to tell this nosey mother to shove off?

[theBOD]

long sorry but need an opinion.
i was meant to be playing football with mates and my lectures finished about an hour early. now seeing as i lived about an hours drive from where we were playing it made no sense for me to go home so i decided i'd just drive to the park where we play and do some work(play solitare) on my laptop for the hour and listen to the radio.
so i parked on the road beside the pitches, which also happens to be opposite a playground. after about half an hour some woman came over to me and knocked on my window asking me "what do you think you're doing" and telling me to move as it was "not right" and i was making the parents "nervous".
apparently i should not be parked and on a laptop near children as a man on his own as this obviously in her mind made me some sort of sex predator.
so i told her that what i was doing was none of her business and told her to get away from my car. she then threatened to call the police (she didn't) and get her husband out (which she did).
anyway was i unreasonable to use some very choice words to her and her husband when they came over to me the second time claiming they didn't want trouble and just thought it was best if i left?

ahem Aitch .. draws Aitch's attention to mine and Boco's posts .. ahem

she went and got her husband AFTER there was a confrontation, 2shoes. (because he was acting like a nob.)

a woman confronting a man is physically less powerful so on the back foot from the start, yes i do think that men have a responsibility not to behave like bullies just cos they have the chance.

he knows fine well that he could just have smiled, pointed at his son and said 'that's my boy at footie practice, it'd take me too long to drive home and back so i'm just waiting for him'. he couldn't bear to, by his own admission, because he wanted to teach her a lesson. (a lesson i'm 100% certain he didn't teach, btw.)

if he'd played it like that, would she have backed off and apologised? probably. would she and her husband have kept an eye on him until the game was over to see if his story was right? almost certainly. it would have been a waste of their time, tough tits to them.

oh good, twig. i did say i'd skimmed, all i saw was SA getting a doing for proposing that him being pleasant might have got him further. god forbid. this all does seem a bit Daily Mail outrage to me, tbh.

you may be right Aitch in terms of different behaviour being more effective in the long run but I don't think he had a duty to keep the moral high ground here
he was pissed off
I can see why

he was pissed off, he wanted to have a fight with her about it. he got one. i'm not going to start applauding that sort of behaviour, tbh.

if he'd come on here and said 'a mum did this to me, i explained, she was okay about it then but kept an eye on me and actually, the more i think about it the more i am aggrieved about the way men are treated in our society', i think that would be quite different.

'AIBU to tell this nosey mother to shove off?' HIBU. and i suspect he didn't say 'shove'.

"If he was walking down an empty street and there was a lone woman there he'd make the effort to walk slower and leave a good distance, so as not to frighten her. because it is frightening when men lope up and overtake you on a lonely street, imo."

Off topic, but is that right? In that situation I've always thought it's probably more unnerving to trail behind a woman, particularly if she's obviously aware of your presence. So I try to speed up and get past quickly. I'll often cross the road first and then cross back afterwards once I'm a good distance ahead though. Gawd, it's a bloody minefield being a man sometimes...

for me, it's when i hear the footsteps quicken that i think 'oh shit, what's happening?' if dh was in a hurry he'd cross the road, he's said.

i think it is a minefield for men these days, but comfort yourselves with the fact that you get paid more money than us for, oh, just about everything, and that you get away with not doing an equal share of housework.

"You get away with not doing an equal share of housework."

Hmmm is that so? I might have to renegotiate my contract with DW.

I don't think it's acting like a bully to react angrily to someone coming over to your car and accusing you of being a paedophile. I'd be bloody furious and give someone very short shrift. No he didn't behave in an exemplary manner but neither did she.

And I don't think you can compare with walking behind a lone woman down the street. That is a very real potential danger - how are the children in danger of a man sitting in a car?

DaDaDa - speeding up is fine as long as you cross the road first

I've never understood why there is a fear that someone would want to take photos of children - why wouldn't they just buy the mothercare catalogue?

well hang on a minute. she said, according to the OP, 'what do you think you're doing' and 'you're making the other parents nervous'. all he had to do was say he was a parent. he didn't. he huffed and puffed and chose not to calm the situation (nobbish imo).

and no-one has said that the other situation is analogous, afaia.

aitch, the way i read the OP was he was going to play football with his mates. not his son. so his son wasnt there to be pointed out.

by the way, wrt the taking photos... the fear, i assume, is that the contact would not end there. esp if the person can observe the child's comings and goings with complete impunity from the safety of his car.

He isn't a parent IIRC Aitch. He was playing football later himself, not collecting a child.

oh yes, you're right misdee, i had read that wrong. still and all, i don't think it's too much for him just to have said 'we're on the pitch next'. again, it would have been shown to be correct had she decided to waste her time by keeping an eye out.

although presumably he is a parent, if he's posting on here, so he would have immediately understood where her concerns emanated from, whether or not he found her questions insulting.

they automatically assumed that a lon man in a park/playing field area was dodgey. yes it would piss me off, and it would piss dh off as well.

nobody should have to explain why they are where they are at the time, to anyone.

she was wrong.

Years ago (in fact 9 years ago, as it was a trip for his 40th birthday) dh tooks some pictures of kids at a baseball game. They were just 'cos they were happy kids and having fun - and it epitomised what baseball was about - a family outing. He stopped because the parents got upset.

He's been "inspired" by my best friend's husband who had taken fantastic photos at our wedding using a telephoto lens so that thew pictures (of adults as well as kids) were wonderfully unposed.

We now have our own ds and we are able to take "fun" photos of our kids and his friends - but it is sad that nowadays people are scared that there is always a pernicious ulterior motive to taking photos.

Many of the "iconic" phots - of the children in Paris, the kids playing in the tenement street in Glasgow, the "National Geopraphic" type photos you see of tribal chidlren - could not/would not be taken in the current climate.

I just think that it's dreadful that someone can't sit in a car in a park near a playground without someone assuming they're a paedophile and coming over and having a go. And I think saying it's okay is legitimising the hysteria around paedophilia. I am very keen that we try and stamp out the rampant fear that seems to be infecting our parenting and responding in a polite way (I can see why you're concerned etc) is saying that she's absolutely right to fear every man who is sitting around minding his own business within sight of her children.

really? never? so a man sitting in a park taking photos of kids shouldn't have to explain? fiddling with himself under his coat? no explanation necessary? nah, i don't think so.

but then i was flashed at when i was a kid, court case and all sorts. i'd really have wished that some mother had asked him what he was up to and saved a bunch of 7 year old girls a lot of unpleasant hassle.

tbh if my dh was asked about this i like to think he'd see that the woman was being a bit over-protective and not cause a fuss. because in a way, i rather admire her for sticking her neck out. you never know, she might have been right and if your kids had been playing there you'd all have been grateful.

I presume you meant to insert a at the end of your last sentence Spicemonster!

She was completeley wrong.
I don't think that is accaeptable to approach men in their cars and ask them what they are doing.
The fact he was making people nervous is their problem, not his.
I don't think it would have mattered if he explained himself. Saying'oh, I am waiting to play football with my mates' would hardly provide comfort for someone as hysterical as her.
If I approached someone in this manner and asked them to explain what they were doing in a public place- my motivation being they were male and alone- I would not be surprised to recieve a rude reply.

so you think that by responding the way he did, spicemonster, he made her think that men are benign creatures? don't think so.

how was she hysterical, johnso?