To hate the phrase "No Thank you"

[Wishingplenty]

I really hate the phrase "No Thank you" often said to a very young child, usually in a high pitched condescending tone, often when said child just wants to interact in a friendly manner with whoever is saying it's child.
Case in point, my 10 month old baby who has just started crawling, crawled up to a child about 3 and wanted to look at her boots. Mother of said child says loudly in a really high pitched condescending to tone oh "No Thank you" to my baby son.
Why say this to a baby? and why are you teaching your toddler to be totally unpleasant to a much younger child?
I have encountered this a few times to varying degrees with other children and just find it so utterly rude and nasty and most of all completely unnecessary!

What a depressing thread. OP - I would have spoken to your baby, and included my 3 year old. If your baby had licked the shoes, seemed to be upsetting my 3 year old or done anything unacceptable for the baby or to my 3 year old, we would have dealt with it in a positive age-appropriate way.

Those first two sentences 👏👏

Are you for real?? Mother and Baby groups are meant to be friendly and supportive not confrontational and unpleasant!
I cannot believe your response and the responses of so many others ..
What a sad society.. 😔

I really don't think the 10 month old cared as much as the OP or many on this thread. And in life children need to learn that not everyone is pleasant (although if this was unpleasant is debatable in this instance) ,they need to learn this for their safety and maybe the OP also needs to accept this too . Also yet again a mum ,is expected to be lovely at all times ,in every interaction , no matter what their own situation or need is ,otherwise they should stay at home.

I'm still baffled by this thread.

My son is autistic and although he's not one to lash out he doesn't like unfamiliar kids getting too close and actually seems very wary of small babies. So I stay fairly close to him at things like soft plays, playgrounds etc, just in case. We gave up on play groups long before he turned 3.

But if a small, crawling baby approached him I'd gently remind him "she's just a baby, nothing scary" and we'd move along if he was uncomfortable. I would say to the mum, "it's ok he just needs some space" then probably say something nice about her baby. Just to reiterate - I would say something directly to the mum, not send a passive aggressive message via a crawling baby doing normal crawling baby things.

People are being deliberately obtuse here - pretending "no thank you" can't possibly be said in a sharp or clearly unkind tone or not getting that passing a message on via a baby instead of just talking normally to the parent isn't passive aggressive and actually quite ridiculous.

Likening this, quite frankly normal, absolute none incident, to adults forcing a hug or older kids pushing and stealing things are stretching the narrative just as much as the op is by her extremely sensitive reaction saying it's "cruelty".

They say there's a loneliness epidemic around these days. You hear all the time how lonely parents are. Maybe a good start would be talking to other parents in a pleasant way, instead of spending PLAY GROUPS anxiously Maintaining Boundaries, or avoiding places altogether for worry about "other snotty brats" interacting with our children.

But people can debate till the cows come home about what this woman should have said instead, but the fact is, she said what she said. Personally, I think a normal response to it would have been a passing thought of ‘Someone’s having a bad day’ and never thinking of it again, rather than stewing to the point of starting an outraged internet thread about a completely innocuous phrase which is usually used to politely decline something. It’s more interesting to me that the OP claims she’s heard it on a number of occasions used in exactly the same scenario, said to a child attempting to interact with another child whose parent isn’t keen.

You're offended because someone told your child no. That doesn't make them venomous or contemptuous.

Get over yourself.

@Fivebyfive2 Thank you for your post. This thread has baffled and also profoundly depressed me in terms of where we are as a society.

So sad that a baby group isn't universally embraced as an opportunity to interact with others in a kind and positive way while using it as a constructive learning experience for all children.

What is your baby doing? The reason I ask this is you have said this has happened a few times. Are you letting your baby touch and grab other children? As no one ever said this to me with any of my babies, but I wouldn’t have let my baby touch and grab other children, so it does make me wonder if you are missing something out maybe?

Thank you for this. I've grown so frustrated with all the excuses made for this other mum and all the assumptions made about OP.

Feeling hurt that your baby has seemingly been rejected is a normal reaction and certainly doesn't mean OP thinks her baby is any way special or that everybody wants to entertain him.

Everybody has off days/things going on when they may not want to interact with people but that's no excuse for rudeness. I've been visiting baby groups on and off for 27 years and can honestly say I've never experienced this. Babies have been crawling around and their parent has neither been poised to grab them the minute they encounter anybody nor ignoring them and expecting others to parent them... and nobody has minded. Therefore I don't think the mindset on this thread is typical. And hallelujah to that!

I hope so too. It's not at all representative of my experience of lots of different types of baby and toddler groups. I think most people on this thread are utterly vile.

I was at a book bug type group yesterday and a little just-walking boy was stumbling round the circle sitting on everyone's laps. His granny was beaming and so proud of him walking about and everyone was overjoyed to have a wee shot of singing and clapping along with this little tot. Elsewhere around the circle the older toddlers were having a blast and little babies were crawling around investigating everything. Lovely.

The baby will have to learn 😂

Christ almighty just scrap the nursery rhymes and go straight to brutal life lessons while we're at it. Get a job you slacker baby.

And Covid? Have we transported ourselves back to 2020?

sorry, but the OP has made it quite clear that this - "thinks her baby is any way special or that everybody wants to entertain him" is EXACTLY what she thinks, by telling everyone that NO-ONE should tell a baby NO, and that to do so is cruel and abusive.

It's a bit of a cold thing to say to a baby,I'd be more likely to laugh and say "ooh hello gorgeous! Do you like the boots? " and dissuade her from chewing them.

Yes, no baby, not just hers. She doesn't come across to me as someone who thinks her baby is more important than others, just as someone that can't understand why people would be so dismissive of ANY baby.

Mumsnet is a funny place where people think everybody with babies expects everybody else to gush over them and they are stuck in a bubble of smugness. They can't wait to point out how people have been having babies for years etc, etc. It's very odd.

She told your child ‘no thank you,’ she wasn’t cruel or abusive. You really need to get some perspective on this.

There could be a multitude of reasons for this, none of which the person has to justify. I think good on the mum for standing up for their kid, potentially. Also, it was very polite and the baby isn't going to be offended... they don't understand that yet.

It's possible you're annoyed because you wanted/expected a sweet interaction between your baby and this other child but that's not always going to happen.

(Also, I "no thank you" quite often!£

Likely because at that moment, her toddler didn’t want to be bothered by a baby which is absolutely fine.

But you would expect a 10 month old to understand?

Good point. We only have one view.

Yes, including the OP talking about 'abuse' and other such completely exaggerated, dramatic words and phrases.

It is also interesting that it seems to happen regularly to the OP / OP's baby. I'd be looking for the common denominator here.

YABU

This is all really depressing. 16 years ago when I started attending baby groups, it was a lovely supportive atmosphere. Mums would ask other mums to cuddle their babies (I know!! TOUCHING them and everything!) if they had to pop to the loo. We all enjoyed the company of other babies and the interaction between our tiny children that naturally ensued - after all, we were at a group not a solo experience! If you don't want to interact in a perfectly natural, exploratory way, then maybe don't go to baby groups (but your baby will suffer developmentally if you try to cut down on interaction with other humans).

It's so fucked up, this very recent attitude about how nobody is allowed to touch, nobody is allowed to talk to, your babies and young children. It's just strange. Other countries in Europe are not like this! It's perfectly normal to smile at other people's babies, interact with them, not complain if a 10 month old baby (10 months FFS!) comes up to your preschooler in a spirit of exploration. Jesus.

Is this some sort of Covid-hangover? When parents and their babies couldn't go to groups at all and therefore missed out on understanding that close interaction is natural and to be desired?

Why would you need one? It's a 10 month old baby FFS, not a hairy handed 55 year old trucker called Dave. (sorry, very old MN joke.)

This is so screwed up, when we're so precious about our sacrosanct 'personal space' that we object to little babies doing some natural and essential (to their neurological development) exploration. Her 3 year old has to live IN society, not constantly feeling enraged because her precious personal space has been invaded. This is taking the (perfectly sensible) concept of 'consent' to bonkers extreme levels. Boundaries are fine but nobody thinks they apply to tiny babies, do they? DO THEY?

Some of the posts on this thread make me despair, honestly.

Thank you for this waft of reason and common sense! I also have an autistic son and if we're out in public, I'm the one having to helicopter-parent him as he has absolutely no filters and no concept of 'personal space'. I know what is reasonable and I fully accept that nobody has to put up with his lack of social boundaries (apart from we, his parents, sigh). But he's a 13 yo (albeit a very short and young-seeming one) and we do have to do a lot of work to 'explain' him to other members of the public these days, as well as buffer them from anything too up-close-and-personal. (yes, it's exhausting)

But who expects to have to apologise for a small baby? And what sort of graceless dick choses to express their odd-seeming discomfort at any sort of close contact via passive-aggressive comments to said baby, rather than to the mother?

As you say, Fivebyfive2, this has nothing to do with adults forcing close contact on helpless children. We have moved from a perfectly understandable and sensible need to protect our children, to a phobia of any sort of contact at all.