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!

Baby gon' baby.
U gon' adult ?

She wasn’t saying no thank you to your baby. She was indicating to you that you should remove your child and not allow your own child to cross another persons boundaries. I agree she should have been direct to you that this was her issue but saying no thank you is generally much politer than being blunt and to the point.

Is there typos in this because it doesn’t really make sense?

Maybe usually babies and toddlers interact at this group including this toddler. However if for whatever reason they don’t what it at that moment No thank you is a polite thing to say. Maybe they can play next time.
You may think not playing at the group was rude however so be it.

OP how do you want her to handle this situation when her child doesn’t want to interact with yours? What should she have said?

The word I hate most on MN is 'boundaries'

😱

Are you usually this weird?

What would you rather them say?

Just “no”?

I would find that pretty rude.

I don’t find “no thank you” rude because it is a clear instruction, which kids can clearly understand.

I'd have stopped a crawling baby touching dirty boots too!

Or maybe the 3 year old is an unpredictable little terror likely to boot the baby in the face?

You'd have been more offended if she told your baby 'stop' or asked you to remove your baby, surely?

Three year olds are still so little though. Mine would have loved nothing more than a baby coming over to say hello and would have been utterly delighted to show off their boots, but not all kids are the same. @RoseAylingEllisFanClub 's post about the different messages the mum conveyed to the different people is really good.

And let's remember the mum wasn't analysing her words, she had a split second to communicate that for whatever reason she didn't want to play with the baby. I think she did just fine.

Even if it was your child had no right to be pestering her child... it was still you in the wrong.

Your child can like someone elses shoes all they want but it does not entitle them to do anything.

This would annoy me just because it makes no sense. "No thank you" is what I say to my 2 year old when she tries to feed me her sandwich (that she's licked the butter off, squished and generally made unpalatable). Even at nursery the children are taught to say "stop" if they don't like something - admittedly I don't live in the UK and it's a bilingual nursery so "stop" is a word that the majority can understand. In this case I would probably have said something like "shoes are not for playing with" if it bothered me (and you would probably have still accused me of being passive aggressive).

You are not answering, OP, how do you suggest she indicates that she doesn’t want her child to be touched?

I'm going to try this when I get home. Honestly, it could be thing in our household.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"
"No, thank you."
"How dare your treat me with such venemous contempt!"

People come in all kinds and often are tired , lack a bit of patience and say things in a tone they don't mean. I would cut another mother some slack in this scenario. If another baby crawled up to mine ,touching their boots and I thought it wasn't OK for some reason ,I might say no thank you , hopefully a bit sing song like but who knows. Id hope the other parent would take the hint to move them. Otherwise what was she to do, ask you directly to move her, redirect her herself ,help her play in a way she preferred. Unless she was really hostile I think you ve got this out of proportion.

I guess I am just nicer and kinder than the majority of people especially on here.
😂, enjoy your Nice And Kind award, OP🏆

It sounds like the other parent was just trying to stop either her kid being annoyed or your kid accidentally getting hurt and used the Nice And Kind 'no thank you' to do so in a less antagonistic way than just 'no'.

I'm surprised you find it so rude, to me it's a brilliant way to differentiate to small kids between a please stop doing that no from a fuck the fuck off no.

Brilliant image there, can just picture it! 😂

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree here, all I will say is that if you look at the relationship boards there are a whole host of people, mostly women, whose lives would have been immeasurably better if they had been taught that saying no thank you is (a) fine, and (b) not rude.

I’ve found it’s worked for me, and I do have a partner, family, friends, kids, a job. In fact the only time I think I would agree that “no thank you” is not something I could say if I had to do something basic for my kids.

But in every other situation, work, friends, socialising “no thank you” is absolutely fine. Might there be consequences? Of course. Do I say it all the time? No. I do loads of stuff I’d rather not, either because I’m paid for it or I am kind to others or I might feel like it’s something I should do. But do I know that it’s my basic right to say “no thank you” if I’m prepared to live with the consequences? Yes. That’s not diva like boundaries, it’s living in a free society.

It’s so annoying when parents don’t parent and others have to be polite but end up being passive aggressive to remind the parent to look after their own child. Parents at a baby group are usually there with their own dc so maybe don’t really want yours too.

That isn't how the op described how the woman said "no thank you" it was said in the sarcastic way a person says "you're welcome" when not thanked
🙄

Bullying - awa bile yer heid min.

😂😂
In a nutshell!

Seriously? This was a perfectly polite way of saying ‘go away’. I can see nothing wrong with it.

Absolutely this.

its been a very long time since my DC was at a baby group, do babies get kicked in the face often?