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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

This mum just blocked my toddler from approaching hers

413 replies

Skysky1 · 04/10/2023 14:17

was in town today walking through M&S , with my 3 yr old.
We had just bought toys in the previous shop so he was out of pram and walking with his new toys in his hands and was excited about them.
Walking parallel to us was also a mum with toddler (around two)
My son approached him from the side and started walking directly next to him showing him his toys whilst they were both walking , the child smiled in response and didn't appear to seem at unease, however the mum swiftly stopped and put her arm out in front of my son blocked him between her arm and a Column so that he couldn't go any further and then she said ' excuse me ' as if for him to back away.
He turned to face me and I swooped him up and said ' he's only a toddler'
To which she didn't respond, she carried on walking and I changed direction.
I was left feeling quite sad for my son
I just wanted other mum's opinions on this . Was I in the wrong for letting my child approach hers , I guess everyone is entitled to their personal space. However I never anticipated that reaction it just seemed like a mean thing to do , and I'm always very welcoming to other kids that approach us

OP posts:
Luana1 · 04/10/2023 18:39

OP I mean this kindly but you need to stop ruminating on little things like this. There could be a million reasons why the mother did that and most of them would not have anything to do with you or your child. She wasn’t being rude, she was just going about her day, and probably hasn’t given this another thought while you are reaching out to complete strangers about it.

The title of your OP could equally have been ‘another mother stopped her child from biting/grabbing/spreading diseases etc to mine’.

Ellie1015 · 04/10/2023 18:46

Even if you hadn't called him it is the most likely explanation she was trying to slow toddler down aware you were catching up.

MassiveOvaryaction · 04/10/2023 18:46

Skysky1 · 04/10/2023 15:58

"t's still really unclear how she did this from your description.

Your child was walking next to her child. She then somehow went in front of both, in order to block your child only, between her arm and a column?

What?"

In response to this - she stepped out behind her child, to be next to mine and then stretch her arm across him and touch the column opposite

Huh? Was she exceptionally short or is your toddler exceptionally tall?!
Only if I put my arm out there's no way I'm blocking a toddler, they'd just walk on right underneath.

Catastrophejane · 04/10/2023 18:46

SouthLondonMum22 · 04/10/2023 18:36

Of course it's a factor. Men aren't expected to interact with random children like women are, in fact it is often met with suspicion if they do but women? If they don't smile and interact with children then they are just rude.

It absolutely isn't rude to not feel like smiling and not want to interact with a random child.

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No one was expecting her to sing bah bah black sheep to the kid.

I would expect a parent ( male or female) of a similar aged kid to be able to rebuff a 3 year olds advances in a fraction of a second. I’d expect them to have the parenting skills to get an unwanted child to piss off without being rude or over the top.

Plenty of non- parents have rebuffed my DCs attempts to interact over the years. Both men and women. Haven’t judged them or expected women to be nice. In fact, I’m more likely to identify with the women because they remind me of how I reacted to kids before I had my own!

margotrose · 04/10/2023 18:48

Skysky1 · 04/10/2023 18:14

One bit of context I missed out from the original post - 3 yr old is on pathway for Autism diagnoses , is non verbal and not much 'recall' when I call his name.
I was standing about 2 metres behind trying to catch up with the pram when he was walking alongside the other child

Then you should be using reins or keeping your child in the pushchair. They could put themselves in danger or get hurt if they won't "recall" to you.

AutumnFroglets · 04/10/2023 18:50

Oh good grief...she was blocking him from following them to give you chance to get him back 🙄 Talk about a massive dripfeed. And you have already stated your child wasn't next to hers, he was following. Just keep your child next to you if you are struggling to manoeuvre a pram in a shop.

I was standing about 2 metres behind trying to catch up with the pram when he was walking alongside the other child

SouthLondonMum22 · 04/10/2023 18:55

Catastrophejane · 04/10/2023 18:46

No one was expecting her to sing bah bah black sheep to the kid.

I would expect a parent ( male or female) of a similar aged kid to be able to rebuff a 3 year olds advances in a fraction of a second. I’d expect them to have the parenting skills to get an unwanted child to piss off without being rude or over the top.

Plenty of non- parents have rebuffed my DCs attempts to interact over the years. Both men and women. Haven’t judged them or expected women to be nice. In fact, I’m more likely to identify with the women because they remind me of how I reacted to kids before I had my own!

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Which is what she did. What OP describes doesn't sound rude or over the top to me at all, especially as OP has now said that she was a little behind him.

MrsHsGirl · 04/10/2023 18:59

AutumnFroglets · 04/10/2023 14:20

Perhaps she is aware that her toddler would make a toy grab and when prised out of his chubby little toddler hands he would go into full blown meltdown?

In other words life isn't always about you.

Absolutely yes. The last thing I would want is another toddler showing mine something that he isn't going to be allowed to touch/play with whilst mid shopping trip

Luxell934 · 04/10/2023 19:27

You were two metres behind him, that’s quite a distance to be away from your non verbal autistic child. It seems to me the other mother was actually blocking him from getting any further away from you for safety reasons.

Psychonabike · 04/10/2023 19:50

Catastrophejane · 04/10/2023 18:07

@Psychonabike you make a good point, but I’d question whether everyone who is rude purely to be unpleasant to other people is a sociopath.

Lots of people are just dicks. We don’t need to pathologise ( though if we do, there’s a number of personality disorders it could be that’s not sociopathy!)

what gets me is the posters saying they don’t go to supermarkets to make friends! Don’t think anyone does, but people can socially interact outside soft play ffs!

superficial social interactions are actually good for people’s mental health- it’s makes people feel connected to their community.

but obviously here on MN - the worst thing you can do to someone is to make eye contact or smile at someone in a supermarket!

@Catastrophejane

It's just incorrect that people with personality disorders would be an explanation for being a dick, just to be a dick.

A personality disorder would be another explanation for perceived rudeness, but the reasoning would be trauma, mistrust, fear, most likely, alongside thinking errors like believing you've been slighted first, or rule based rigidity such as that in an Anankastic PD. Not just to be rude, or just to be a dick. The exception might be AntiSocial PD which is effectively sociopathy...

Again, being rude just for the sake of being rude and nothing more than that is more in the realm of antisocial/sociopathic behaviour and is pretty rare really.

It's helpful for both society and ourselves if we can accept that actually the majority of people act as they do for their own understandable reasons, and let it go...knowing that someone being rude is about their own stuff rather than ours.

The reason we feel like just being a dick is more common than it actually is, is about the fundamental attribution error that humans are prone to -attributing someone's behaviours and actions to their personality rather than the circumstances they've found themselves in.

lemmein · 04/10/2023 20:25

Like the OP is bashing the other mother?

@TheLongGloriesOfTheWinterMoon

Could you quote exactly where the OP bashed the mother?

Bizarre making shit up! It's not a real- life conversation that you can't rewind- posters can simply scroll back up to read what the OP said Hmm

inamarina · 04/10/2023 21:06

Catastrophejane · 04/10/2023 18:31

@SouthLondonMum22 i wondered how long it would take for the ‘women don’t have to be nice’ reaction. Of course they don’t. But I fear this statement has been used to forgive women being rude in situations where their gender is absolutely not a factor. I also fear it’s become a default type of feminist virtue signalling.

a good litmus test is to think if you’d react the same way if the other person was a man? I’d say he was being rude. In fact, there would probably be comments about how the child might be in an abusive situation.

The other woman is completely within her rights not only not to smile, but also to be rude. However, it’s within the OPs rights to think it’s rude and to find her behaviour unpleasant.

There are a million and one ways to have moved away from the kid that would’ve taken less effort than the way the OP describes.

and despite telling PP to ignore this, I’m clearly too invested in this thread 😆

The other woman is completely within her rights not only not to smile, but also to be rude. However, it’s within the OPs rights to think it’s rude and to find her behaviour unpleasant.

Exactly.
It’s not about women having to always be nice. It’s not about having to smile at some random on the street who told you to ‚cheer up, love‘.
Do women have to be extra stern to everyone around them though to prove a point?
The other mum might have had her reasons, but I think a quick smile or a nod would have helped. And I would have said the same thing if the parent of the other child had been a man.

Goldencup · 04/10/2023 21:11

Skysky1 · 04/10/2023 18:14

One bit of context I missed out from the original post - 3 yr old is on pathway for Autism diagnoses , is non verbal and not much 'recall' when I call his name.
I was standing about 2 metres behind trying to catch up with the pram when he was walking alongside the other child

I think this is really relevant. When you say your son approached the other child to show him his toys, he is 3 and did this without any verbal interaction ? This mother if her child is NT would have immediately realised that your DS had SEN and was probably trying to prevent him wandering off. 2 meters is too far away for a child without " recall". Before mine were reliable I used reins. It really isn't ok to have a non verbal/ pre verbal child " free range" in a shop.

IHateWasps · 04/10/2023 21:12

YABU for referring to a three year old as a toddler.

Sugargliderwombat · 04/10/2023 21:23

IDontLoveTheWayYouLie · 04/10/2023 18:21

She probably did have somewhere to go though didn't she?

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So smile and say that ? You wouldn't blank an adult and walk off so why model that to your child ?

PuddlesPityParty · 04/10/2023 21:32

Sugargliderwombat · 04/10/2023 21:23

So smile and say that ? You wouldn't blank an adult and walk off so why model that to your child ?

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Im sorry but who do you think you are? Does everyone owe you an explanation of their life and day to day comings and going’s ? If I was in a rush I absolutely would blank an adult and walk past - none of your business is it at the end of the day!!! I can’t imagine being so worked up about this, it’s the most minor interaction. I’d probs smile if I was in the mood to.

Do you talk to everyone you make eye contact with in the supermarket or something?

And yes, I will talk to people if I’m not in a hurry and I’ll always chat to the checkout staff etc etc.

SouthLondonMum22 · 04/10/2023 21:39

Sugargliderwombat · 04/10/2023 21:23

So smile and say that ? You wouldn't blank an adult and walk off so why model that to your child ?

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If I felt they were in my personal space I would.

Again, we have no idea what kind of day the other mum was having. Maybe smiling wasn't an option. A stranger also isn't entitled to know where someone is going or why they don't want to engage with a random child.

Sugargliderwombat · 04/10/2023 21:49

PuddlesPityParty · 04/10/2023 21:32

Im sorry but who do you think you are? Does everyone owe you an explanation of their life and day to day comings and going’s ? If I was in a rush I absolutely would blank an adult and walk past - none of your business is it at the end of the day!!! I can’t imagine being so worked up about this, it’s the most minor interaction. I’d probs smile if I was in the mood to.

Do you talk to everyone you make eye contact with in the supermarket or something?

And yes, I will talk to people if I’m not in a hurry and I’ll always chat to the checkout staff etc etc.

Edited
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🤣🤣🤣🤣 I'm not worked up, I work with little kids and think it's a weird thing to do.

IDontLoveTheWayYouLie · 04/10/2023 21:56

@Sugargliderwombat I wouldn't purposely ignore a kid that was trying to say hello or whatever but if anyone was right next to me wangling something around and didn't speak, I would probably blank them. I know that probably makes me a bad person.

Lostcotter · 04/10/2023 22:03

MysteryBelle · 04/10/2023 18:39

This forum, not M&S. Clearly.

An obtuse child hater 😄😂

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Bit off topic snd not necessarily saying anyone on this thread is “a child hater” but generally speaking many “loving mothers” could also be considered “child haters” lol

I have a friend who is a doting mother of 4 kids who openly says she can’t stand other peoples kids. I read it on here all the time about people who don’t like kids outside their immediate family.

Most of my teachers were mothers and fathers and at least half of them seemed to dislike kids.

ChristmasCrumpet · 04/10/2023 22:03

melj1213 · 04/10/2023 16:45

And where were you OP?

You let your child follow another random child and their parent - they were trying to walk away because they didn't want to engage for whatever reason (sick/tired/busy/heading off a tantrum/any number of reasons that are none of your business) and your child was following them so the parent had no choice but to actively stop your child from following by physically creating a barrier and was close enough to them that he nearly made contact with the woman when she stopped.

You should have stepped in much earlier, why weren't you there? If you were close enough to grab your child then you were also uncomfortably close behind the woman and she may have felt intimidated by you being so close and not speaking to her; if you weren't close enough to grab your child then you weren't close enough to keep them under control, what if they had darted off out of a door or in front of a trolley?

Either way the parent at fault is not the one who just wanted to get on with her shopping without someone annoying them.

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All of this

StaySpicy · 04/10/2023 22:28

Sugargliderwombat · 04/10/2023 21:23

So smile and say that ? You wouldn't blank an adult and walk off so why model that to your child ?

Show quote history

I have a hearing loss and am ND and an introvert. I struggle to even look at the face of an unfamiliar adult when I'm out and about, never mind speak to them. I'm better with children, though.

I absolutely wouldn't have said anything, or even looked at the OP.

I wouldn't say I'm "weird". I'm just wired differently to you, that's all.

BlackeyedSusan · 04/10/2023 22:57

AutumnFroglets · 04/10/2023 14:20

Perhaps she is aware that her toddler would make a toy grab and when prised out of his chubby little toddler hands he would go into full blown meltdown?

In other words life isn't always about you.

This.

Balloonhearts · 04/10/2023 23:01

She probably was making sure he didn't follow her and get lost. I'd do the same if the child's parent wasn't immediately to hand as I wouldn't want him to follow me and then not be able to see his mum. Plus her kid would possibly chuck a fit at the sight of cool toys he couldn't have. You know what toddlers are like, unreasonable little fuckers, sometimes you just have to avoid temptation.