Lady yelled at my son, I feel like the worst mom in the world

[YourBoldCoralDog]

Hi everyone.

As background, my dad has been in the hospital for a month. He’s improving but slowly, and I go every day since my mom isn’t up to being able to follow what the doctors are saying. On Friday he was having a hard day, and my son (5) came with me because he was off school. My husband’s job has also been doing layoffs recently and there was going to be another round that day.

We left the hospital at 1pm - both of us were hungry and my son was restless. We went to a place right by the hospital since the hospital cafeteria area was very busy. Soon after we sat down, my husband called with the news he’s not being laid off but his hours are being cut and was trying to explain it to me. As I was talking to him, but son was up from his chair and playing around the table. By the time I got off the phone, he was running around.

I know this was a total mom fail, and I should’ve intercepted him sooner. But by the time I got up to do so, he’d tripped and knocked a woman’s pasta into her lap. She was probably 25ish, alone and having a glass of wine with lunch while she was reading. My son started crying immediately, and she exploded at him - her immediate reaction to it was to say “what the fuck”. When he started to cry she told him to get away from her and to go sit down like he should have been in the first place; he just stood there frozen and she said he was a brat who was acting like an animal. I rushed over and said I was so sorry but I didn’t appreciate her cussing at and insulting my son, and she said she didn’t appreciate having her lunch dumped in her lap because I’m “too lazy to watch my kid”, and she said something like she wouldn’t have had to say a word to him if I was doing my job.

I was starting to quietly cry too and the manager came up and said she was having our food packed and ushered me away. The staff was quite cold to me as I was paying for my takeaway, and I could see they were apologizing to the lady. I keep having flashbacks to this and feel ashamed at how my son acted, but also about how he saw I didn’t stand up for him in the moment as someone insulted him. Just having a rough time and feeling like a bad mom.

No one comes out well here. All you can do is learn from it - stricter discipline with your DS so that if he even gets up from the table you're on him and hang up the phone. No more long phone calls even on what was clearly an important matter, just tell DH you love him but sorry you can't talk right now and want to hear all his news when you get home. As for the lady I'd have told her off, IMO it isn't acceptable to speak to a child that way whatever has happened. I'd have politely said - excuse me but that isn't an acceptable way to speak to a child. This situation is my fault and I will happily pay for your meal as an apology but I will now take my child and speak to him myself about what he's done. Then discipline him yourself.

Kids in Europe never run around in restaurants because normal culture teaches them how to behave in restaurants.

If a child did get up and start running around, other customers would step in and tell the child to sit down or go back to the parents (without the risk of British parents screaming at them for daring to intervene with their precious brat). The parents would thank the stranger for stepping in.

It's not perfect parenting boasting. It's a pretty basic expectation.

OP isn't coming back...

Sorry 'reassure your son it was an unfortunate accident'? It wasn't an accident, the ds was deliberately running about the cafe, the op wasn't parenting him. Why on earth should he not be told it was his fault?!

There can't be a single child carer in the world, be it Mum, Dad, Uncle, Aunty etc who hasn't taken their eye of the ball for a few seconds and suffered the consequences.

I'm not going to lie, it wasn't good but it wasn't life threatening and I can understand the diners reaction, and whilst her swearing wasn't good in front of a child, it was probably a gut reflex reaction to having hot food dumped in her lap. Allow yourself the grace of having made an unfortunate mistake because you can't rewrite what happened so just learn from it.

Big Hugs - we are all human x

Sorry you’ve had such a bad day and a difficult time lately but yes I’d be shocked and then really cross that someone’s child ran about and knocked a plate of pasta right into my lap .I
hope the staff brought her another meal but really you need to apologise, get her another meal and offer to pay for her clothes to be cleaned

Yes indeed it is pretty rare, and my kids probably wouldn't either, BUT if they did there would be a more tolerant response. Because we take our children out everywhere from being babies in a way that doesn't happen in the UK. And children are not seen as irritants in the same way. I highly doubt that anyone here is having a "child free wedding" for example...

This level of inattention on your part could have ended with your son being badly scalded from a mug of tea or coffee. You're lucky that it was pasta and it didn't fly his way, but had it been a hot drink, your boy could've been in hospital too. Then you'd really be run ragged. I would have deferred answering and taking calls until I was not caretaking a small child.

Your son potentially scolded a woman just minding her own business… and you expect us to feel sorry for you? Wtf OP?

You are clearly having a tough time and in that situation we can all mess up sometimes.
The thing is this lady doesn't know what you're going through and you don't know what she's going through.
I don't think she intended to swear at your son, that was just a reaction. She was quite nasty in what she said but you did stand up for him, why do you think you didn't!
The staff were probably cold to you because he was running around (again they don't know what you're going through) and he upset a customer and the outcome could have been a lot worse.
It was a bad parenting moment (we all have them including the posters who are having a go at you). Try not to dwell on it as there's nothing you can do about it. All you can do is learn from it.

Lots of people saying you're not a bad mum, but there is a catalogue of events that led to this and you wouldn't have cared if she hadn't shouted at your badly behaved, hungry child. So my suspicion is that there is an ongoing pattern of poor parenting and yes, you should be doing a lot of reflection on this.

5 is way too old to be behaving like that in a restaurant.

Poor Pasta Lady. I wonder how far she was from home, if she had any way to change into clean clothes before her afternoons activities. Or if she had to run around the high street in pasta covered clothes to buy something new? Did she have to spend twenty minutes in the toilets scrubbing and then walk around with a wet dress?

Pretty sure her relaxing lunch and glass of wine vibe was ruined.

How do you know OP that she also wasn’t taking a break from visiting a dying relative in hospital? Or perhaps this was her one moment away from her own children?

This was 100% a bad parenting moment. You should have called your husband back after you got your take out, when your child was secured somewhere. Anyone would react and shout out in shock having their hot lunch dumped in their lap like that. Your circumstances and your tears are entirely irrelevant and you should have taken responsibility and made amends.

I agree something like this is less likely to happen with the kids in the European countries I’ve visited. And if it did, sure people might say “de nada” but that’s AFTER the parent/responsible adult would’ve apologised and taken accountability.

I assume that poster lives in Spain.My partner is from Spain and I spend a lot of time over there.

The same “forgiving” attitude they describe would’ve likely been displayed in this instance if OP had taken accountability instead of antagonising the woman further when she was sat with a plate of pasta in her lap thanks to OPs parenting.

As someone with dyspraxia I’ve had my fair share of mishaps even as an adult, and I find mostly everyone (in any country) is very kind once you apologise profusely for knocking into them/their chair/table. Never knocked anyone’s food over, but if I did or any child in my care did I’d immediately offer to replace it rather than start tone policing their immediate reaction.

Sorry, I'm with pasta lady. You should have stopped the call the moment your son got up and made him sit back down.

I'm.sorry you're having a hard time but your son is 5. What's your excuse for the other 4 years and 11 months? A 5 year old should know that you don't get up and run around restaurants.

You ignored your child acting like a feral animal, ruined someone's meal and her clothes and didn't even have the decency to compensate her for it. Yeah, I think your kid could do with being yelled at and the swearing was fair enough.

If you don't want him sworn at or shouted at, do a better job of disciplining him. Badly brought up children misbehaving in public are going to get yelled at. You should be absolutely mortified and apologising to her, not complaining about her swearing. Show at least a little class.

I'm sorry you're having a shit time but you really shouldn't have let him run around like it did to the point he knocks someone else's food all over them (that has to be right into tables etc?). If you weren't paying attention to that, would you have realised if someone has come in a d he'd got out through the open door and onto the road?

I still have a scald mark months on which is now a scar on my chest from where I was knocked into and a full cup of tea was poured over my chest, it took several weeks to actually close over on the first place and was very painful as obviously in constant contact with clothes etc so I totally get the shock "what the fuck?" reaction and hope that it didn't scald her. It wasn't wrong or her to protest against your son and send him away from her too given that it happened through lack of supervision.

Both the cafe and the woman were out of pocket through your sons actions and without an apology, getting your son to apologise and remove him back to your side and a refund of the woman's order and possible cleaning fees too depending on what it was that was ruined (especially if a tomato sauce in her pasta). That was the least you could have done.

I'm sorry you're going through a painful time, I've been there, but it isn't an excuse for what happened.

Although sad and obviously stressful, your back story has absolutely no bearing on what happened in the cafe. Your DS is 5. It shouldn't have even occurred to him that he could just get up and run around freely in a cafe like that. Whether you were/weren't distracted by your phone is immaterial. He should have learned how to behave appropriately in a cafe long before now.

@Oriunda

yes, she should have held her plate above her head the whole time in case any unruly kids wanna run around . Silly woman

I find the "MummaBear" types weird.
They love describing how they'd defend their cubs, getting aggressive verbally and/or physically with anyone who dared cross the path of their precious, throwing glasses of wine, God knows what.
In a way, that's the easy part of parenting and more about the "Mumma" wanting respect for themselves: "No one messes with my kid!".
The hard bit of parenting is the constant trying not to take one's eye off the ball, interacting with your child, teaching manners etc
Sure, nobody's perfect but a plate of pasta in somebody's lap is a big deal and the OP, at the very least, should have been over dealing with it a lot sooner.
I don't believe that anybody anywhere would receive a hot plate of food in their lap and - after the initial surprise - immediately become calm and understanding "Because it’s kids, right?".
Especially if they were then being told off about their initial reaction.

Have you paid for her food and clothes/cleaning? I bet you haven't, otherwise you would have mentioned it.

100% with the pasta woman. I'd be incandescent in her place. Your uncontrolled brat just spoiled her day, ruined her clothes and you're unhappy she's 'cussing' at him. Just unbelievable.

“The staff was quite cold to me as I was paying for my takeaway, and I could see they were apologizing to the lady.” And why wouldn’t they? It’s not as though they could criticise her for sitting in that particular seat is it?

Either way, what’s done is done. You can’t turn the clock back but you can focus on your child in public spaces, this will keep him safe from harm and confrontation should anything else occur. You were mentally in a difficult place being concerned about your sick father and momentarily took your eye off the ball. Move on, stop dwelling and I hope your dads health improves.

You're having a hard time. Shit happens. Not ideal but let it go. Hopefully 5 year old learned something.

Let’s face it, OP’s husband describing in detail how he has t lost his job but his hours have been cut is not an emergency phone call she had to take while in the cafe. Which is rude in and of itself. That could have been a text. It could have been a two minute “Long story short” call with a “I’ll give you all the details this evening/when you get home/when you aren’t in a public place with our child running around unsupervised.”

It’s priorities. The headline was that he hadn’t lost his job. She could have stopped at that and focused back on the child.

This.

I had multiple under 5s - so to take them out they had to be taught early not to run off and in food drink places they sat still or we left and they had to wait for food/drinks longer.

You had a bad day - bad thing happend to the woman with food in her lap - and staff were probably cold as swrioulsy annoyed your kid was running round as hot food/drink on him they'd get blamed. Actions have consquence what can you do but do better going forward with DS behavior and watching him in public places for his safety as well as other people's.

I actually couldn't work that out, so thank you 😂.

OP, nobody covered themselves in glory here, and probably everyone was under an unusual amount of stress given you were all in a hospital.

Given you're the only one here asking for advice, though, and not the other lady, I'm only going to say what I think might be useful for you to take out of this:

1. As you already know, you dropped the ball re watching your child. We've all done it. The consequences her were medium - could have been worse, could have been better. I'm sure you'll learn from this and be a bit more vigilant going forward.
2. I'd also take this as a learning opportunity for your son, explaining that this is a good example of why we don't run around madly in public places and work on that behaviour generally. Proactively taking activities to keep him entertained when you know you'll be somewhere like this can be helpful.
3. I'd also go over this incident particularly with your son and start to lay the foundations of a few key life lessons: 1) you know it wasn't deliberate and the accident doesn't make him a bad child; 2) It's understandable that the lady was upset about this but we have to also remember that she was on a hospital and was probably already having a horrible day - sometimes the reactions we get from people are not all about us and what we've done. 3) HOWEVER it's a good example of how our actions can have consequences for other people and that is the reason we have to be careful - whether or not it's an accident doesn't change the bad consequences for other people. 4) When we do something wrong, we apologise, take responsibility, try our very best to put it right and THEN forgive ourselves.
4. I'd apply all of the lessons in 3) to yourself too. ;-)

I don't expect there's anything you can do to find the lady and offer to pay for her food and clothes cleaning now, so I think all that's left is to take some lessons from it and move on.