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.

This was the first thing that went through my mind. She was on her own: we have no idea whether she was also going through something.

It does seem that there's a lot of the 'bless they're kids, any behaviour is fine'.

I hope you offered to pay for her lunch and comp her the price of her outfit. That's the least you could do. How awful to have your day ruined by someone spilling hot pasta in your lap! She would have had to go home and change and pasta (tomato/oil) almost certainty will not come out of it even with dry cleaning. You should be grateful something worse didn't happen. I once saw a young boy that age running wild knock over a woman carrying a very young newborn.

Exactly.

From the woman's POV - she sat down for a quiet lunch with a book - goodness knows what is going on for her in her life, but the very least she deserved was to enjoy her meal in peace, she wasn't interfering with anyone else. What she got was a plate of hot food suddenly dumped into her lap, and then start wailing at her table with no parents in sight. Then a non-apology when the mother finally turns up and a 'telling off' for having the temerity to act in response to a stressful and possibly painful situation. By the sounds of it the woman could have been financially disadvantaged and possibly injured by this situation which AGAIN FOR THOSE WHO ARE HARD OF THINKING she did not bring upon herself in any way, shape or form. She went out for a quiet lunch and to read her book.

Most parents in that position - thankfully never us - would surely be profusely apologizing - trying to sort out issue their child caused - and telling their child off.

Not shruging off the damage and having a go at person telling the problem causing child off - and then busting into tears when staff deal with the issue by helping the poor woman and getting rid of said parent and destructive child.

We all have bad days and parental laxes - normally well behaved kids can pick up stress and act out .

However having a go at the poor women becuase your lack of suitable supervision of your child old enough to behave better as you didn't like her reaction to the problem caused by your child - were my sympathy does run out.

It also suggest a certain mindset that suggests this may well be not a one of lapse and more expectation that eveyone esle should just smile at your child poor behavior in public - the older the kids are less and less this is likely so you really do need to step up how to behaved and at 5 that shouldn't include running round in cafe and places where hot drinks and food are served for his safety.

I thought that perhaps the OP is in the States, given the 'mom' and therefore won't have started school yet? Maybe the hospital is not in the town where she lives and she couldn't organise pick-up from nursery or kindergarten?

OP hasn't come back. Don't think she is getting the reaction she expected. I would be furious is someone's out of control child tipped my hot food into my lap and would expect an apology at the very least.

I would have gorgiven the WTF, but I don't think anyone has the right to call a child a brat or an animal, I think that's disgusting. She should should have directed her anger at you, although we are all all have the odd mum fail, so I'd forgive that too.

Basically your both in the wrong, mistakes happen

OP, don´t beat yourself up. We are humans and not perfect and the kid is learning ( I can almost guarantee there won´t be much running around restaurants for him). The interaction was unpleasant for more than him though. I do hope you offered to pay for her lunch at least. I can see it from the other lady´s point of view too and she was minding her own business and came out of it with her lunch all over her. So that´s the minimum you should do.
Years ago I boarded a bus with my disabled mum and a 10? year old pushed my mum out of the way to sit herself and the grandmother was defending that. Totally mistaken attitude and it pissed me off to no end. You can´t defend the indefensible.

OP is probably a journalist farming for content given her one and only post.

I'm not talking about the woman in the restaurant, I'm talking about the viciousness towards the OP here. She's explained her situation, ill parent, daily trips to the hospital over a month, partner facing redundancy, feelings of shame and upset at what happened to the woman and for her parenting mishap and towards her reaction to her son.

You know those lists, the ones that quantify what experiences in life cause the most stress, like divorce, bereavement, serious illness, redundancy, long term care responsibilities etc? I don't remember a bowl of pasta landing in your lap figuring on that, do you?

Yes you handled that badly OP. Need to reflect on that regardless of whatever else is going on in your life. The way you reacted was very embarrassed so I’m not surprised you keep thinking about it. Bottom line is you weren’t conciliatory enough to the woman. I’m embarrassed for you. Watch your child next time. Everyone has stuff going on, literally everyone has their own cross to bear.

I certainly would NOT be happy with having my meal pushed in to my lap! The woman should not have swore at your son though. I expect that was down to shock.

At 5 years old, you can't take your eye off them for one minute, especially in a place where hot food is being carried out. It would have been a very sad situation if your son had knocked in to a waitress with a bowl of soup and become injured. The woman is right, if you had been doing your job as a mother properly, she wouldn't have had to say anything.

I'm guessing from your post that you yourself grew up in the 2010s. When I was growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, no other children I knew would have been allowed to run around a restaurant, causing havoc. We've passed on such boundaries to our children today. But it seems such behavioural standards skipped many of your generation who are now passing it on to the next one.

Reins are good for parents who struggle with concentration, clip him up and keep hold of the handle in places where danger is present. I dread to think what would have happened if you'd had a 'lapse' of concentration near to a busy road.

There reins are available in the UK here https://www.dunelm.com/product/trunki-toddlepak-betsy-the-bear-walking-reins-safety-harness-1000257417?defaultSkuId=30975810&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Storage_Travel-PMax_%5BGOO-PLA-STORAGE-LUGGAGE%5D&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20006454191&gbraid=0AAAAADGqyX0iWZn7HVwx-fmqX_mOa8J1E but Google will also have links to other countries' options.

At 5 years old, I wouldn't have shouted and I definitely wouldn't have swore but I would have no hesitation in asserting boundaries with someone else's child where the parent has failed/neglected to do so. If you don't want other people telling your children off, then I recommend setting boundaries in place your self of what is and isn't acceptable behaviour madam.

The woman should not have swore at your son

She didn't swear at the child. It was a automatic response to what happened- it wouldn't have been directed at anyone in particular.

All of this.

Some years ago, my late husband had open heart surgery in Edinburgh. I was a middle manager in a school and my HT agreed that on days when my non-teaching time was in the afternoon, I could leave work early and catch up my admin in my own time. (God bless the man - he covered my lunch duty for me.)

It took over an hour for me to get to the hospital. As well as working, I was also providing significant input for my elderly, housebound parents, back in my hometown, so my day consisted of working, getting to hospital as soon as possible, checking on my parents and getting home. Repeat. (Should only have been for a week, but DH had complications and was in Edinburgh for a month at least.)

Sometimes I'd get to the hospital and be told that the nurses were busy with my husband and that I should come back in an hour. If that happened, I'd try to get a meal.

I can imagine that I'd not have reacted well to having food dumped over my good suit.

Stress doesn't excuse letting a child run amok in a restaurant though, does it?

Many of us have experienced periods of stress like the OP, or even worse. Doesn't mean we can let our children cause havoc. And at 5, a child knows to stay seated in a restaurant. So this isn't even a taking her eye off the ball for 5 seconds.

This is a) not teaching the child very, very basic expectations, b) not apologising profusely for their failure and c) trying to play victim when called out on it.

Mom could be west midlands - I was thinking inset day why child wan't in school.

None of that excuse the OP paying more attention to her phone than her child.

Ah, thanks.

Bloody hell, I'd go ballistic, if I was her.
🙄

So you're defending the op and her child's behaviour.. but another child acting with similar disregard for others' well-being is 'indefensible'?

She says he was off school so he clearly goes sometimes. Mom is commonly used in the West Midlands.

Swearing isn't great but I'm also thinking her food was probably hot and shocked her. I'd probably have sworn instinctively in that scenario as well.

Sorry op but you're right that this was on you, however it doesn't make you a bad mum - you're much more than one moment in time. You need to give this a 5 minute funeral and move on from it. Both you and your ds learnt a valuable lesson and you'll both do things differently going forwards.

You didn't defend your child because actually he'd got it wrong - unless there are additional needs, he should know that being up running around a restaurant is not on. And defending him wasn't appropriate because he was doing something he shouldn't have been. He received a natural consequence to his behaviour and that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself. But there's also a lesson for you in that he needs more attention from you than what you'd guessed in the moment and yes you should have intervened well before things got to that point - it's done now, you can't change it so there's absolutely zero point in beating yourself up with it. Every one of us at some point has dropped a ball in one way or another.

And/or using ChatGPT to create a post that will be guaranteed to get responses. Fed with seeing these everywhere now.

Reins?! He was 5 human years I'm assuming, not 5 dog years. You can absolutely take your eyes off a typical 5 yo in a public place without them running amok and causing havoc. In this situation I can give some grace because he'd had a boring and tiring day, but if this is how he usually acts in a restaurant there are bigger issues at play.