DO you think this is IMPERTINENT/CHEEKY or just an abundance of confidence?

[drosophila]

I went to a shoe shop today in a rather well to do area of London. My local Clarks is crap never has the size you need so I often buy shoes at this shop. Anyway I was there with my DD who is 14mths and we were patiently awaiting our turn when in bounds this young girl with her Grandmother and her sister. Within a couple of mins she bounds over to me and says 'that's a nice baby. Is she your baby?' 'Yes' I replied. 'Why is she brown and you are white?' She asked. I was a little surprised by her direct question. DD is indeed mixed race and I am very pale.

A little while later she asked the shop assistant if she owned the shop. You could tell the shop assistant was a little taken aback and eventually replied 'I wish'.

Anyway when I told DP he thought she was impertient and had not been taught how to treat adults or that to ask such direct questions was impolite. She was about 6 I'd say. What do you think?

my 3year old is like this 'why thats man got one leg mummy?' 'why is that lady black' 'oooo she is scary looking '(she finds people with very long black hair scary for some reason), ' 'is that your dog' 'mummy that man smells' (i can imagine her asking why a white lady has a brown baby as well). its just the way she is. needs to know everything. its very wearing at times.

my 3year old looks like a 5yr old as well.

Ds will chat to anyone, but we are working on a system where if he sees something he wants to talk about, he gives me a little tap and I tap him back to say I've seen and then we go somewhere private to chat about it.

The Guide Dog people were collecting outside the supermarket and I explained the lady couldn't see (because ds was holding out his money and of course she couldn't see him to move the bucket closer), then I explained what the dog did and that some blind people needed a dog too. Ds asked the collector some questions which was fair enough given she was collecting. However if she had been enjoying a coffee in a cafe with her dog at her feet I wouldn't have let ds do it. I guess it's context.

So the shop assistant was fair game, but maybe she should have learnt to be a bit more circumspect with strangers.

We were in another shop and ds said loudly "I'm not giving her money mum, she doesn't have a dog!"

Am I the only one who thinks the child was a bit pushy? Why wasn't the granny admonishing her not to be so nosy? I would have said that to my kids.

I think it's difficult to say because I wasn't there. My children will chat to anyone and ask questions, but in a charming and cute way. I am not just saying "charming and cute" as their mum, but I obviously see how others respond to them and I think they are just seen as chatty and outgoing. Unfortunately, I think sometimes in Britain children have to be VERY cute to get away with striking up conversations with adults as people can be so judgemental of children. It's still very much a "children should be seen and not heard"culture if you venture outside playgrounds and other places where children are "allowed" to be. I think most adults are much ruder than children.

Yes how many of these "gosh what rude children" type people have asked me when I'm having another child, how long I breastfed for, how much I earn etc.

At least when a child asks it's just because they want to know the answer.

I bet LGJ was like that when she was a child

No commnet.

You will be hearing from my legal team.

Comment, even

I just think she was a confident curious child which I suppose some people could interpret as cheeky but she is pretty young.

A bit ott perhaps. Fine to be curious and interested in the world but steering all that in a tactful direction when appropriate is helpful to them I think.

Sometimes it's all to do with the way things are said though. I have known two children who speak to adults like mini 50 year olds - very superior; I find that very grating.

My DS is pretty confident and will talk to adults and will ask direct questions but I think we have managed to get him to understand that with strangers you have a more measured approach.

I'm not saying that kids are lesser human beings than adults but I think kids need to know the order of things. DP'd niece for example thought she was on such a level pegging with her parents that when her brother came along she thought she could decipline him. There were many tears when her parents explained that they were the parents and that she was his sister. Kids need to know who is in charge and who makes the decisions in a household. Kids should be treated with respect and they need to know that adults also need to be treated with respect.

HAving said all that I think the girl in the shop was unusual and Uber confident but probably not rude. When the shop assistant said to the Grandmother I thought you were all together (meaning me) she said 'I've never met that woman before in my life' as if I were the one engaging her g.child in conversation. Bit odd!

Children are curious. There is no malicious intent behind their questions; the girl asked the questions because she wanted to know the answers, there's nothing cheeky or rude about it unless they were asked in a sneering manner for example.

Had to laugh... it could be my dd (4yo).

IMHO I think this little girl is just full of energy and curiosity. Also kids call it as they see it :) i.e. you're pale your lo is dark so she wanted to know. Perfectly harmless :) I'm actually quite surprised that dd never asked me why her 'boyfriend' looks so different to his mama... his mother is Swedish but his absentee dad is Barbaidan/African. Very pretty child but defo VERY different looks to his mum :).

Some questions my dd comes out with at the tender age of 4 make me cringe... but I guess that's just a matter of perspective, because we 'interpret' things the way we think they should be, whereas a child does not presume anything, well most of the time.

Tbh I can't see why you husband has an 'issue' with it. Fair enough if a kid keeps pestering then I would say the parents should intervene, however a few questions don't do any harm, imho. Also I think it's great if a child is not afraid to ask questions... that's how they learn

the adult with the child was her grandmother and not a parent - maybe the child's parent would have said something had she or he been there, but the grandmother might not be sure how to handle it, what is normally said to the child when she asks direct questions, etc. Having said that, I really don't this was a big deal at all. Not a rude child. As for you dp's niece, I also think that sounds reasonably normal for an elder child to think that they can discipline a younger child purely because they're older. Sometimes older siblings are told to look after their younger siblings for a minute or to help them with something and are therefore put in a position of quasi 'authority', albeit for a short period. Perfectly natural then for dp's niece to think she can boss her sibling about all the time until she is told otherwise. I'm going to be direct now and say your dp seems to have, ahem, very defined views of how children should behave. Might be interesting to see whether these views change as your child/children get older.

In my son's class there is a girl (7) who has mild ADHD and she also says very direct, odd things. Sorry, haven't read the whole thread, but might that have been it?

Of course the 6yo was impertinent, she's a 6yo.
She doesn't understand genetics or the captialist system, which my son at 5 (sort of) does, but the average 6yo doesn't.

Given this child's ignorance of race, it implies she has parents who don't put much emphasis on it. Hard to see that as very bad.

She isn't afraid to ask questions which is a very good thing, and if showing early signs of explicit resolution in her thought processes. All good stuff.
My son (at 5) does this sort of thing all the time. At 4 for some reason in the middle of Tescos suddenly called out loudly to us "Why are some people black ?" We were a little taken aback, but he was not being "bad", since to him it's much the same as why cheese is yellow.
So he now knows, though I rather suspect he thinks DNA is shaped like little books :)

He engages the staff at shops in all sorts of slightly surreal conversations about his views on cheese, what he's doing today and why they are wearing those clothes.
He's very popular in our local Waitrose, mostly I
suspect because he's very polite, usually starting with "excuse me".

We don't teach our kids only to speak when spoken to, and certainly do not tell him not to speak to people serving us. Learning the social conventions is part of education, and the more supervised practise they get the better.

We have mentioned that some people do not like their appearance commented upon. It's too early to expect it to work. The standard "what if someone said that to you ?" doesn't work since in his mind you'd either be wrong which he'd argue vigorously as a reflex, or correct in which case he'd launch into a long explanation of it.
His best friend is another colour, but also sadly suffers from a striking skin disorder and a gammy leg. 2.0 didn't care, nor did his classmates until older people started making a fuss.

Without reading though this I'd say her questions were typical young child inquisitiveness. Boredom may have had a lot to do with it, shoe shopping being what it is.

The grandmother may have wanted to wait till they were out of the shop before talking to the little girl about skin colours, in case the conversation got too embarrassing for everyone and the little girl got confused. If I had been the grandmother, this is what I'd have done.

I think that if I didn't hve a child older than 2 yo I would be classing it as cheeky but as I have a 5 yo and a 3 yo I would say it was an innocent question from a bright confident child I have had my moments of excruciating embarrassment rom things my 2 say

They sound like fairly harmless questions IMHO. I've had children asking me if ds1 and ds2 are friends or brothers as they don't look much like each other. I explain that ds1 looks like dh while ds2 looks like me. Much less rude than the woman who, on seeing that I was pregnant, asked if all 3 children had different fathers.

coppertop - at woman's rudeness.

I think the little girl was just interested, I can't see anything malicious about her curoisity.

I'm learning that this sort of thing is so cultural. During our time in Indonesia I got used to being asked personal questions. Now we're in Nigeria people are even more inquisitive! Dh and I were out for a meal one evening when he went off to the loo. The waitress came with our coffees and, looking pointedly at dh's chair, said 'Where is he?' She wasn't the least bit abashed when I told her.

Another example happened when I was at the British Council in Lagos. A woman approached and asked if she was disturbing me. I was a bit puzzled but said no. She then said 'I want to ask what you are doing here and why you have come to the British Council.' I was a bit taken aback but actually, it's quite refreshing that people can be uninhibited and will ask questions when they are curious.

Maybe a cultural thing - I had to read it twice cos I couldn't see what you meant by being impertinent... just a child being a child i thought! Having said that I suppose you probably should... or should you??? teach your child to adapt to norms where you;'re living!