Why would this man ask my daughter to move out of his way?

[justactingmyshoesize]

I was in a supermarket with my 10 year old dd and we walked over to the reduced fridge and I asked dd if she could see anything in there she fancied so she went over to have a look and a man walked over and looked at my daughter looking and said excuse me and expected her to move aside so he could look, she looked uncomfortable and stepped aside.

I said quite politely I think my daughter was just looking first but he ignored me and so I said quite loudly to my daughter “ you didn’t need to move out of his way as you were there first and so could continue looking but the man didn’t allow her space to until he had finished looking. It was as if my daughter was of no consequence at all.
I explained to my daughter she didn’t need to move out of his way but in the situation he didn’t give her a lot of choice.

People are missing the point this was reduced section. Of course if you know what you want and someone is dithering in a normal section saying excuse me is normal behaviour. But the reduced section is a mix of stuff limited numbers of each so someone teaching past and snagging the last item is likely as there isn’t loads more behind on the shelf. Also you don’t know what’s there until you look so literally cannot say excuse me just to grab one item because you don’t know it’s there till you look

Ok but it’s a one door fridge and only one person can get to the shelf at a time

Off topic a bit, but I detest the move towards these doored chillers, especially when some idiot is standing there, door held open, body blocking anyone else and one their phone discussing what needs buying!

‘Many, many men’

Really? I’d say it was in the minority going by my experience.

I'm intrigued OP as to why your title is 'why'. Why do YOU think an adult might say excuse me to a child in a supermarket? You must have been really thinking about this before posting so what are your hypotheses so far? 🤔

Yes I wanted to ask this

I do. It's every man and woman for themself. 90% of the yellow sticker women haunting my nearest Waitrose and Marks would have shouldered her out of the way because she's just a kid and small enough to do it without sustaining injuries from her, whereas men tend to ask all females.

Gosh I'm all for kids being treated kindly etc. I have 4 dc myself. However my Mum always taught me to respect my elders. It was the courteous thing to do really, for your dd to step aside. He asked her kindly. Would you have had the same reaction had it been a woman?

I politely ask people to move out of the way all the time at supermarket shelves. It really gets my goat, I know exactly what I want but can’t get it, stick it in the trolley and move on as they are standing there surveying the whole lot for eons, uhming and arhing, dilly dallying, meanwhile I could be on my way and into the next aisle. Why should people be delayed by such dilly dally’ers? So, they are politely asked to step aside so normal people can race on with their shop.

Absolutely I would, if my dd had said excuse me, when you went to look would you have stepped aside and waited and let her look first if she expected you to?

The man did absolutely nothing wrong. He said "excuse me" to someone stood in front of something he wanted to get to. I say it in supermarkets all the time as I usually end up doing the weekly shop at peak times. I couldn't care less whether it's a man, a woman or a child. It's polite and is the exact correct etiquette.

And we wonder why children are becoming so entitled when there are parents like this around.

Absolutely! He is an utterly horrible man!. He should have waited his turn!NOPE!. he should wait his turn!. Sounds like this is something you would do!. It's a reduced section! . No one knows what's there until they look!

Well, at least your DD knows now it would be fine to say "sorry, I've not finished looking yet" 😊

Why couldn't we just share the fridge viewing space and move over as and when someone needs to open the door?

Prepared for the absolute backlash when I say this but... Children are inferior to adults!!!

Adults are the ones who make the decisions, adults are the ones with money, adults are the ones who are in charge.

These are the types of parents who argue against every decision made my teachers / authorities and whinge every time their child is treated as.....shock horror....a child!!!

I was brought up to respect my elders and even now, at 40, if someone significantly older than me is stood waiting to get past, in my eyes, they have priority. Likewise on public transport.

They were with me in the queue, obviously. In a very large cafeteria in a hospital and I didn’t want them waiting alone at a table. I didn’t see what the man was doing until he teached over again to pick up the cup.

Please don’ try to justify such rude/potentially dangerous behaviour. He wouldn’t have done it to an adult, obviously. Why is it ok to do that to a 7 year old?

Whybshould she move out of the way when she is looking at the reduced section for something to buy?.

Surely this happens in the supermarket all the time ? If I know what I want and someone is in the way spending a lot of time choosing I say excuse me, the person gets out of the way so I can get what I want . And people do the same to me when I can't decide what I want.
It's fair enough.

Please see my reply above. I didn’t. He was with me in the queue and I was ordering our hot meals near the till.

The lady operating also told him that was “bloody dangerous”.

The man very clearly should have waited two minutes until we moved forward and it was his turn.

He didn’t pick anything up he just wanted to stand where she was standing. If someone is sitting on a bench and you want to sit there would you just say excuse me and expect them to move because you want to be where they are. Shall I just go to the front of the check out and say excuse me to the person checking out and expect them to step aside while I check out and then they can carry on?

What ridiculous comparisons 😂He was looking to see if there was anything in there that he wanted. He didn't see anything. I often look in the reduced section and there's nothing I want / need in there.

Here's a more accurate comparison. I was in Waterstones this week and wanted to browse some books by an author I like. A man was stood in front of the section I wanted to get to. He was reading the blurb of a book (oblivious to me). He was obviously interested in the books too. I said "Excuse me, can I just get past to see those books there". He replied "Of course, sorry I was just in my own world!". He moved out of the way, I browsed, I realised I had read most of the books they had by that author so I left without purchasing anything.

I suppose he could have said "Hello young lady, are you just standing here, in which case would you mind awfully just moving along a bit so that I can get to those frozen peas, or are you thinking about maybe buying something, in which case, take your time, I'll just wait here?".

That's the kind of clear, polite, unambiguous way of putting it that the nice people (generally called Ros and Kelvin) who ran your company's last Best Practices For Team Communications™®© training course would recommend.

But Ros and Kelvin don't matter when strange men start talking to 10yo girls in supermarkets. So we might equally well have had a thread entitled "AIBU for shouting at this dodgy-looking single man in the supermarket to fuck off and stop talking to my DD10?".

Yet another AIBU parent.
A number of responses saying yeah I think you are. But OP refusing to accept that. Why bother asking? Such a non event, God forbid your precious angel has to scooch over for a minute.

I agree 100% and it is why teenagers all act so entitled nowadays. Little mouthpieces. They should all be taught to respect their elders and have a bit of courtesy so that they realise that they aren't the centre of the universe.

Spot on. And:

I explained to my daughter she didn’t need to move out of his way.

What utterly shit and entitled parenting. My mum would have told me to move out of the way for any adult (in the days where we had to respect people older than us). Hopefully that way of parenting still exists because it is massively depressing that people like OP are working so hard to make children think that they are on a par with adults and will have zero respect for anyone senior to them.