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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this man was a miserable git?

191 replies

Sashkin · 30/01/2018 19:56

Lighthearted, but obviously not completely lighthearted because it’s about my darling PFB.

DS is 10mo, and has always liked smiling at strangers when we are out. On the tube today, and he looks across at this middle-aged man next to us, gives him a shy little smile and tries a tentative wave. This. is. his. first. wave. ever, so clearly a massive milestone and proud moment for me. I coo at him “oh well done, are you waving at the nice man?” And the nice man harrumphs and goes back to his newspaper without even acknowledging poor little DS, who looks crestfallen.

AIBU to think this man was a miserable git if he couldn’t humour a small child for five minutes, and WIBU to burn his house down in retaliation?

OP posts:
LondonHerbivore32 · 30/01/2018 21:28

Get over yourself, YABVVVU.

Some people don't like children, are having a bad day, don't want to interact with anyone on public transport, or have any other valid reason for not wanting to engage. There's no obligation to do so. You might think your baby is the most important thing in the world, but let me remind you that it's not to everyone else.

People do not have to acknowledge your child. Frankly, cooing like that would have got you an eye roll and a harrumph from me, then me putting on my headphones to avoid any further interaction.

thecatfromjapan · 30/01/2018 21:30

It can go the other way, though, Hannah. And that's weird.

My memories of childhood are of strangers constantly coming up to my mother when out and about, complimenting her on her beautiful daughter - my sister.

Indeed, on one particularly memorable occasion, a woman came up in a shop, presented a toy and said: "I hope you don't mind but I just bought this because I wanted to give it to your lovely child," and gestured towards my sister, in a way that communicated that words would not suffice to convey the loveliness. I, meanwhile, just stood there, watching on, cynically.

It was like being the hanger-on of a minor celebrity. And weird, frankly.

RavenWings · 30/01/2018 21:31

I must have missed the memo that said we were all obliged to adore your baby as The Most Important, Only Baby In The World.

Some people don't like babies. Some people don't like performance parenting. Some people have real issues in their lives, like caring for relatives or being broke or illness, or a million different things that don't make them chirpy 24/7.

Plumes · 30/01/2018 21:32

He had a big toy gun he'd just won at a fair and was waving it around in his pushchair while we walked along a busy town centre. Almost everyone smiled and pretended to be shot. It was lovely. I completely cracked up however when an elderly gent fired back with his walking stick cross shotgun!

That's sweet. It's nice when people join in. When handed a toy phone by a child has anyone not taken part in a pretend phone conversation?

LadyOfTheCanyon · 30/01/2018 21:32

*Elephant17
*
It's not lighthearted is it though? Because there's nowhere to go once you've set your ' lighthearted' stall out if you don't agree with the OP.

It's one of those posts that should just stand alone, except it can't because by the very act of existing it invites people to interact with it.

mamamalt · 30/01/2018 21:35

Errr what @SleightOfMind and @Elephant17 said.
It’s LIGHTHEARTED
Some people are so fucking weird. Absolutely jump on someone to tell them how much they hate babies and they’re not the centre of everything. Jees. Are you guys that much fun at parties?!
OP you’re taking it like a champ. Your poor DS. Hopefully he will encounter many more happier folk who will wave back (and hopefully he will encounter none of the grumps on this thread!)

thecatfromjapan · 30/01/2018 21:35

It's lighthearted.

She's not really going to burn his house down. That's exaggeration, applied because she has a degree of self-insight, and is capable of putting herself within the wider emotional landscape that tells her that she occupies a small space in a large world, filled with other things an other people.

Not every thread needs to have 'Lighthearted' in the title. Sometimes the irony can be conveyed, and discerned, in the OP. Well, maybe ...

LadyOfTheCanyon · 30/01/2018 21:36

Yes but "Lighthearted" also seems to mean " DONT DISAGREE WITH ME!"

Caucho · 30/01/2018 21:37

I like kids so do tend to interact and pull faces etc but have been suffering from bad depression the last few days so would have had the same reaction as him if it was this morning. He probably is just a grumpy git in reality but you never know what people are going through at any particular time. And as somone else has pointed out the parents often give you daggers if you smile or wave at their kids so can often be lose lose situation to be in

Italiangreyhound · 30/01/2018 21:37

Sashkin He's not a miserable man necessarily but you've no idea what is going on for him. I am sure your son will be just fine.

It's your moment and you should enjoy it.

thecatfromjapan · 30/01/2018 21:38

No. If they were like this at parties, the intense literalism would ensure an ever-dwindling pile of invites.

It's the slow death of MN by a heavy-footed literalism, larded with an unpleasantness mistaken for witty subversion by posters. AIBU strikes again.

DearMrDilkington · 30/01/2018 21:38

I'd have smiled at your ds but I wouldn't have waved back, in case it encouraged further waving and babbling that I'd feel I had to respond to.

Unknown children make me feel awkward.

HoppyHannah · 30/01/2018 21:38

thecatfromjapan,

OK, glad it was ok for you.

Most kids don't care unless their parents neglect them and may be nasty towards them.

The bottom line is that most people on the Tube or other transport haven't got any time to entertain babies/kids etc, and that's their world, just the same as a cooing parent's world is, where everyone should be in total delight at their offspring.

Not happening mostly. Your child, your responsibility to entertain them.

A little smile and a nod is brilliant, but a five minute or more encounter, well sorry, count me out.

It is your child not mine.

BigBaboonBum · 30/01/2018 21:38

Therapy ASAP imo. Sooner they begin the sooner they can lock away this memory forever

LimberlostGirl · 30/01/2018 21:39

If I was on the bus/train wherever and reading I would have taken my glasses off. Without them I wouldn’t be able to see your baby let alone any movement it was making.

thecatfromjapan · 30/01/2018 21:41

Or perhaps that appalling 'Lighthearted' conveys a longing that there might be an interaction with an OP that is otherwise than simple-minded, heavy-hoofed argumentativeness?

I almost feel like handing out medals to the posters who've gamely attempted to head the thread off to pastures other than the (utterly tedious) obvious ones of: "Get me! I'm on MN and I hate children! Fook, I'm hard!" or "Performance Parenting!!!"

So boring.

user764329056 · 30/01/2018 21:43

I love the innocence of kids, makes my heart hurt, they simply belief everyone will be nice to them, my granddaughter says hello in her little 1 year old voice to everyone and because as adults that innocence has been turned into cynicism and social expectations hardly anyone responds. What a lovely place it would be if some of how our little ones see the world could be real, we were all those little ones once

hollowtree · 30/01/2018 21:44

God alive! Some people are so nasty on here!! Sorry OP, I'm excited for your PFB's first wave!

Plumes · 30/01/2018 21:45

It is a real MN thing for people to let everyone know that they have absolutely no interest in any child aside from the ones which slid from their own womb.

midnightmisssuki · 30/01/2018 21:46

I was a bit like this with my first.

Now i pray my second doesn't do this because i just dont have time to stop and wave to bloody everyone and i certainly have no time to wave back to kids i dont know. (Un)fortunately for me, my son is just like his bloody father - super wave-y and annoyingly friendly to everyone. Urghhh. send help

Plumes · 30/01/2018 21:48

midnight you should have procreated with a curmudgeon. You only have yourself to blame Grin

tracymars · 30/01/2018 21:48

I don't mind smiling and waving at babies but when you are in the same place as them for a while it can be a bit of a chore because then they're constantly looking at you and trying to interact. So if I'm passing a baby I'll smile and wave. But if I'm somewhere like a cafe or on public transport I have to think about if I want to keep it up for ages. I have sometimes started to interact with them and then had to ignore them after a while because it's gone on too long. Then I feel guilty because I was being friendly and then suddenly stopped.

limitedperiodonly · 30/01/2018 21:49

Miserable git.

I used to hate it when babies and small children did things like that or picked their noses and ate it. But that was because I was a self conscious 20-something.

But now I am middle-aged I smile at them and wave back or compliment them on their lovely shoes or plastic tat or whatever. I don't have children and have never wanted them. It just makes me happy.

There is no excuse for anyone who's not a cripplingly uptight 20-something doing this.

BertrandRussell · 30/01/2018 21:50

I wouldn't respond to the toy gun- that sounds awful. But otherwise I always interact with children who interact with me,

SaucyJack · 30/01/2018 21:50

"Some people don't like performance parenting."

Yeah, amen to this.

I like babies.

I do not like PFB snoflakes who have an expectation that I will fawn over their child like they have created a masterpiece of modern humanity.

I'll decide for meself whether I want to chat to your baby, thanks.