Stranger calling me a bad parent

[Stephaneey]

I’m just typing this to get it off my chest as I don’t really have many people to talk to. At the weekend I was with my daughter in a park, it was crowded due to an event happening at the same time. My daughter spotted some flowers and went to look at them. She stood in the flower bed and ran away from me, she then stood on a flower. I had grabbed her before then but my mum said she was ok to go back to have a look. My mum then said just grab her as she stood on a flower.

I lifted her up and a young woman standing by started saying I was disrespectful. I said well she’s only 3. The boyfriend then pipes up saying ‘we’re not talking to a 3 year old. We pay our taxes.’ I replied I also pay taxes?’ The woman then says ‘look at all the other children behaving nicely and not playing in the flowers, couldn’t you tell you were doing something wrong!’ I did see red and did lose my temper at this point and couldn’t believe she said this to me. I asked if they saw me as an easy target and if they would confront a gang of teenagers/men in the same manner. There were teens climbing a war memorial near by and I asked if they were going to say anything to them? They started needling me out of the way and I said I wanted to go where I was standing originally. At this point a man starts shouting at me that I’m pushing him. I just keep thinking about scared my daughter must have been of this.

I can’t stop thinking about how this has affected my daughter. It was Mother’s Day yesterday and I couldn’t stop thinking how I’ve raised a child. I’m a single parent, I lost a lot of blood in childbirth, I had post natal depression. My daughter still has issues sleeping. I’ve had not a day without worry in 3 years. But the a young woman can just comment so confidently on my parenting skills and not feel an ounce of shame. To get to that park yesterday I had to pack food, supplies, I had to make sure I had wipes, water even medicine. Did she have that sort of preparation?

it’s funny as I was going to give her a tablet to watch cartoons on (we were waiting for the event) but I thought it was good she wanted to get involved with nature. Ironic if she’d been on her tablet we would have gone without comment.

I can’t get the whole thing out of my head. My mum walked off so this upset my daughter as she gets separation anxiety. My mum walking off just added to the whole thing. I can’t discuss this with her as she believes this was my fault for interacting with them. I try to raise with her that I felt so alone and why as a parent she wouldn’t take my side automatically? I can’t get my head round that. She just can’t see my point of view and how awful I found that woman’s comment. She added that she never received any comments like that as we were always well behaved. Can I add at this point my daughter is the most lovely, well behaved little girl. She can be very cautious with new situations, she’s gentle with babies and younger kids, we’ve taken flights and car rides and people comment how good she is. Can I also say how worried I always am about being respectful. I litter pick, I always recycle, I always go back in to shops to pay if I’ve forgotten something in my trolley. I even cross the road in a respectful way 😂 I would never want to destroy something in nature, I plant my own flowers!

I get anxiety going out anyway but had to push myself yesterday as I didn’t want to have to hideaway(I probably would of if I was by myself) I’m just not sure how I forget about this, how do I parent with confidence when outside. How do I not combust with anxiety if my daughter wants to play in public again. How do I try and forget the tag of ‘bad parent’ has anyone been through anything similar?

You need to practice your inner "oh do fuck off you boring pricks" response to stuff like this op.

So to yourself - "fuck right off you absolute weapon and go and shout at a wall or something"
Outward - pretend you haven't heard them and enjoy their bleatings getting louder and louder until they just look quite strange to others watching.

Maybe look at them directly too but where you sort of look through them iyswim. Even better 😬

You sound very young...

to be honest I was just wondering if there are any other women out there who think about the struggles of motherhood when these things happen but I was obviously wrong. I didn’t think about that until yesterday when I was still upset and it was Mother’s Day.

it’s funny as I was going to give her a tablet to watch cartoons on (we were waiting for the event) but I thought it was good she wanted to get involved with nature. Ironic if she’d been on her tablet we would have gone without comment.

This is amazing too. You don’t get credit for not giving a 3 year old a tablet. Come on. Why does she even have one? That really is shit parenting. Shoot me.

You say he said you were pushing him - you don't say he made this up therefore the assumption is that you had pushed/ made contact pushing past him. Pushing someone is assault.

Your mum was clearly embarrassed by the whole thing.

This. I cannot believe this post is real. Why on earth do some people decide to have children.

i was trying to make my way to my original spot. I wasn’t intentionally pushing him.

There were 2 adults there. Me standing with my daughter and my mum 50 Metres behind who wasn’t standing with us.

I think they struck a nerve and that triggered you. We don't always bring our A-game to parenting and that can be infuriating for us parents when we sort of know that we could have dealt with situations a lot better.

That said, their behaviour sounds aggressive and inappropriate. It's never really appropriate to aggressively confront a parent with a small child who they're actively trying to parent properly, even if you think they're making a meal of it, if everyone's safe and there's no danger.

I wouldn't have been as upset as you, I would have said something like "Excuse me, I'm not interested in your opinion on my parenting and if you have a problem with my child's behaviour, which I'm trying to sort out, feel free to report it to the relevant people". I may not always get it right as a parent, but that doesn't give other people the freedom to behave in an aggressive and harassing manner to me and my children and I'd have no qualms telling them that.

Wow why would you even feel ok to say that to a stranger on the internet? This thread has actually made me feel a lot better as I don’t spend my days insulting complete strangers

Is that you Vogue Williams?😂

Nobody is insulting you. They just think you happen to have been in the wrong on this occasion.

No, you just see red over nothing and push past people irl.

Thanks for this comment, sorry trying to word it without upsetting someone

Mother of rambunctious but lovely three year old here. I’d have told them in fairly colourful terms to do one if they’d commented on my parenting. Yeah, not ideal she stepped on a flower but you weren’t exactly condoning it and it sounds like a busy park with the event as well. You’re always going to encounter people who think it’s their job to comment on stuff they know little about. Chalk it up to experience and don’t give it any more headspace x

You need to calm down op. Your central nervous system seems to be on red alert. Do you have anxiety or other stress related issues?

I would have just said ‘Yes I just explaining how delicate the flowers are to my dd, you are absolutely right to mention it’

End of issue, they don’t know you, so how on earth can they judge your parenting in one single moment. They were probably rightly just very sad to see the flowers being trodden on. As anyone would be. It doesn’t matter if it was an accident - she should not have been there once, much less twice.

Bend down with her next time and explore the petals and delicate pollen, observe how they tilt to the sun and how easily they can be damaged. Then once home, she can draw or paint them. Encourage love and respect for nature every time you are out, then things like this will never happen, as she will learn to look after the wildlife, plants and fauna around her.

You laid your hands on someone pushing past them (assault).

Sounds like he crowded her first, forcing her to push past.

And it sounds like it was the man, using his size against a woman.

I also agree with the op that they picked her as an easy target. They weren't challenging the teenagers acting anti-socially - cause they weren't an easy target.

I think you're massively overthinking this and have turned it into something far more dramatic and deeper than it is. If you turn molehills into mountains regularly it may be good to look at some options for improving your mental health because it sounds like you have some underlying things going on.

Even if you're not objectively parenting very well, it's not really for complete strangers to jump in and start attacking you in an aggressive and personal way. I have had my fair share of parenting "fails" in public and have witnessed many more, and unless there was an immediate danger to the child or others, I wouldn't intervene and, if I did intervene, it wouldn't be aggressively. I suspect that they saw you as 'vulnerable' in some way, because my children have done worse and no one has jumped on me like that and they would have got short shrift if they did.

I think you all sound a bit U. I hate seeing kids trample on plants/ flowers, chase pigeons etc, can’t stand it. But it sounds like an accident so they were OTT. But then you made it even worse by having a go and jostling them out of the way. No justification for the latter. You weren’t entitled to your original spot anyway by then and surely you could see it would just escalate things.

I’d just have smiled and said “I need eyes in the back of my head with this one, but I’m sure it will grow back” and then focussed attention elsewhere and maybe moved to a different area if I thought they were still being odd.

I don't think I've ever encountered so many people in one place who consider a child accidentally stepping on flowers as so serious.

It's like reading a flower version of the scene in Blackadder Goes Forth when there's a trial about the (accidental?) pigeon death.

Flower murder!! You irresponsible bitch!

It's like a parallel (and rather surreal) universe on here.

I'm rarely fast enough to prevent my rather fast DD from decapitating and plucking flowers .... I'd be lynched by now on here.

But as long as the usual suspects have told someone off and feel self righteous, I'm sure they've got their dopamine hit.

op a few months ago a shop worker passive aggressively made comment ‘some people don’t deserve to have children ‘ as i walked out the shop . From witnessing a minute of my life . I think you’ve made a mistake posting on here. I get where you’re coming from as the comment really effected me but you’re not going to feel any better from this thread so I suggest you hide it and try to forget what happened the other day .

Thanks guys, yeah it was so busy everyone was squashed together. When she was originally looking at the flowers I was on my knees stuck between two people and I had to sort of creep round them. I think that other random guy was maybe annoyed at that anyway. I was shocked when he said about pushing because I didn’t think I was near him tbh.

At this point a man starts shouting at me that I’m pushing him.

Was this a THIRD person interjecting himself into the situation or one half of the original couple?

What between these two, possibly three people taking you to task and then your mother stalking off, you've had quite a day of it!