Every week I go to a Women's group at my church. They run a creche for little ones and a music and craft group for preschoolers at the same time, so as to give the women a break, and so our group is essentially a child free atmosphere (except for 2 very new babies who stay with Mums).
About 2 months ago a family started coming (Mum and 3 sisters - they rarely all come on the same day so its a bit of a combination of them). 2 of the sisters have pre-school aged children but they NEVER put them in the Creche or the Preschool group - never even tried - "they won't like it" - so they stay in the large room with the women for the women's group. Now these children run around for the entire group - its a very large room so it is heaven for little ones, but they never stop them, never try and contain them and frankly they are disruptive to what should be a child free time. Today they did no attend the session.
But the Mother and one of the sisters appeared right at the end.
I was feeding my 10 week old and her pram was right beside us. Whilst we were feeding, the child (We'll call her Suzy) came right over and was pulling on the cosy toes of the pram, climbing up on the wheels - presumably in her mind to see the baby. I could hear her Mum gently saying "No Suzy..."...Suzy carried on climbing. I basically turned round and said, firmly but not loudly "Suzy No."
Suzy stopped what she was doing and went off to play. not upset, not traumatised.
I saw the Mum heading towards me and I thought she was going to come over, have a chat and apologise. What she actually did was storm over and say "If you don't mind, I'll tell her what to do and what not to do".
I replied that basically my pram wasn;t a plaything and that she needs to interveen a lot earlier. This degererated into basically an argument - her stance being that Suzy is "Only a little child" and mine being that she needed top tell Suzy what she could and couldn't do.
They then left.
I burst into tears because I really hate confrontation of any sort.
The problem is that its a lovely friendly church group, and as such no-one has said to them that really the children shouldn;t be in the main room - they have never even tried them in the creche.
I know my baby wasn't in the pram, but she had been 10 minutes earlier, and Suzy could easily have tipped the pram over clambering to see that baby. My pram isn;t a plaything or a climbing frame - NO-ONE's pram is and, like I say, the child was FINE with me saying to her No.
I'm now kicking myself that I should just have shut upinstead of causing animosity. My friend has already stopped attending this group because she can't relax and enjoy the session with their children running around.
So, WIBU to have said something