Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Original poster

'...it makes me think of Baby P'

192 replies

elportodelgato · 29/03/2010 14:04

had an awful run-in with a woman on the bus at the weekend and just wanted to check the mn consensus... was I unreasonable to completely flip out?!

Travelling on a busy bus, Sunday morning with DD (22 mo). I got her out of the buggy to sit on my knee and she was happily looking out of the window, saying hello to people, babbling to the other baby sitting nearby etc. After about 20 mins she started to get tetchy and throwing herself around so I put her back in the buggy, mainly for her safety and also she was obvs a bit tired and needed a quiet sit down. Of course, when I strapped her in she wasn't happy about it and started having a bit of a grizzle - I was studiously trying to ignore her as she often does a bit of whining when she is over-tired and it only lasts about 30 seconds before she settles down.

At this point (DD grizzling, me ignoring her)I notice an older woman about to get off the bus, very pointedly looking at me, looking at DD and tutting loudly in our direction. I was watching her and once she had done it about 4 times I caught her eye and (this was probably my mistake) asked her if she had something to say to me. She began telling me that she would never leave a child to cry like that, that I should pick her up, that it made her so upset to hear a baby crying. I said (oh dear, red mist descending at this point) 'are you telling me what to do with my child?' to which she responded 'it makes me think of Baby P'

Now was I BU to have completely lost the plot and told her to 'fuck off you fucking bitch'?? I know I was, I shouldn't have done it, esp in front of DD, but that case really really upset me (like it upset everyone) and her comparing me and my DD to that situation just made me completely lose it. I felt like getting off the bus and telling her about all the wonderful things DD and I do together, how much fun we have, and how much I love her and would never ever hurt her. As it was, I just ended up crying on the bus and then apologising to DD, poor thing just witnessing her mother swearing at a stranger in a public place.

So what would you have done? Am I a raving lunatic?

OP posts:

pinkmagic1 · 29/03/2010 21:22

I really feel for the op, public transport seems to be full of these passive aggressive types.
She was perfectly reasonable to ask the women if she had anything to say and although swearing was maybe not the thing to do, tell me who wouldn't have given her a mouthful of abuse when already under stress and then being refered to as an evil child abuser?

Lulumaam · 29/03/2010 21:39

Lulumaam · 29/03/2010 21:40

why would you ask someone who has got the arse with you already, what the rpoblem is. the are a stragner, their opinon should not matter, you wont ever see them again, why engage?? why???

Horton · 29/03/2010 21:43

if partners call their wives this sort of things, it is virtually a deal breaker and totally unacceptable

Maybe it's also totally unacceptable to imply someone is abusing their child on precisely no evidence?

why engage?? why???

Totally see your point. But haven't we all felt stressed and cross and fed up when trapped on a bus/wherever with a child who simply doesn't want to do what you want him or her to do? It doesn't make for someone who feels like biting their tongue if you then also feel judged, does it?

wannaBe · 29/03/2010 21:47

so let's get this straight. Exactly where did the woman call the op a child abuser? she said "it reminds me of baby p." not you, it. And she said so having been confronted by the op who first caught her eye, then demanded to know if the woman had something to say, and then continued to have a go demanding to know if the woman was telling her what to do with her child. Me thinks some people have got themselves a bit worked up and elevated the op into some kind of victim instead of the fowl-mouthed person with serious anger management issues she quite clearly is.

And tbh if the woman was concerned before all this, then clearly she had reason to be, because it's not a huge leap to think that someone who shouts and swears at strangers like that in public probably treats their children far worse in private.

And, given the op hasn't been back I'd hazzard a guess this probably never actually happened at all.

Vinomum · 29/03/2010 21:50

A partner calling his wife these kind of names because he feels like it/is a drunken twat/has domestic violence issues is not the same as a partner saying these things in retaliation to a comment made by his wife that implied that he was a child abusing murderer.

blueshoes · 29/03/2010 21:52

The OP probably should not have given the old lady a voice nor should she have lost her rag but then again, the old lady got what she deserved.

Agree with the comment about passive aggressive behaviour. Well, sometimes, they meet someone like the OP and their bluff is called. Boohoo.

Lulumaam · 29/03/2010 21:53

but it's ok to hurl foul mouthed abuse/threaten violence/ thump etc . as some of these other stories say, towards strangers who say things re your parenting/children??

i really can't say much more on this thread, i have said all i can say. i thikn the OP shoul dnot have engaged, the woman shoul dnot have said what she did , the OP should not have said what she said. but at the end of the day, it was a commetn from a stranger, stupid hyperbole

blueshoes · 29/03/2010 21:54

I, like the OP, am not a saint

OrmRenewed · 29/03/2010 21:58

Ok so those of you who say the women deserved the ear-bashing, where does it end.

Step 1. Woman tuts.
Step 2. OP asks here what her problem is.
Step 3. Woman tells her.
Step 4. OP tells to fuck the fuck off or whatever it was.

Imagine if the woman hasn't been getting off the bus and she took exception to this leading to ..

Step 5. Woman swears back.
Step 6. OP thumps her.
Step 7. Woman retaliates with tip of sharpened brollie.
Step 8. Someone else intervenes.
Step 9. OP thumps them too.
Step 10. Woman retaliates by sending a cruise missile into OPs' house.
Step 11. Prompting outright condemnation from UN and the threat of sanctions.
Step 12. Which do not work and we find ourselves in a position of total war.

OMG! And all because the OP couldn't resist the maternal equivalanet of 'wot you lookin at'.

The OP was quite reasonably upset. But not reasonable to pursue it.

Since when did the world become such an aggresive and uncompromising place ?

uglymugly · 29/03/2010 21:59

LJBrownie - good point. Some of us "oldies" need to step up and point out that not all behaviours should be forgiven because of age, because many of us "oldies" wouldn't have behaved that way.

wannaBe - I do think you've missed the point here. It was one thing for the older woman to have tutted, it went way beyond acceptable when that older woman equated the OP with the baby P situation. The swearing the OP did wasn't towards her child, only towards the unreasonable tutting/connection to abuse that the older woman did. If that older woman had just got off the bus and kept her opinions to herself, the subsequent swearing would never have happened.

Are you suggesting the OP is a troll?

blueshoes · 29/03/2010 22:01

Orm, just love your imagination. WWIII is where it ends

LynetteScavo · 29/03/2010 22:03

The woman on the bus was unreasonable.
The OP was unreasonable.

The whole conversation was unreasonable.

Horton · 29/03/2010 22:18

Yes, everyone was a bit unreasonable, some more than others. But the only person who actually started the name-calling was the old lady. So it's definitely her fault.

Was going to do a tongue in cheek pretend gavel emoticon but iPhone has no proper punctuation.

scottishmummy · 29/03/2010 22:20

no,no gavel its wanky.the op is wanky

Jamieandhismagictorch · 29/03/2010 22:23

I have been totally reasonable

The rest of you gobshites can feck off

scottishmummy · 29/03/2010 22:30

measured response.if only op had used it

Jamieandhismagictorch · 29/03/2010 22:30

brassband · 29/03/2010 23:11

I find it very very distressing to hear a baby cry and not be comforted.It make me feel physically sick and faint.I know you had your reasons for doing it, but that's how it makes me feel.

Original poster

elportodelgato · 29/03/2010 23:40

just popping back to let you know (Wannabe) that I'm not trolling, nor do I have anger management issues. You'll have seen that I commented earlier about how violence makes me feel physically unwell, having never experienced it myself, so no, I was not about to punch the woman. You'll also have seen that I spent the rest of the bus journey in tears - and (which I didn't mention) being comforted by another passenger who had seen the whole thing and brought me a tissue.

I feel I let myself down very badly by swearing, but it was my honest first reaction, she was just lucky the c word didn't make an appearance tbh! It's comforting to know I'm not the only one who would have reacted that way to that comment. Next time I promise all the santimonious mn-ers that I will think of something less foul-mouthed to say.

Oh, and I would happily have ignored one tut, but 4 tuts very pointedly directed at me, accompanied by much head-shaking and faux concern for DD - no way, she was asking to be pulled up on that.

OP posts:

pigletmania · 29/03/2010 23:46

Blooming heck give the op a break, we are not prefect after all except moi She has admitted her mistake so cut her some slack. Op hide the thread, go and have a nice glass of wine and try and put it behind you are learn from it

Neverchuckanokiaatthepm · 30/03/2010 01:43

I was there, it did not happen! This person enjoys making up fictitious account confrontation on buses in the west of England. Your baby has had a massive growth spurt op must be the magic breast milk.. Please leave the buses for us oldies who just like sitting in for the ride. CCTV footage will show that dear little OAP got off bus without so much as a backward glance,you on the other hand were too engossed in the family size bucket of KFC you were sharing with your dc. Case closed!

Bucharest · 30/03/2010 11:37

WTF?

Original poster

elportodelgato · 30/03/2010 12:43

WTF Neverchuckanokia?
west of England? I live in London (not that I mentioned it), so where did that come from? and 'growth spurt'? are you suggesting I have somewhere altered my DDs age in this thread?

OP posts:

Neverchuckanokiaatthepm · 30/03/2010 13:21

novicemama Sorry, I know now that you actually live in Croydon and have the delightful "facelift" which is so popular with many of the fair sex in that wonderful town. Were you wearing your full compliment of sovereign rings on your slender hands the day you were so rudely accosted on the bus? Oh and yeah "woz yer smokin a fag at the bus stop bifoorhand?"

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8