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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

WIBU? - Child waking the street

411 replies

Iltavilli · 21/05/2019 17:24

We live on a cul de sac with a ginnel (alley for non-northerners) at the bottom, so it is often used as a cut through for people walking children to the local schools about half a mile away. Leaving the house this morning around 8am (huge lie in as I normally leave at 6am), a girl of around 7 or 8 was being walked to school by her mum.

The girl was banging what looked like two plastic sticks together, quite loudly, and was shouting “get up, get up, it’s time for school and work” all the way along the street. She was about 100 metres ahead of her mum, but mum was laughing along and not trying to stop her. I said to the girl that some people, like nurses, work at night and need to sleep in the morning so they can take care of people the next night. The girl burst into tears, and as mum got to where we were (outside my house) shouted at me for making her daughter cry.

Given the weather is so warm, and people have windows open to sleep, was I wrong to ask the girl to stop - but also to explain why she should stop?

OP posts:
Tolleshunt · 22/05/2019 00:31

7 year olds don't possess the emotional ability to realise this in the way adults do. She wasn't being inconsiderate, she was being fucking seven.

Which is why she needed to be told, and seeing as how her dopey mother wasn't going to bother, it's a good job that OP could be bothered to.

I agree with you that kids do not possess the same faculties as adults. How on earth do you think they will ever learn anything if nobody is ever allowed to teach them?

Tolleshunt · 22/05/2019 00:33

Yep, and next birthday she'll be 8 and then she'll be 9 and before we know it there will be another adult that doesn't know how to behave because no-one told them when they were 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7, how to behave appropriately. The OP didn't give her a scenario she wasn't able to comprehend at 7.

Completely agree with this.

KissUntilTheyDieOfRabies · 22/05/2019 00:37

I try and keep our family noise to a minimum unless we are at a park or other appropriate place.

There is no way I'd let my kids do this. I'm constantly trying to teach them tolerance and kindness and awareness of others which includes people working nights. Our last neighbour did.

WaxOnFeckOff · 22/05/2019 00:38

They don't though, not without guidance.

Which was exactly what the OP did, give guidance.

WaxOnFeckOff · 22/05/2019 00:45

I'm very strict, but also kind. I regularly give local kids bollocking (after polite requests don't work) but I also give them outgrown toys, take time to chat with them etc. They don't seem traumatised. One of the ones I used to have to remind about behaviour most frequently used to like to pop over for an extra breakfast at the weekend. I've never got to the point of having to go and speak to their parents but would never rule it out.

Confused1977 · 22/05/2019 00:59

Performance parenting?

EmeraldShamrock · 22/05/2019 01:16

Yabu. I work night shifts, life starts at 7am, the birds at 5am.
They were plastic bottles not bells, unless she wacking them hard and fast, which I doubt of she was playing the music to her song.
I live near a school, kids are on route for 7.30am for breakfast club, some laughing, some chasing, some singing, it's life.
At least you made sure she won't sing in the morning again.

LaLoba · 22/05/2019 01:19

I spent my “fertile” years being grilled by all and sundry about why I hadn’t reproduced. All the while biting my tongue, wanting to ask why people DID have children when they were so clearly ill qualified at life that they shouldn’t be allowed in charge of someone else’s.
This thread verifies my life choices, thank you dears.

Peopleshouldread · 22/05/2019 01:33

YANBU.
You were far more polite that I would have been. Totally the mothers fault, and completely inconsiderate.
But then I'm one of those awful people who will step in and nicely correct or stop a child if they are behaving appallingly and the parents are smiling fatuously and doing nothing to prevent it.

EmeraldShamrock · 22/05/2019 01:37

I clearly read the OP wrong. Blush
I thought she was singing a song about waking up, I actually read it and sang it in my head.
She was actively trying to wake me. I apologise yanbu.
I need to sleep. 😴

EmeraldShamrock · 22/05/2019 01:38

Wake people. Not me.
See how night shifts mess you up. Wink

DeeCeeCherry · 22/05/2019 02:03

I'd have done the same. She's rude, her mum probably doesn't set good examples. What makes parents think everyone wants to be deliberately woken by their precious child?

tolerable · 22/05/2019 02:09

aye.you were wrong.You saw her ma was there,yet approached the child .reasonable,non,agressive with explanation...but..unecessary,cos shoulda dealt wi the adult in charge.

LaLoba · 22/05/2019 02:13

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

my2bundles · 22/05/2019 05:43

You where on tne street 2 hours later than normal so I expect this is tne first time you have experienced tne school run. Round here from 8am onwards there is no use from traffic, high school kids chatting, often singing whole waiting for buses. Other high school kids meeting up on bikes. Primary kids excitedly laughing and shouting over to friends, riding scooters babies and toddlers crying, giggling etc. It's normal and the OPS child's noise would have been lost in the commotion of the other kids here. It's tne school run, there will be some noise.

ALittleBitofVitriol · 22/05/2019 06:26

7 year olds don't possess the emotional ability to realise this in the way adults do. She wasn't being inconsiderate, she was being fucking seven

They learn it, through practice and experience. Like the experience she had that morning, when a kind adult took the time to explain. Op wasn't mean, she wasn't aggressive and didn't shout (unlike the mother).

How will she ever learn if her mother thinks it's funny and other adults are barred from talking to her?

And no, that sort of racket is not 'normal happy child noise' - a child having the nerve to persistently bang and shout that a whole neighbourhood of adults needs to wake up is not cute. It is impertinence.

NoSauce · 22/05/2019 06:31

LaLoba you don’t believe the OP then? Have you reported the thread and asked hq to take a look?

User8888888 · 22/05/2019 06:42

I’m surprised people think the noise was ok. In an alley with open windows I’d be telling off my kids for excitable screeching let alone drumming. There is a time and a place for bring loud and that sort of alley at 8am isn’t it.

BoneyBackJefferson · 22/05/2019 06:55

Femalebornandbreed

Am appalled at some of the comments towards a couple of posters that suggested the child may have SN. No one knows if she did or didn’t. And it’s perfectly acceptable to suggest she may have.

I'm "appalled" that some posters think that a child must have a SN to behave this way.

FrancisCrawford · 22/05/2019 07:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pinkprincess1978 · 22/05/2019 07:24

I think if she was just being generally loud I would have silently seethed but recognised that it's not that early... but the fact she seemed to be deliberately trying to wake people up because SHE thought it was time to be up is just disgusting - the mum clearly is teaching this and as others have pointed out the mum should be aware that people work shifts, some people have just had a baby and my be trying to catch up on their sleep. Some people might be looking after a seriously ill dependant and trying to sleep after being up in the night.

It is not anyone's rights to deliberately try and wake up others at any time!

Well done for pointing this out to her.

WaxOnFeckOff · 22/05/2019 07:26

Are children not allowed to be upset anymore anyway? I must be an awful parent as mine were upset from time to time, sometimes because of me.

TeddybearBaby · 22/05/2019 07:26

I’m amazed that people genuinely can’t see the difference between a child / anyone for that matter deliberately making some ‘normal’ ‘everyday’ noise on their way to school and deliberately causing a disturbance with the intent of waking people up Confused. Perhaps they just don’t want to 🤷🏻‍♀️. Baffling.

TanMateix · 22/05/2019 07:29

I would have said the same, plenty of nurses and consultants living around here.

Some parents think their kids are cute and when they are actually bloody inconsiderate and annoying.

Bellatrix14 · 22/05/2019 07:37

Some of the attitudes on here explain perfectly how I encounter multiple children and young people who think the entire world revolves around them and everything they do is wonderful Hmm

She was 7, so probably too young to properly understand that just because she was awake, that doesn’t mean that everyone else had to be awake. But her mother, as her most important educator, should be explaining things like that to her so she grows up to be a pleasant and compassionate adult. It’s not even just shift workers, people who work in areas like retail who probably get a day off during the week might like to sleep past 8am too!

You didn’t shout at her OP, you’ve done nothing wrong. Although if her mother was so far behind her I wonder if the little girl told her mother that you had shouted at her/told her off and that’s why she was so defensive?

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