To think what this shop assistant said to my DD was weird.

[Lumeevme]

My DD is 4 and we nipped into a local one stop last night and as we’re leaving a male shop assistant said to her ‘don’t you want to stay here for the night’ she said ‘NO’ firmly and got upset and he said ‘why not? There’s lots of sweets here and things to eat’ is this weird or am I over thinking?

Are you on Ireland by any chance? Those kind of jokes are normal there, maybe the persons accent or tone of voice made it sound like he wasn’t joking to you but I’d imagine he was.

From the other side, I've lost count of the number of parents who've asked me if I want a 3 year old, or who have asked their child if they want to stay behind in the shop with the lady.

I think it's weird, he's maybe just socially awkward and it's not sinister or anything but definitely odd.

It's a really common 'joke' people have with small children. A taxi driver did a similar thing with my 2 recently.
'So which one of you is going stay and help me in my taxi today?'

@FictionalCharacter I agree with everything you've said.

@vapesareforsnakes I actually do this for her myself and she finds it funny

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe Why would she need to say thank you to that?

I always taught my children to say no to strangers who offered them sweets/asked them to come and look at puppies etc or to ignore them and get away fast. Have people on here never heard of stranger danger? One minute you tell your kids not to accept sweets from strangers, next you are telling them it's only a joke and they should interact with the man and laugh along with him.

@Lumeevme

“LyingWitchInTheWardrobe Why would she need to say thank you to that?”

not ‘thank you’ but ‘no thank you’

you sound so serious OP!

I still think he was only joking but don't most parents tell their young ones not to go with strangers that say they have some puppies or sweets. Not sure OP needed a pile on. I don't think most male shop workers would say it. I'm definitely not someone who gets offended easily either.

Wouldn't anyone attempting to lure a child away with the promise of sweets or puppies pick on one unaccompanied by their mother?
The child was going nowhere with strangers. Not even if she'd said yes instead of no.

I agree. Crap joke though.