"Would you mind stopping that now, please" Was I rude?

[dizzydizzydizzy]

Lying down with eyes shut on gigantic upcycled bench made of pallets and astroturf.

2 kids ages about 8 jumping off backrest of bench onto seat about 20-30cm from my feet. Their mother was sitting in the bench about another metre from that (the bench is 5m long). They did it about 10 times each and each time they landed by my feet they made the bench vibrate. I then asked them if they could possibly stop doing it.

Their mother told me I was very rude and said I should move to an empty deckchair.
I told her I needed to lie down. She then told her kids to keep jumping.

Was I being rude? Or was she?

Well if it’s designed…to…sit…on, it’s not designed…to…jump…off, is it?

Have you never sat on a wall or your kids walked on them?

Nowhere have I said it is.

If the owner of said wall said don't let your kids walk on my wall or told you not to sit on it would they be unreasonable?

No but a random person lying on it would 😋

I agree that the woman was rude, however I do wonder what makes you thunk your 'need to lie down' is more valid than a kids need to jump around in a public space, on a public bench??!

Who just lies down on a shared bench in a park or wherever? It's kinda like putting your bag on the seat next to you on the train.......

if anything you were too polite
'you need to stop doing that now' in a teacher voice is what I would have said

I can see it from both sides. It’s unusual to nap in a public place (completely understand your reason to) AND it’s unusual to allow children to invade someone’s personal space like that. I wonder if the parent/cater felt defensive as many parents do if they believe their children and/or parenting are being criticised

This sort of self-entitled, selfish, incompetent parenting is why so often visits to cinema’s, restaurants etc are spoiled by over-indulged brats. You were the reasonable, grown-up in the room/park @dizzydizzydizzy

She actually told her kids to keep jumping?!
This is why so many children are entitled brats these days.

You were there first. The park was empty when you arrived. It was a public space. A gigantic 5m astroturf bench. Why couldn’t a member of the public be sitting or laying on it on a nice sunny day? You could be lying down for a number of medical reasons - which in fact you were.
No reason children should be jumping off the backrest of it - it’s not like it was play equipment.
You weren’t rude OP - the mother and her children were.

She was being rude

Bad mannered mother = bad mannered children. That said, I would never lie down by myself on anything in a public place. Far too vulnerable.

The Mum's an idiot.

She was extremely rude and unreasonable. Her objectionable brats should not be jumping on to a seat with their filthy shoes, they might even have had dog poo on them. And, jumping from the back of the bench was not a safe thing to be doing.

The 'lying down' bit is a red herring. It's a bench, not play equipment. Someone who very clearly needed to rest, was using it to rest. Would have been the same if she'd been sitting down on it. You don't sit on a bench in the expectation that some kids are going to be boinging up and down on it, vibrating the hell out of you. Because benches aren't for boinging on, they're for resting on. It makes no difference whether she was sitting or lying down!!

OP, I think the mum was being pretty inconsiderate letting her children bother someone else. (If I was particularly old-fashioned I might suggest that bothering an adult was an additional no-no but I'll get jumped on if I say that.) I try hard to make sure my children aren't public PITAs (and one of them's severely autistic so that's no mean feat, frankly) and it sounds like she didn't give a shiny one.

If you need to lie down that badly during your break from work, you need to go home. It’s a bench, not a bed.

But for the record, I wouldn’t let my kids jump on a bench.

What do you mean? I know lots of people and most (thankfully) do not have long covid.

One friend who does, absolutely does need to lie down sometimes

kids are kids

yes, some are well mannered and well brought up and some are entitled and rude because their parents are.

How is that relevant? This wasn’t a wall, it was for sitting on, not for use as gym equipment.

This is a big part of why I have agoraphobia, people are unhinged these days and expect everyone to joyfully accept their feral children doing whatever they want.

For people with autism or CPTSD from prolonged abuse, this kind of behaviour is very triggering and unpleasant to have to tolerate, just because parents can’t be arsed with actually parenting, they just let children grow up like weeds.

Precisely this.

’kids are kids’

Not the point, the mother was as feral as her precious antisocial offspring.

I mean the mother was acting like a twat, not the children

Sorry about that, English is not my first language.

Thank you MN HQ.

@Onwards22 Parents like you make me despair for the future of humanity.

The OP was there first, if this antisocial woman wanted her beloved offspring to use the bench as gym equipment, they should have gone to the other bench.

I think people defending this behaviour have brain damage, there’s no other explanation for being so wilfully obtuse and vile. Frontal lobe damage causes antisocial behaviour, there needs to be more awareness of this.

People are policing how chronically ill people should behave when they’re just trying to rest on a bench, instead of policing children who run feral and misuse the public space. It wasn’t a playground, there are literally places designated for children to go and run feral in.