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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel awful about shouting at an older lady

540 replies

TheCrossKeys · 16/02/2018 01:17

I got the bus today with the baby, 6yo, and 4yo. Baby started having a little whinge when we first got on so I gave her a banana out of the shopping bag and she was silent for the rest of the trip, stuffing her face. 4yo and 6yo were chatting quietly but not constantly, I was across the aisle from them and could barely hear them. I am not shy about telling my DC to quiet down when they're being too loud, I will remove them if they don't and they know this as a fact.

When it got close to the stop we needed, 6yo asked me if this was our stop - it's not a route we usually travel so she wasn't familiar with it - I said yes. The older lady (maybe late 60s?) in the seat behind me piped up in a really nasty voice "good, maybe it'll be quiet now". I asked her what she meant and she pointed at the baby and DD and said "I mean the amount of noise from that and that!". I said she was being very rude about young children who had been sitting quietly and minding their own business, other passengers agreed that they were sitting quietly. She then told me "they're a disgrace and so are you". So I lost my temper and told her she was a nasty fucking witch and was sheborn this bitter or did it develop over time. I then lost whatever dignity I had left and (to my absolute shame) told her to go fuck herself.

I am not a horrible person, I try to be kind and I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I've been having a tough time lately and the DC have been so good during it all, they are not little angels all of the time but they really were being quiet and I simply lost my rag.

We have to use that same route again tomorrow and I'm dreading it in case she's on the bus again.

OP posts:
TidyLike · 16/02/2018 12:08

She referred to your children as if they were objects?! I am not surprised you lost your temper. Your reaction was a bit extreme, but then you know that. If you encounter her again soon, I'd say something along the lines of, 'The way you spoke about my family the other day was appalling. Even so, I ought not to have vented my anger and hurt in the terms I did, and I apologise for that.' Then don't engage further unless she expresses willingness to accept her own wrongdoing.

But most importantly, don't give yourself too much of a hard time for defending your children 💖

Shimmershimmerandshine · 16/02/2018 12:10

older men aren't usually referred to as bags and bats simply because of their age

no, they called old gits instead. This is about individuals not sexism. Unless she has dementia I suspect that this woman was a foul unpleasant character at 21 as well.

BertrandRussell · 16/02/2018 12:10

“He is just a vile, cantankerous, bitter, (and, yes) old bully.“

This is like a verbal reasoning question. “Which word is the odd one out in this sentence?”

AugustaLoveday · 16/02/2018 12:12

Petbear, children learn by example. Surely you know this?

kaytee87 · 16/02/2018 12:14

If someone called my son a disgrace then I'd probably tell them to fuck off too.
Not great doing it in front of the kids but you probably know that and she was a bitch!

FlouncyDoves · 16/02/2018 12:15

Wow. The OP is getting a tough time on here having admitted in the OP that she was BU. She knows that she lost the moral upper hand, but in the situation, at the time, it sounds like the interfearing old bag had it coming.

My 2 yr old dropped her snack on the floor of a supermarket yesterday and had a predictable melt down when I threw it away. Some old fella shot me a shitty look, so I shot him one back. What should I have done, allowed my DD to eat food from a supermarket floor? Some people are just twats, regardless of age.

Pictureiswonky · 16/02/2018 12:16

YANBU. I probably would have reacted as well. I tend to keep my voice very low when angry, but I would have picked my words so that they hunt her for weeks. My child is not "that", whether you are old or young. Respect goes both ways.

PerfectlySymmetricalButtocks · 16/02/2018 12:19

RoseWhiteTips it's Mumsnet. Get over it. Hmm

AugustaLoveday · 16/02/2018 12:25

I'm thinking about this too much, but I'm baffled by the people who think that the OP's meltdown will make the other woman think twice before being a cowbag. Of course it won't. It will just confirm everything she thought about the OP and her children, and she will feel all self-righteous now. Which she shouldn't, as she was the one in the wrong at the start of all of this (assuming, that is, the OP's children were behaving as well as she says they were - and even if they weren't, there's no reason to call them "things").

I'm not in the slightest bit pearl-clutchy about swearing, but I think there's a place for everything. And being vilely rude to a stranger in front of your children is indefensible. You do realise, OP, that your children will probably do the same to you at some point?

JustAnotherPoster00 · 16/02/2018 12:40

You do realise, OP, that your children will probably do the same to you at some point?

Um, what now? Hmm

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 16/02/2018 12:40

What does It's Mumsnet, get over it mean, Buttocks? You sound a bit deficient on the old charm front yourself, tbh.
Stop policing what posters can say on someone else's thread. Your opinion is not the definitive party line, dear.

kissmethere · 16/02/2018 12:41

Also I don't your DCs will think this is the way to behave from one outburst from you as some posters are saying. My parents were very pleasant people although I do have memories of tempers flaring in situations where they came to our defence. I remember particularly a woman who roughed me up for running past her window whilst out playing and doing it again on the way back. My mum hammered on her door to after I told her what happened. The woman wouldn't open it and said she was going to call the police. My mum said to call them as she'd assaulted a child.
My point is even though that was a different situation it's ok for parents to defend their children and it won't scar the kids to see or hear things like this as long as it's not regularly My mum wouldn't jump all over someone for looking at her wrong way she just couldn't believe this happened. You get what I mean.

PerfectlySymmetricalButtocks · 16/02/2018 12:48

Iamagreyhound just that there's a lot of swearing on Mumsnet. I swear much more on here than in RL. Quite a few people on here are here precisely because we can swear, and you can't on Netmums.

halfwitpicker · 16/02/2018 12:52

Maybe the lady had MH issues. She was rude but you were bang out of order.

^

Maybe OP does.

Maybe we all do...... HmmConfused

halfwitpicker · 16/02/2018 12:55

Do the people who are supporting the OP go on like this in their own daily life?

No.

But no-one has ever shouted at me like that on a bus. If they did, I would want to have the balls to respond like the OP did. Instead of just meekly apologising like we've been conditioned to do!

Rachie1973 · 16/02/2018 12:57

LOL TheCrossKeys

Sorry OP I'm genuinely not laughing at you, just at the memories it's invoked in me! After having 6 kids and doing the 'bus run' twice a day for about 20 years I can't help but have sympathy for you.

Some people are just nasty, and you can either ignore it (which actually grates if you do it too often), or you can deal with it quietly and calmly (which I suppose is the 'right' thing to do) or you can lose your shit (which is apparently baaaaad, but way more satisfying lol).

I've done all 3, and I have sworn in front of my kids on occasion as well. Funny enough they haven't grown up to be cussing, spitting rednecks. The older ones laugh at the memory of Mum losing her shit.

The kids will be fine, don't apologise anymore, It happens, you're human xx

AssassinatedBeauty · 16/02/2018 12:57

There are a myriad of responses that are between "meekly apologising" and "sweary abuse". It's not one or the other.

Ivymaud · 16/02/2018 13:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LakieLady · 16/02/2018 13:03

There is always a proportion of mumsnetters who love a good "tell her to fuck off" tale and egg thr op on. I'm absolutely sure these folks would do no such thing in real life and are simply key board warriors.

I have been known to to tell people to go fuck themselves or fuck off, but I say it with a sweet smile and in my best BBC accent. I'm usually 50 yards down the road before they even realise.

People just don't expect a well-spoken 60-something to say "fuck" and I get great amusement from giving their preconceptions a wobble.

AugustaLoveday · 16/02/2018 13:04

Justanother - I mean that they will rant and swear at the OP in due course, if that's what she does in front of them. Like another poster, I would wonder what goes on in private if I heard someone behaving like that in public.

OP, if you do genuinely feel bad about it, you are right to.

Ivymaud · 16/02/2018 13:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

notwonderwoman · 16/02/2018 13:06

You were not being unreasonable.
Silly old goat.
A bit of noise is expected, Mums and kids are always on buses as much as older people, she should be used to it!

BertrandRussell · 16/02/2018 13:10

“There are a myriad of responses that are between "meekly apologising" and "sweary abuse". It's not one or the other.”

Absolutely.

But since a poster on here has actually said that they would support a teenager saying “Fuck off and die you old cunt” to a person who was rude to him, it seems to be a point that escapes many people.....

toomuchtooold · 16/02/2018 13:11

Augusta I agree that giving people like that the fight they were so obviously spoiling for us sometimes counterproductive, but I do also think that there are people out there who take out their (passive) aggression on mother's of small children specifically because they think we are going to be a soft touch. Like because we're gentle with the kids, we'll be too meek to answer back their outrageous rudeness. I kind of like knowing that one of these people has had their expectations reset.

I'm also comfortable with small children hearing their mother swear. Being able to tell someone to fuck right off shouldn't be the only item in a kid's conflict management toolkit, but IMO it should certainly be in there.

toomuchtooold · 16/02/2018 13:12

mothers, not mother's. Fuck you autocorrect Grin

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