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?

Aubergine, do you realise you are describing yourself?

He does not need to see other peoples point of view, and the huge majority on this thread have agreed with him!

(stuffed doesn't have a public profile page set up, wannabe)

Spot on wannabe -- no I don't for that reason. (well an unrecognisable one but you can't see their faces).

Yes BOD, and you do have your rights don't you. Did you puff out your chest?

I think if people are concerned about the way someone else is acting that they should confront them

sorry

It wouldn't have bothered me, I don't really see why it bothered her, but I think she would have been within her rights to approach you politely and possibly apologetically

You are all advocating that we should turn a blind eye to anything that concerts us, because it's none of our business ..

I am sorry theBod .. I agree that she was probably offensive and most probably a witch .. but I'd far prefer 1000000 innocent people to be approached (politely) than for one incident of burglary, assault or anything else

this is the premise of neighbourhood watch isn't it?

Off topic, My MIL has photos of my children on her facebook, would you ask for them to be removed or is that super paranoid???

theBod made one big mistake.
he shouldn't have put this in AIBU
as how could he have been

i think if she seriously suspected a paedophile then she should have called the police.

Ummmm, this seems to be getting personal now. Is there 'previous' between you and the OP Stuffed?

i think there is a middle ground between what she did and absolving all social responsability

tbh I was feeling pretty cheery and let's agree to disagree about this until the ranting and the "burn her" started.

I'm going to recover my equanimity and say -- let's agree to disagree.

YABU for swearing and not trying to understand a little bit what motivated her.

There you go -- you asked for my opinion and that's it.

Aubergine if your DH went to pick up your kids from school and got there early.So decided to sit in the car and text or go on the laptop would you think it is right for a mum to go up to him and basically accuse him of being a perv?????

No no Dada -- have no previous in this area. Right I'm off.
That's enough arguing for today

Actually dh who is a teacher and owns a business has mobile phone internet access via his laptop so he can log into our busniess server whilst in-between schools!!!!

It is very useful for him to be able to work in dead time.

SANCTUARY (god I want to go) he HAS been accosted outside a school. He HAS. He didn't swear, he didn't get annoyed, he didn't rant, he didn't come over all unnecessary, he understood why.

No worries Stuffed; I only ask because he can be wilfully provocative (IMHO) on many topics, but not (again, IMHO) this one!

Folk are weird, paranoid, ugly, nasty etc the only thing we can do to combat this is to remain dignified. I can't imagine how it felt to be accused like that but I would have been really apologetic that I made someone feel like that and would want to reassure them, being angry straight away made you look unreasonable. What else could she do? She'd asked you what you were doing, you declined to tell her and were abrupt and so she had nowhere to go exceot further. I'm not sure how she approached you but if it was nicley, treading carefully I'm not sure why you were so unreasonable.

I think photos on internet is tricky. Because so many more people have access to the internet than your child will ever meet in rl.

I'd never considered photos to be an issue until that bogus childmodelling woman came on to mn and conned all those people. After that I don't think I would put photos of my child on a public website, because although you might see the person taking photos on a beach/outside a shopping centre etc, you don't see who is surfing, and discovering pictures of your children. And the net covers the whole world as opposed to my community which is just a few thousand people..

I've just skimmed the thread. I really don't understand what the woman found suspicious. I know several men who would be very upset if they were confronted in such an accusing way for doing absolutely nothing.

Typing not my strong point!!

What were you surfing on the net the BOD ?????

I think this woman was unreasonable to demand that Bod move on, she was rude. However it would have been resolved better if he'd just answered in a polite way - he shouldn't have HAD to, but it wouldn't have escalated.

However i was quite disturbed last year when a bunch of mothers wanted to go to the police last year about a young man with learning disabilities who liked to sit in the park, he didn't EVER do anything, just sat and liked to watch the kids playing - it was all he really had to do - and that attitude of fear and loathing of anyone male being around children can be quite damaging, for everyone. I don't agree that it's ok to make men move on just in case, with nothing more to go on than the fact that they are there.

Y"es he fits right into one little bit of mn that's for sure. Getting on his high horse, swearing and abuse, refusing to see anyone else's point of view"

sorry but what points have you put across that i have ignored. i've actually paid more atention to your posts relatively speaking as you are the one who disagrees with me.
and as for having my rights and puffing my chest out what the hell is that supposed to mean?
of course i have my rights and of course i will defend my freedom to avail of these rights without inteference from others.

Only read op.

I think you were wrong.

... and anyway, what is a nice young guy like you doing on Mumsnet?

Go and get a life!

yes twelvelegs .. I think that's a good post

I think the woman probably started off being quite offensive, but the reaction has just solidified and almost justified her offensiveness and she won't think better next time.

I think politeness and a short explanation would have left both parties far better off .. and I don't think it is really that big a deal to assuage someones, albeit unfounded, worry.

I think it behoves us to treat people as we'd like to be treated even if provocated and to try to make the world a bit nicer, not a bit nastier... manners take us far