went to his church. Her father was abusive to her mother and generally really vile and pervy (50 year old at the time) the last time I saw him, I was 15, he looked me up and down and said 'myyy... you have grown' blurgh (he knew me when I was little too)... anyway totally going off track there, but the vicar told this girls mum that she had to stay with her husband, she'd burn in hell if she left him, even though he was physically, verbally and god knows what else, abusive.

The vicar in the other church I went to when I was in the brownies seemed nice but he spoke like that vicar in The Simpsons so his services took twice as long as they needed to, and they were really boring. When I was in brownies I told another girl that he was really boring (found out later that she was actually his daughter and he announced it next service that someone found him really boring etc, don't know why he bothered saying it because he didn't make his services any more interesting after). He did set fire to a girls head once though by accident, because he dropped candle wax in her hair and it set alight (the girl was ok).

I'm not really christian, I have my own beliefs but I'm more Pagan then Christian. I have never pushed my beliefs on my children though, they believe in God and they all went to (one still there) a lovely church school and the vicar there is lovely and is brilliant with the children, I'm sure many more vicars are like he is.

As a vicar I can say that some of my fellow clergy have no social skills which is odd as we spend so much time around people. I'm sorry that you met one of the odd ones.

He is an arse, a nasty vindictive one at that.

I know a 6ft 15 stone guy who is diabetic. He would have refused and wouldnt have felt the need to tell the vicar his medical history. Would he have done that to him? Waved the pie around under his nose saying how much he was missing? I doubt it. (Plus he would have been in grave danger of having the pie stuffed so far down his throat that he wouldnt need to swallow!)
No he did it because he could and it gave him some sort of power trip over the child for daring to refuse the sodding mince pies.

I would be telling the ILs why you are never going back and I would be keeping the kids well away from him in future. Gawd knows what else he says to kids to show who is boss. Maybe posting some leaflets about allergies through his door too, highlighting the anaphalaxis part

Crikey Flower, you put my mince pie affair in the shade with those tales!
Thanks greenheart, good to know there's some good ones out there too!

Sounds like a vicar with seriously bad people skills, which are a necessary skill for a vicar.

That said all in all I think YABVU over a mince pie and a brief encounter with an odd person. Doesn't really matter too much in the grand scheme of things.

Thanks willow, I think it would be very unlikely he would have said and done this to someone that would defend themselves . My DS is tiny (no bigger than Dd6), so he felt safe to pick on him, I guess. Makes a mockery of the prayers he led to protect and help children in need (the theme of the service!).

I don't understand why you didn't just say he was allergic straight away.

Sound like the vicar struggles with relating to children and massively misjudged. But as none of us were there, we are not really qualified to make pronouncements about whether he's nasty, cruel or just incompetent. Some of the name calling on this thread is pretty unpleasant, bearing in mind none of us was actually present.

I do, to be honest, think you are somewhat unreasonable to be still furious two days later and suspect your feelings about the church are making it seem like a bigger issue than it really was at the time.

There will also be plenty of times when misguided but inept people try and press food on your child because they don't understand the reason for his reluctance. I don't know what the extent of his social difficulties are, but do you have any plan for helping him be more assertive when you aren't there to speak for him?

I think yanbu.

Why should you have to tell your son's dietary and social needs to a complete stranger?!
"No" is a complete sentence.
Unfortunately, I know vicars who have absolutely no pastoral sense at all, so it doesn't surprise ne.
It pisses me off but it doesn't surprise ne

me

not being unreasonable at all. Vicar was an arse. They are not all like that. one of the ones I know is very good at knowing kids have allergies and reminding the congregation not to feed random kids stuff without parents permission. Do not let one idiot put you off the whole lot.

And there was me thinking I had finally found another person who had been emotionally and sexually abused as an adult by a particular vicar and was still angry about it. How disappointing it is about mince pies! But you have a point OP. He sounds a bit annoying but possibly just socially inept.

It's a vicar thing. I know some of them can be slightly strange, I remember one from my childhood had a glass eye and I have say it did unnerve me a little! I wouldn't be too cross about it - I'm sure he meant well.

Vicar sounds horrible.

If you wanted to take some further action, you could try the local archdeacon - ring the diocese office for his/her name (assuming they are COE, but you mentioned lay readers, so I'm guessing they are).

I work in a church - mine are lovely. I've been trying to find one of them a giant orange costume for our christingle, without success, although I very much regretted googling 'adult orange costume'. My eyes!

Vicars are people. Some are lovely and others aren't. I think this guy was out of order for being pushy but I'm don't think I'd still feel so angry about it two days later.

Autumnboys - just had a quick Google for you, there is a shop in Campden that sells them. Escapade.co.uk listed under the funny category (orange fruit costume) for £31.99. You can also get green tights and orange face paint!

YANBU op. A no is a no. And if you don't want to disclose medical information (which an allergy is) then you shouldn't have to. Why did it take 5 times and the comment of allergies for the vicar not to get it? I go to church regularly but would be pissed off at anyone who did this...and I'd probably say something to them about it. I'd likely double check the once just to make sure but only the once.

I would have been furious with the vicar not just because he was an arse about trying to get your son to have the mince pie before and after he'd been told he didn't want them...

But even more so because of the wafting them near him after you had just told him that he is allergic to mince pies:
1- it's cruel to taunt and tease and be mean to a child - particularly when you are a vicar and being nice is part of the job description
2 - he had no way of knowing what sort of allergic your child was to the mince pies - if he had been very allergic to them then wafting them close to him could have been enough to trigger an anaphylaptic (sorry, spelling brain isn't working tonight!) event. You don't know if the wafting has given him a tiny bit of exposure that will prime his system to be more reactive next time he is near any of those ingredients. And yes, I know that it won't for most people - but it could for a few so why should he get to decide about the wafting, not the person who is suffering from the condition (or their responsible parent!)
3 - What would have happened if your ds had been really tempted by the vicar (oh the irony of a vicar being the bad tempter!) and had thought that as he was the vicar, a person of trust and authority, who had been told that he was allergic and he couldn't have them several times but he was still saying it was OK and he was missing out - well your son might have been tempted to have a try because the vicar said it was ok. A light hearted gentle teasing about not liking brussel sprouts (that you're not allergic to) at christmas is one thing, a sustained verbal attack (not really sure what to call it!) is completely different, particularly for a child.

What do you think would have happened if you weren't there, it was just the PIL? Do you think they would have thought your ds should have had one just to be polite to the vicar who they obviously respect, or would they have told the vicar to grow up and stop endangering a child's life.

It really was such unchristian and potentially dangerous behaviour that I'd be tempted to call him out and make a formal complaint to the bishop - regardless of what the PIL think. In fact, I'd be very upset if they didn't make a complaint or support me in making a complaint too.

I'm a church minister, and I don't think you are being unreasonable. His behaviour was inappropriate, and actually pretty creepy.

The vicar's behaviour is creepy, I'd have asked him why did he have such an interest in a young boy. Pity your son didn't sneeze on the mince pies.