to0 have called this woman a judgemental old cow???

[fiveisanawfullybignumber]

Please bear in mind that I'm 33 weeks pregnant & hormonal with DC5 if IABU, be gentle with me. Also a bit long, sorry.

I was at my local hospital this morning with my DD1 (15) and my mum & her friend. had 2 appts for DD this morning, 1 for physio, then 1 with orthapeadic consultant to decide if he wanted to break both her legs and reset them as she has twisted limbs. Followed by an appt for DM who thankfully has been given the all clear for cancer, but has multiple auto immune problems.

In between the appts we went to the coffee shop, where i treated myself to a chocolate coated flapjack and settled down to share it with DD2 (21m sitting in her pushchair after having greast fun gluing things in the hospital playroom.)
DD2 decides she wants to crumble it in her hands and rub chocolate all over herself, so i say no, that's dirty, you can have some if you eat it, but don't make a mess. She definitely understands me, but this is a particular battle of hers at the moment.

She starts to whinge and moan, but I offer her a small piece to pop into her mouth, she makes a grab for it, and again i say no, you can eat it but don't be dirty. Cue much wailing and howling from DD2 who is not getting her own way. so we ignore her, but every minute or so offer her a piece, but on my terms.
There is an older woman, very well dressed a few tables away who is glaring at me, then she says very loudly, why are they stuffing their faces and ignoring that child? FGS they should talk to it!
Maybe i shouldn't have, but I walk over and calmly say, I'm ignoring my child having a temper tantrum because i won't let her rub chocolate all over herself. I have offered her some on numerous occasions but all she wants is to play with it, so she's not having it.
She then goes on to tell me that she has worked with children over many years, and a child having a tantrum needs attention and i was a terrible mum for neglecting her.
At which point i flipped and told her she was a judgemantal old cow and she was talking rubbish. Then reminded her she was in a hospital outpatients dept, where most people had illnesses/problems and she was a nasty vicious old woman who had now made my DD1 burst into tears at hearing what she'd said, and now we were off to see if the surgeon wanted to break both her legs, and thanks!!!
DD1 needed a huge hug, and DD2 stopped wailing to watch mummy flip out at the old bag.
Was IBU or could you have held your temper.

YANBU. I was out with my ds when he was about five. He wanted something in a shop and i had said no. He threw himself down on the floor and screamed etc. An old lady came beetling over and said "that young man needs a good smack on the backside"
I replied quite calmly "And you old lady need to mind your own business as you dont know anything about my child do you??!" I picked ds up and walked off leaving her doing a fair to middling goldfish impersonation!!

I am in two minds. I think it is entirely understandable that you reacted but I think when you start calling someone names in front of our children - particularly the classic names we seem to enjoy using about older women - it tends to tell the world that she may have had a point about how you behave and how you may be raising your children .

It is of course understandable. It may have made you feel better but it has just shown your children that it is ok to call strangers loud names in public.Not terribly edifying. I suspect that you enjoyed the vent but are not so happy recalling your children watching as you had a stand up row with a stranger.

BTW - just curious. You seem very preoccupied with how she looked, saying she was well dressed and 'dolled up to the nines' . Did that bother you for some reason? Just wondering why what she was wearing, how she was dressed seemed to bother you? Would you have minded less if she was scruffy

Should add that I know exactly what it feels like and have done the same. But as much as I enjoyed delivering some acerbic one liners or witty riposte or just 'mind your own business' - I really can't help feeling that it would have been better if I had kept my dignity.

"she has worked with children over many years"
Maybe she doesn't have any of her own.
YANBU btw.

I can see why you did it- but I think that you did so well to start with that it was a pity you lost your temper,keeping calm and dignified always wins you the high moral ground.

There is a certain type of older lady who feels that she has the right to somehow comment on other people's parenting, isn't there. Well dressed, independent, knows it all ....

We had this a few times while dd2 was in a major buggy (age 4-6) for a hip condition - these well dressed older ladies chucking her under the chin and saying "aren't you a bit big for a pushchair?" etc. Or, worse, stage whispering "You'd think a child of that age could walk, wouldn't you?" to her friend.

I trained dd2 to say "I bite!" if anyone touched her face (she hated it, but somehow even an older child in a buggy seemed to elicit this reaction) and eventually she would launch into a detailed explanation of her medical condition to people who suggested she should be walking. Once, an old lady walked away while she was in full flow and, with perfect timing, dd2 waited until she was half way over the road and yelled "didn't you hear me? Aren't you listening?"

I used to take great delight in her doing this. I never called anyone a name, except under my breath, but I was close to it on a few occasions, so I know where OP is coming from. Did people really think I had a child in school uniform sitting reading her school reading book in a buggy for fun?.

But somehow, when you have children, you are public property!

Good for you five. She sounded very judgemental. Who knows how many times she has loudly commented on other parents struggling with their childrens temper tantrums and gotten away with it. Hopefully she will remember your reaction and think twice before she needlessly upsets any other random stranger.

You are so not being U what a silly moo, you were right, the only way that they will learn is if people stick up to them. They just do not have a clue!

Can understand you getting annoyed but it would have been better if you'd kept your temper under control.

The op is going through a lot at the moment, nobody is perfect and sometimes my dd hears me swear when i drop something or i burnt my hand, cut her some slack. What would you do in that siutation! No I would not swear at her but I would hopefully told her to keep her nose out where it does not belong as she neither knows me or my child.

YANBU - I wish I had your balls. Last year, DH and I and our then 27-month-old twins had a weekend away. DS hadn't been too well beforehand - I suspected a sinus infection and took him to our GP 48 hours before we were due to go away. GP said I was probably right about the sinusitis, but no point in prescribing antibiotics as it was probably related to a viral rather than a bacterial infection and it would clear up by itself. Fair enough, I thought. But we woke up on our first morning in the hotel to find DS extremely unwell with his eye blown up like he'd done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. To cut a long story short, an emergency GP diagnosed periorbital cellulitis - where the original sinusitis had been bacterial after all, and extended into the area around his eye. We spent the next two days to-in and froing to the local hospital where he had IV antibiotics. Horrible.
Fast forward to the journey home. DS much better, but understandably knackered and a bit clingy. The swelling around the eye has gone down; now he just has a pretty lurid shiner. We stop off at a motorway service station for a cuppa. DH and I are exhausted and pretty traumatised by the whole thing, and probably looking a bit bug-eyed and not quite with it. DS sits on my lap whimpering. And then I start 'overhearing' (I'm sure I was meant to overhear it) a conversation between two elderly ladies at the next table, where they were staring straight at us and saying how terrible it was the way some parents abused their children and the NSPCC really should do better to prevent it.
I was too tired, too drained and too upset with everything that had happened to confront them. And it would have been hard to prove that they were directly discussing us. But it has haunted me a bit ever since. That implication that you are failing your child and are a terrible mother, and yet we'd spent the whole weekend scared sh*tless about our son. I still feel that by not confronting them, I let myself down (DH didn't hear what was going on, and I didn't tell him until we'd left. I think it would have been the final straw, and he'd have lost the plot with them) and I'd let my son down, too, by allowing people to think his mother was an abuser.
Some people are horribly judgemental and need to be put in their place. I didn't have the courage to do it with those two particularly nasty pieces of work. Good on you for doing people like me a service.
And hats off to your DM, too. You sound a lovely family.

What a cow! YANBU.

well done - wish I had done the same on the bus last week when some old lady was muttering about 'mothers today...in our day etc etc' about me because I had the temerity to get on the bus with my (small)buggy but didnt have the balls and so was angry for ages afterwards.

Why do some people have to make other peoples lives harder by being so negative and moany...grr

She may have belittled other mums in the past and no-one has told her to butt out before, so if it stops her making some other mother feeling terrible then you have done a good thing. Not everyone can stand up for themselves like you did and people like that are just bullies. her dh's reaction seems to suggest it wasnt the first time she had said such things and he was enjoying her being told!!

Your mum sound great too

"she was a nasty vicious old woman "

You said that to her and you want to know if yabu?

Perhaps 'I am parenting my child as I see fit' would have been sufficient.

I was right with you until the ...'old cow...' bit - that was probably a step too far, but I can totally understand why you did it. In similar circumstances, I've smiled and done my best to be sympathetic to the parent of the stropping child.

Yes the op might have overreacted but nobody is perfect and she has a lot going on in her life, its all well and good saying in hindsight what we would have done, but in the actual situation adrenaline and hormones (as she is pg) take over and you react in the heat of the moment. Well at least the woman concerned now would hopefully be less likely to interfere now and teach her a bit of a harsh lesson.

Perhaps the woman concerned also has a lot going on in her life and nobody is perfect.

Personally think its very simple - if you cann't take it - don't dish it out.

The child was not taking bread off a bird table - it was in a pushchair with its parent.

Well the op was just minding her own business when this woman started to accuse her of being a terrible mum and being quite nasty to the op, so this woman is not an innocent woman trying to help the op, she was a horrid interferring lady.

What does this lady expect the op to do, smile sweetly and say 'thanks for the great advice', especially when she is in a fragile state and mabey not her normal self. I know that i would be really upset to be called a terribal mum who neglects their child by a stanger who knows neither my child or me. Let this be a lesson to the lady to keep her 'helpful' advice to herself in future.

Juule - I am afraid I agree with pigletmania - making the comments that the elderly lady made was deeply unpleasant and uncalled-for. Implying that the OP was neglecting her child is not being a bit imperfect, it is being nastily judgemental, and she had no right to do that, in my book.

Of course not. if she felt the need to speak to the woman she could have just said what she said without the name-calling. And she asked if she was BU. I think that yes, she was being unreasonable. Was the other woman? Yes probably but this thread isn't about her.