Rude old man shouted at 4 year old DS

[ThisOldThang]

I was walking on a quiet residential road with both my sons (7 and 4). I was pushing the empty buggy. My eldest son was walking next to me and my youngest son was had fallen behind by around 10m.

I heard a man shout 'GET OUT OF MY WAY'. I turned around and an old man (65-70 years old) had passed my youngest son and was walking towards us.

When he passed he said 'You need to control your children.'

I replied 'He's 4.'

The rude old codger then started going on about how my son had been in his way, so I told him that he should have said excuse me, rather than shouting at a 4 year old.

Anyway, there was a bit more back and forth and I called him a rude old man and we went on our way. When I looked back, he was on the phone. Who to, I have no idea.

AIBU?
No and he's lucky that I'm not the sort of person that kicks off in front of my kids.

Yes. He's old and allowed to shout at young children in the street.

Seen and not heard, not necessarily! Chat away for hours and I was always engaged and very often fascinated. But yes there were a few occasions (friends with things going on) when I had to say to children "Stop talking."

YANBU about the man shouting at a 4 year old, that’s unnecessary when he could just go round.

However YABVU to have your 4 year old walking behind you. Mine are 8,6 and 4 and they all know they walk ahead of me at all times. Behind I can’t see what’s going on and you may scoff at the idea of cars/buses but what about a dog? A person snatching a child? May be unlikely but I prefer to ensure I can see where they are at all times.

Plus, if you’d just had him walking with or in front of you then none of this would have happened and your 4 year old wouldn’t have been shouted at by a stranger.

And I’m of the belief that unknown adults should model polite behaviour to children. If that hurts someone’s ego and pride to be kind to a child then they’re the problem.

It’s interesting how you think children should be kind to adults but adults shouldn’t be kind to children in order to create a caring, respectful society. Makes total sense.
Why shouldn’t an adult use their manners when talking to a child? Please, thank you, sorry , etc…
“Get out of my way!!” just isn’t acceptable.

That's the while point! Nobody on here, including the op, knows what this kid was doing or if the man was justified!!

Get over yourself. Children are allowed to.play on pavements and exist in public and a 4 yo does not need to be within reach of a parent on a quiet residential street. If an adult was "zig zagging" on the pavement, washing a car, sorting their recycling or whatever, anyone passing would just say "excuse me."

Idk, there's a few people on this thread that I'd trip over if the opportunity arose.

What if they are walking in front of you and are abducted by aliens?

What if the Russians invade and poison you?

What if they end up never leaving home or becoming an independent adult because you've taught them to be terrified of ordinary life?

Equally some of us might think that there is some really shit parenting and some very badly behaved kids who have never heard the word ‘no’ I seriously doubt someone shouted at a kid who was walking sensibly along the road for absolutely no reason! The OP has already admitted that the child was walking behind her.

Everyone was probably being unreasonable here, except maybe the 10year old.

Assuming it was a shout and not just a firm (but rude) get out of the way then the man probably was being unreasonable. But when you delegated the parenting of your child to everyone else because they were out of your line of sight and you had no idea what they were doing, you did sort of lose the ability to decide how that parenting should be done.

It’s not really a massive thing, the four year old will be fine, will get over it and maybe even learn a lesson. You might even learn one about keeping an eye on your child even if they are behind you too.

You dont know he hadn't said 'excuse me'. The OP doesn't know how many times the man had asked the boy to excuse mim, or stand still or fly to the moon because the 4 year old wasn't being looked after by his parent.

It would be a lot more charitable to assume the man is quite old, since then his behavior could be partially attributed to cognitive decline, rather than just being an unpleasant twat.

i hope you are ok… difficult situation…

you handled it well though

Stunning and brave, OP.

Of course, I was trying to give an example of housing that typically doesn't have a driveway. There are also a lot of very large houses near me that are semi-detatched, yet only have a little front garden with a gate; no driveway.

Your son was behind you and 10 metres away, you didn't see what happened and the old guy may have almost fallen over him.

He had a point, you were oblivious and couldn't see your son 🤷‍♀️

10m, not 20, she said. And reins for a 4 year old? Madness.

Good of you to join us from 1863, how was the trip?

All the people rushing to defend the old man and blame the kid or mum 😂
he is lucky she didn’t create a scene, nothing wrong in her saying that.
shouting at a 4 year old, what a knob. If the post had said he’d shouted at a woman the pitchforks and MEN comments would be flying

Well the whole thing could have been easily avoided if you had actually behaved like a responsible parent and not allowed them to be 10 metres behind you. My guess is if the man hadn't "shouted" you'd still be ignoring your 4 year old.

No-one is blaming the mum, she wasn't there.

Stunning and brave 😅

I don’t want to defend the “old man”. He shouldn’t have shouted. But I am SO fed up of Mumsnet ageism. Why does it matter how old the guy was? He was short tempered and rude. I know plenty of 25 year olds who are short tempered and rude.

'old codger'

Enough with the ageism.

What is it then? Because it's not young or even middle aged.

Not the point. The point is that the age of the man is irrelevant and the unpleasant agist language detracts from the OP’s point.

I do see examples of people (of all ages) speaking aggressively to children who are just being children, so I'd have an issue with someone behaving like this towards a four year old. 'Excuse me please' followed by a quick word with the adult would have sufficed.

But op, I don't like the ageist language you used - either in your description of the incident here or directly to the man involved. I don't think that 65 is really old anyway, despite it being pensionable age and seems unnecessarily incendiary. When you resort to insults, you've lost the argument.