Child at next table was whingeing, should I have stepped in?

[InSisu]

I went out for lunch earlier with my partner and 18 month old.
Whilst DP went to get a second helping (it was an all-you-can-eat!) I carried on eating mine and seeing to DS who was chomping away quite happily.
For about five minutes, I'd been aware that one of the children on the next table was being grouchy, crying a bit, generally playing up. It's nothing I haven't dealt with myself as a parent and I gave it no thought.
Then I heard, 'are you just going to sit there and not even try to help?'..thought nothing of it, glanced up and to my horror, the man at the next table had said it to me! He was dealing with his son who was now arching his back and trying to get him into his pushchair- mine does that quite a lot but I don't see it as anyone else's place to step in. AIBU?!

It was probably my ex, his mummy forgot the wings bit.

You say "one of the children" in his group was playing up - how old were the other children? If over 6 or 7 perhaps he was expecting older siblings to help! my parents would have

That sounds very strange. Maybe he didn't realise his partner had left the table and was talking to her, and made eye contact with you inadvertently.

If he meant what he said then he is weird. YANBU. I was not your place to step in and help.

Yeah that's why I don't think he could've been directing it at the little boy, because of how he worded it.
And no, I definitely wasn't staring, I was far too into what was on my plate haha. Anyway, mini tantrums are unremarkable when you go out to eat, I really didn't think anything of it to even look.

I can't imagine for a moment he would have dared say something like that to your DH.

Evelyn the other was a baby asleep in a car seat, it was at lunchtime so older children are at school.

I know right, Boffin 😡

Not necessarily - home schooling, inset days, meal after attending some kind of specialist appointment, or you could be in a country where school finishes at lunchtime... But no, presumably he wasn't expecting a baby to help!

Either he had not noticed his partner had left the table, or he had an imaginary friend, or he was talking to you and being astoundingly inappropriate (especially in his phrasing - asking politely and apologetically for help would be ok I think).

In true mumsnet fashion I will suggest that he suffers from face blindness and could not tell that you were not his wife :)