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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to tell this nosey mother to shove off?

351 replies

theBOD · 10/06/2008 10:49

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?

OP posts:
Original poster
theBOD · 10/06/2008 12:55

"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.
"

and as i said earlier on to someone with a similar statement, you are completely right.it would have ended there. but in my opinion that would have validated the woman in her opinion that she has the right to an explanation off anyone she doesn't recognise that are in the same vicinity of her kids, and that innocent strangers would happily explain their itinerary for the day and their agenda re:child molesting because "what's the problem if you've got nothing to hide?"
when in reality she has no right to such an explanation, she does have the right to approach me as it is a free country, but i also have just as much right to tell her to mind her own business.

OP posts:
Hova · 10/06/2008 12:58

why have you posted in aibu when you are convinced that you are not? seems that you just want validation that what you did was right and that she was a nutter

DirtySexyMummy · 10/06/2008 12:59

He posted in AIBU.

The huge majority said he was not.

So, now he should change his mind because one or two people came along and said they think he was BU?

Don't be silly.

LavendersBlueDillyDilly · 10/06/2008 13:00

What he did was right and she was a nutter.

imo.

prettybird · 10/06/2008 13:00

Hova - you have completely misunderstood the purpose and role of the "Am I being unreasonable" topic!

Boco · 10/06/2008 13:00

Maybe you could have explained that, politely then. You could have said 'I find it really offensive that you're telling me to move on and making some horrendous assumptions about me and when actually I'm just waiting to play football and doing some work on my laptop.

Then she gets an explanation and may be more cautious about barging up to people next time?

2shoes · 10/06/2008 13:01

I still don't see why a man has to explain his being there?
very odd.
Boco that is sad.
there was a man on holiday who just watched the dc's and people swimming. I only noticed him cos he looked like he had cp and my radar went of(dd has cp) he seemed to love it. he wouldn't have been able to just jusmp in and swim. so probally next best thing for him.

Twiglett · 10/06/2008 13:01

'provocated' wtf? .. please replace with a real word like provoked

prettybird · 10/06/2008 13:01

And anyway, as DSM says, the majority of people have said he was NBU.

Twiglett · 10/06/2008 13:02

yes Boco .. spot on IMHO

fullmoonfiend · 10/06/2008 13:03

My boys are old enough to run round the park by themselves - this means that dh often has to spend a lot of time sitting ''by his self'' without it being obvious he is with children. He has recently admitted that he hates taking them because women stare at him etc.

He also hates that he is not allowed to care if a small child falls over in front of him, or show concern without people being suspicious.
He offered a plater to a mum (we alsways have some in the bag) and she just said ''no, no, I'll manage'' as she backed away. not even a thank you.

alittleone2 · 10/06/2008 13:06

Message withdrawn

Hova · 10/06/2008 13:08

totally agree with Boco.

pointless escalation of situation to prove a point over your 'rights'...

Hova · 10/06/2008 13:09

(and thanks for the notes about AIBU)

Original poster
theBOD · 10/06/2008 13:10

"why have you posted in aibu when you are convinced that you are not?"

as i said before i was asking if my use of bad language in a confrontation was acceptable, not if my being in my own car on a public road was unreasonable.
and for the most part i think the general consensus is that it would have been better if had have sworn so to that end i could have conducted myself better.
as to refusing to explain myself i think it has been a slightly more mixed response with most people seeing my point that i owed this woman no explanation but acknowledging had i given her one it would have ended the situation there.
and then yourself and Stuffed seem to think i was completely irrational not to compliment the mother on her vigilance towards fighting crime, give her a medal and accept that all us men are indeed child abducting nonces.

OP posts:
cory · 10/06/2008 13:11

Gooselyloosey, in the link you provided, the Home Office seem to suggest that one explanation for the rise of recorded stranger abduction is the recent change in recording of such offences. In which case you can't really compare before and after because you're not talking about the same thing.

It's like claiming that there was no domestic violence in Victorian England because there are no police statistics. Too true there aren't, but that because they didn't get recorded: wife-beating was legal. Hardly likely to have meant that men didn't beat their wives .

In the same way, there is a lot more recorded anti-social behaviour today, and a lot more violent crime, because the kind of thing that gets recorded today as violent crime (e.g. fights between teenager gangs) would not have been recorded by the police in the '60s. In particular, there has been a sharp rise in recorded violent crime since police recording procedures were changed a couple of years ago.

I have mentioned this before, my MIL was abducted in c. 1926, but managed to escape. I bet noone ever told the police since she got home safe and sound. SO that won't be on record and never was.

RibenaBerry · 10/06/2008 13:12

I don't think that you were being unreasonable, and you had every right to tell her to shove off.

However, I am interested in exactly what you said to her initially. Did you say it was none of her business, or did you say that it was none of her business and you were deeply offended at her assumption that you were a child molester just because you were sitting near a park?

I am interested because the latter directly challenges her behaviour. The former, as others have said, offers her validation for her point of view ("he wouldn't tell me, that's even more suspicous"). She has no right to ask, and you don't have to tell, but personally I'd have said why I thought it was none of her business.

edam · 10/06/2008 13:13

A sad thing happened to me one day wrt this extreme suspicion of men anywhere near children. Ds (4) ran off down the footpath (county lane type) between school and the way home - I couldn't see him (lots of trees to hide behind) and he wasn't answering me. I was running back and forth between where I thought he'd come and where he'd gone in, panicking and calling his name. A very nice man came out with ds and brought him too me. But the first thing he did was apologise to me for helping ds! Obviously afraid I'd think he was dodgy.

I was too wrapped up in dealing with at the time to do more than mutter 'thanks'. In retrospect I wish I'd thanked him more effusively and told him please not to worry.

prettybird · 10/06/2008 13:14

Actually - I like Boco's suggestion An assertive way of making the point that it was intrusive and objectionable to assume he was there for nefarious purposes and to demand that he move on for no good reason (I get the impression from the OP that that was her opening gambit) - and that by explaining that, amybe she would think twice about casting aspertions in future.

But I still don't think the OP was BU.

cory · 10/06/2008 13:15

I had a friend with chronic health problems who needed to walk in the park for his health. He got so many suspicious stares that he almost felt it impossible. In the end he solved the problem by buying a dog, because obviously a man walking a dog can't be a paedophile . But a man just enjoying a walk- ooh, something nasty about that.

Hova · 10/06/2008 13:17

Your op asked if you were unreasonable to use choice words to this woman and husband. I said yes.

Please don't put words in my mouth. Tis very rude.

Chequers · 10/06/2008 13:17

Message withdrawn

fryalot · 10/06/2008 13:18

chequers that's bollocks.

prettybird · 10/06/2008 13:19

Cory - good point. A girl at work (she is in her 30s) tells of how she escaped an attempted abduction over 20 years ago. She didn't tell her parents for years as she thught she would have got into trouble for getting into the car (she escped when it slowed down at a junction) - so that wouldn't have appeared in the statistics either.

Chequers · 10/06/2008 13:19

Message withdrawn