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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:
livefornaps · 16/02/2018 08:21

Life is too short for this type of wrangling.

She did it deliberately. She'll be crowing to her cronies about mothers today as we speak.

Bet it felt good in the moment to tell her to fuck off, though.

And.... Would she have made the same comments to a man? I doubt it.

ilovesooty · 16/02/2018 08:21

And like all these threads it's brought out casual ageism far worse than that in the original OP.

user838383 · 16/02/2018 08:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Ickyockycocky · 16/02/2018 08:21

I hope all you perfect posters are comfortable up there on the high moral ground.

Move on and forget OP and take no notice of all these perfect posters. They aren’t that perfect, no one is.

Sparklingbrook · 16/02/2018 08:24

'Perfect posters'? Confused

Peanutbuttercheese · 16/02/2018 08:25

If I had been an observer on that bus I would have been suprised the woman had said what she did. However as much as you had every right to answer her I would have thought you were rough as a badgers arse.

CurcubitaPepo · 16/02/2018 08:27

I certainly wouldn’t apologise, certainly not to someone who referred my children as “that”.
Yes, what you said was over the top, but I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. If I saw her again I would totally blank her, if she said anything to me I would be icily polite.

Have a better day today!

Shimmershimmerandshine · 16/02/2018 08:29

I think you were unnecessarily rude because the way I go through life is I try to rise above horrible people.

That said, if I spoke to someone like she spoke to you including being openly horrible about their dc I would fully expect to be told to fuck off. So I wouldn't sweat it either, her age is irrelevant unless it is the early signs of dementia which is possible.

AuntieStella · 16/02/2018 08:29

Who are the perfect posters?

The ones who think the OP is right to feel shame after an appalling outburst?

If so, why does believing that it's go into a shouting and swearing outburst in front of your DC reflect perfection?

Isn't that rather a low threshold for being perfect?

OP: it seems that some people thing what youndid was OK. I think you know from your sense of shame and your dread about what other bus passengers will think of younand how they will react to you is telling you that. There's no help for that. Just realise that the unpleasantness of those feelings can be something which helps you never to behave like this in front of your DC again.

Chewbecca · 16/02/2018 08:29

She was rude but, oh my goodness, there is never an excuse to speak as you did, even more so in front of your children.

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 16/02/2018 08:29

I bet you see her everywhere now, on every bus trip, in every shop. It won't be awkward at all......

Shimmershimmerandshine · 16/02/2018 08:31

I am royally fucked off with this attitude that you should respect your elders just coz they're a generation (or 2) older than you

Yes me too. An older person is an adult, the op is an adult. They are therefore equals in my eyes.

lurkingnotlurking · 16/02/2018 08:32

Fwiw, it sounds like she might have triggered you. Look it up.

AugustaLoveday · 16/02/2018 08:35

I'm amazed that anyone on here thinks it's ok to swear and rant at someone full stop, never mind in front of their children. Mumsnet sometimes feels like a parallel universe.

OP, this is atrocious parenting. You do realise that your children will go on and repeat this behaviour, don't you? You will no doubt be called in to school at some point because one of your DC has told one of their classmates to fuck themself. And the DC will say to the teacher: "But Mummy said it to a lady on the bus". Good luck with that one.

The woman on the bus sounds like an old misery guts (assuming your DC were being quiet and well behaved - though if you think it's ok to tell someone to fuck herself, I'm not quite sure how high your standards of behaviour are). But the only suitable response would have been to tell her, politely, that your children were being quiet and behaving perfectly well, or to have given her a look of baffled incredulousness. Once off the bus, you could just have told your DC that said woman was obviously having a bad day.

Elocutioner · 16/02/2018 08:38

I wouldn't worry about it. If you're rude to random strangers you run the risk of being the straw that broke the camels back and having them go ballistic at you.

Fuck her.

WizardOfToss · 16/02/2018 08:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ColinsVeryJolly · 16/02/2018 08:40

You do realise that your children will go on and repeat this behaviour, don't you? You will no doubt be called in to school at some point because one of your DC has told one of their classmates to fuck themself. And the DC will say to the teacher: "But Mummy said it to a lady on the bus". Good luck with that one.

Yeah that's bound to happen Hmm

Sarahh2014 · 16/02/2018 08:41

Yanbu. Respect is earnt.She was bu with her attitude.Yes you retaliated strongly but were provoked

mari652 · 16/02/2018 08:41

The OP doesn't feel shame about this at all. She has posted it to get the predictable ' ooh, what an old bag, you were right to defend your precious ones' responses. And I don't believe for a minute that the children were behaving well.

Elocutioner · 16/02/2018 08:43

The OP can post for any reason she fucking likes

Gekkoforprimeminister · 16/02/2018 08:43

She was unreasonable and downright nasty, you had people on your side and were on the moral high ground then you leapt right off it...... Whoops!!
It's over now so put it behind you and practise a contemptuous eye roll in the mirror, quieter and more effective than shouting Grin

BertrandRussell · 16/02/2018 08:43

She was rude. You over reacted. Her age is immaterial.

Emabrmsca · 16/02/2018 08:43

Lol I read the title as "shooting at an older lady"

Shouting is not as bad as what I thought you did 😂

Quartz2208 · 16/02/2018 08:44

If she is on the bus just smile it out.

She was wrong in the first instance and called you a disgrace. You know you lost the battle when you lost your temper (this is always true) but it doesn’t justify her behaviour

PoppyBubbles · 16/02/2018 08:44

YABU the older lady could have have been rude, grumpy or she could have had dementia or painful arthritic joints and there you are shouting obscenities at her.

Missing the point that the other woman starting the interaction by making comments about OP's children. Made worse by the fact it wasn't direct to the OP, it was a call for other passengers to agree with her and single out the mother of the young children. And of course if we are having a bad day then it's perfectly alright to go and take it out on other people's kids

Fine example you’re setting your kids!

That if someone is rude to you or those you care about you should just sit down and say nothing. The moral high ground is so much better.

It won’t be long before they start bawling at people like that on the bus.

Yes after this one (justified) interaction that's how her children will behave everyday for the rest of their lives

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