Dentist in tesco tackled me

[Spiceb]

Shopping with 3 year old yesterday. Stopped by the raisins. Old woman came up to me and said "excuse me but please don't buy them. They are terribly bad for teeth" I must have looked incredulous because her husband stepped in to say she was a dentist

Aibu to think go away and let me shop in peace? I'm a sensible grown adult who can make choices

If you saw a mum letting her child play on a railway track with a train bearing down on them, wouldn’t you shout to warn them? Or would that be “ interfering”?

Interestingly, this is one of the examples given by evangelicals as to why they feel obliged to preach in public places, hand out leaflets, and approach strangers to share their faith.

I wonder if all the posters saying they'd be fine with someone telling them not to buy raisins would be equally fine with someone trying to convert them in the supermarket?

I have never had someone approach me in the supermarket to try to beg me not to buy unhealthy food, but I have had a man stop me in the aisle and quiz my then three year old as to whether her mum sends her to Sunday school and if she knows the Lord? Then he pressed a few leaflets into my hand.

As an old lady dentist who is close to retirement your child’s future dental needs are not likely to be my problem. I could say carry on, you are securing the financial future of the dental profession. But that would be totally unprofessional of me. HCP are perhaps the only professions who actively try to put themselves out of business.
Perhaps the old dear was out of order approaching you in the supermarket but if she’s as old as me she will have treated hundreds of children with toothache and infection that was completely avoidable.

@EleanorReally

Whatever happened 'someone you know', it wasn't that their child had teeth removed due to b/f.

Honestly. Some facts, please.

@MulticolourMophead

I came across <a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.reuters.com/article/us-breastfeeding-past-two-years/breastfeeding-past-two-years-linked-to-infant-tooth-decay-idUSBREA2D1Q820140314" target="_blank">thiss* article, concerning a link between extended breast feeding and tooth decay. So that previous poster may well have been right about knowing someone who had a tooth extracted because of this

Can you share the article, please?

The link is in the text. Click the word "this". In fact you've copied the link, as well.

Sorry @MulticolourMophead I was just about to post to say I'd missed the link! (It doesn't work in my copy & paste tho)

I should I have read more carefully 🤦🏻‍♀️

So @MulticolourMophead @EleanorReally having read Multi's linked article (& I'd seen this before also), my point stands.

There were numerous factors at play here - infants were being fed (obviously) more than just breastmilk, so a normal toddler diet, and also came from low-income families in Brazil.

This doesn't mean that low-income families will have more tooth decay necessarily but it may be a factor.

It's simply NOT possible to define the tooth decay as arising from breastfeeding - the only known issue with b/f past 2 is that when you b/f (or bottle feed) the lips close over teeth limiting the saliva which aids in 'cleaning' teeth, and there are some recommendations that on-demand b/f (or bottle feeding, it doesn't matter which) should be limited once most teeth are present.

Far far more nuanced than 'I knew someone whose child had teeth removed because of b/f'

So frustrating that people can't use facts correctly!

(& sorry for somewhat derailing OP's thread)

@willdoitinaminute - I think sometimes that people forget that those with experience can teach us. It’s a shame, and it wasn’t always so. People are free to ignore advice given, but if it’s well meaning, perhaps taking a huffy stance about it is a bit daft.

*well meaning and has relevant experience behind it ...

YANBU. And she was wrong anyway.

nutritionfacts.org/2018/10/16/raisins-and-dental-health/

@Oysterbabe I agree next time I'd tell them to fuck off too. And anyone criticising your feelings over it are probably the same holier than thou twats that give unsolicited advice.

Can't we even use the words "old", "young", "middle aged" to describe someone these days? I can't see OP's post discriminating this old couple because of their age.

If in doubt, change old etc for black to see how it sounds:

'This black couple'

'Black woman came up to me..'

A midwife came over to me in a coffee shop to show me how to burp my baby the other day. Completely out of the blue just started touching my baby and telling me the reason DD had hiccups was because I wasn't winding her properly.

Done with the best of intentions I'm sure, but still spectacularly rude.

Just because it's someone's profession, doesn't mean they have the right to tell you how to do it when they're not at work.

I'm a graphic designer and I wouldn't just approach someone and say 'Your logo is shit, here use this one instead'

Springydaff.. how would you manage in languages where there are entirely different nouns you would use for a young woman / middle-aged woman / old woman in telling such a story (e.g. in Russian that would be dyevushka / tyotka / starukha)?

People use descriptive words to, well, describe what they saw. Add colour. It's an anecdote.

But River in your example wouldn’t it depend on how those words are used and understood?

In some languages there might be an actual word that means: ‘wise elderly woman who should be listened to’, or ‘useless individual over 45 who shouldn’t be allowed out and probably has advanced dementia’. In English we rely on the nuance of the conversation - and here in MN English we know absolutely that, unless qualified by context or other positive words ‘old + woman’ is intended to be entirely negative.

I disagree. Old woman does not mean old hag or old crone or old faggot (the last in the sense it has in my dialect).

Quite a few of the ‘facts’ in the article [https://nutritionfacts.org/2018/10/16/raisins-and-dental-health/] are wrong so I wouldn’t use it to support any argument I was making.

Rivers - can you really not see the issue?

As Springy says - If in doubt, change old etc for black to see how it sounds:

It's really very simple.

I think a lot of people would be less supportive of these helpy fuckers if they were men. If they were men they'd be mansplaining.

Came on hear expecting an actual rugby style tackle. Disappointed.

Medievalist

Rivers - can you really not see the issue?

Confirmed. Cannot see any issue. "Old woman" is a factual description. At work, I often assist old women. My mother is an old woman. My hero is an old woman. An old woman drove her car into my fence last week (fortunately she was fine, just shaken up). An old woman who lives across the road came over to help. An old woman I know vaguely disinherited her son for what seemed to me to be unkind reasons. My children regard me as an old woman. Is all this supposed to be hate speech?

Zen... hahahaha! I think we all were.

Lord! My mother is an old woman. She is the most splendid human being who has ever lived.

That is not what ‘old woman’ usually/often means on MN.

Meh. I'm not going to assume anyone means it as a perjorative in the absence of other derogatory language.

Still... maybe you are all right and Mumsnet heaps nothing but scorn and bile on the elderly. I have barely read these forums in the last two years.

"I'm a graphic designer and I wouldn't just approach someone and say 'Your logo is shit, here use this one instead'"

There's a difference between a logo issue and a health one.
Whether to interfere or not is a difficult moral issue for health professionals. While you might think it's rude, others would argue that the health of the child is more important than your ego.