Weird old lady

[Nowayvenus]

Do you think this is weird? Went shopping with my boys, as we went to the till to pay a little old lady went up to my youngest saying that he looked cheeky and grabbed his wrist to pull him towards her, I think she was going to pinch his cheeks. He backed away so I said he was shy and kept between them, so she then started on my eldest. I said he was shy too and moved us all away to another till.
I know she probably didn’t mean any harm but it freaked me out.

I don’t know how some posters manage to make it out of their front door since they perceive the slightest eccentricity as a threat.

Eh? 🤣 she was old and acted weirdly? She was a weird old lady.

@Babadookinthewardrobe I am more than happy to stand corrected and like to hear different view points.

Why do you think it’s ok to touch someone without their consent?

I believe in tolerance towards others @Fisharenotfoods and I think posters trying to conflate her friendliness, even if ott, with sexual assault are absolutely grim.

😂😂😂😂

I can still remember the person who grabbed my cheeks when I was little. She owned the local shop and every time we went in she would sort of pick my cheeks and put her face close to me.

I hated it. I was about 3.

It scared me and I still remember the feeling.

@Babadookinthewardrobe but why do her feelings trump a child’s?

I think that’s maybe a generational shift that’s happened. You can see it in the reply’s and I don’t think the two groups will ever agree.

Because it’s Mumsnet🙄 become such a tiresome place!

Lewey Body Disease? So sorry for your loss. Such a cruel disease.

No reason for her to grab at an unknown child though. Regardless of intent that's a bad move, whatever your age.

I'm a weird old lady. I've never seen a child I didn't think was beautiful. I hope that's why the two 80 year old ladies thought it worth their while to protest about climate change.

Not too much in it for the weird old ladies, given they'll be dead by the time the earth burns.

But maybe, like me, they look at children and just think "well, they are worth my sacrifice" .

I'm sorry, opening poster, that the weird old lady frightened you. I'm also sorry that you seem so quick to judge.

May change my name, now, to weird old lady 😁. Not really, I quite like being a number.

Her feelings don’t trump a child’s @Fisharenotfoods. However from the description she meant the child no harm and she did the child no harm. Therefore I find the reactions on this thread unkind and intolerant and I think a bit more understanding would make the world a better place in this situation. I am also exasperated by the hyperbole on this thread and, as I mentioned earlier, there are a few posters comparing her behaviour to Jimmy Saville and the like which is ridiculous hyperbole and very out of order imo.

@Babadookinthewardrobe so if a man meant no harm and was 30 would it still be acceptable? Just trying to see if you have a line or if all adults can touch a child without consent? Where’s your boundary 50/60/70 years old?

What do you class as no harm? Touching someone’s wrist? Touching someone’s leg? Again I’m curious where your boundary would be?

For me personally, you just don’t touch another person regardless of age, being tolerant of peoples personal space and boundaries would make the world a better place. Rather than brushing stuff under the carpet and saying it was acceptable 50 years ago. When actually it would be more tolerant to move with the times imo.

Bit sexist to mention that she was a woman. If her age and weirdness level are verboten then so should her sex be, surely.
Personally I'm a bit offended that the fact she was human was brought into it. OP could just as easily have said carbon-based life form and caused a lot less hurt.

Whatever the age, people should respect personal boundaries

There's a huge difference between smiling and chatting and grabbing a small child by the wrist and pulling him toward you.

Can you not understand that?

Thank you.

Of course it’s not pleasant to be touched or grabbed uninvited but what strikes me is if you had said a weird kid tried to engage with my child and reached out to grab them, the thread would be inundated with posters suggesting this person had ASD and so the behaviour was not intended to offend and should be excused and how you should teach your children tolerance etc etc.

Seems a tolerant society only applies to younger generations with neurodivergent tendencies but elderly people, potentially in cognitive decline are weirdos.

I think more slack is given to the behaviour of children or young people because they've had less time to learn acceptable behaviour. Surely you would expect an adult to know better than a child no?

I have young family members with ASD. They are helped at home and at school to not grab at or touch random people and this is something that is worked on so they aren’t upsetting others or getting in trouble themselves. ASD is a reason why someone may struggle with physical boundaries, doesn’t mean it should go unchecked or allowed imo.

A lot of really bad behaviour by adults was normalized in the 70s and 80s.

It's not ok to suggest a mother # be kind or play nice when a stranger pulls her child by the wrist in a public place, or accept that this kind of unwanted touch will happen frequently and she and her children need to get over themselves - and it's not ok to post laughing emojis at her gut reaction.

We're supposed to trust our gut these days. We're encouraged to, in fact, and so are our children. I suggest it's you who need to do some work - catch up to a world that has moved on fifty years from the one you seem to believe should exist.

YYY

Louder for the people at the back!!

My kids were born in the 1990s, and an incident that like the one the OP described would never have been acceptable when they were small. My parents wouldn't have allowed it to be done to me or my siblings either, back in the 60s and 70s. Contrary to assertions made on this thread, many people have always been aware of the need to protect small children from being touched by strangers in public places.

Surely you would expect an adult to know better than a child no?
if they had cognitive decline, example dementia then not understanding boundaries would be understandable, which this person may have had, but the default was they were weird whereas if it was a kid the default explanation would be potentially ASD.

I’m curious as to why people think this is okay because the person doing it is elderly?

Had it been a man in his late 20’s would the response of “be kind” still stand?

OP is in the right, nobody needs to grab hold of strangers kids regardless of whether or not it will “brighten their day”

You can get threads deleted now if you think the title refers to you. Happened to the MAFS thread

If it wasn’t an old lady would this type of interaction be considered ok? Grabbing a child?