child wearing eye patch and nosey strangers

[mrsmaltesers]

am looking for some advice? my DD wears an eye patch for 6 hours a day (eye doctors orders, etc).
strangers think it's "ok" to ask me/her "what's WRONG with her?" I get very cross. Today I lost it completely and ranted at some man - i said "i'm sure you can appreciate it's NOT helpful nor very polite to ask what's "wrong" with a child" ... i went on a bit longer and got very upset and cried as i left the shop.

what can i say instead? he said "it's because we care". WTF?????????????????????? he was a STRANGER. are tehre no manners any more?

thanks for any ideas of what to say. I almost don't go out any more because of these STUPID comments. It's really getting me down. thanks

Say something totally ridiculous that makes them look stupid like

"A shark bit her in the eye when we were swimming in the local pool"

"He accidently gauged his eye out with his hook hand"

Or something....

How about "It's my policy not to answer questions about my DC from strangers. Thanks for your concern though. Good morning/afternoon".

The "it's my policy" baffles people a bit and throws them off and puts the control back to you rather than bringing "you" into the sentence eg "i don't want to discuss x,y,z with you".

I have used when I didn't want to take a parcel in "Oh sorry it's my policy not to take parcels in. good day!".

You have absolutely no reason to answer questions from strangers or even talk to them.

I feel for you I really do, have been there many times myself. Please don't let these people wind you up, it's not worth your energy, honestly For most people they don't think they are being rude, just curious and unfortunately this will very likely continue, not saying you have to like it at all. I would say, she has a squint, smile at them and walk away, end of conversation. Or, if you feel like it, we thought it looked nice/different/made her stand out from the crowd, smile at them and walk away.

also thinking of taking up taboulehs advice, school keep quoting their policies at me, I think I may have to start quoting a few of my own back

I get more angry with staring and no questions. Use it as a chance to educate the ignorant.

My son loved his patch when he was little he had a squint that had to be operated on in the end. He liked all the different colours and pattern they came in. We didn't get many comments so hopefully you won't and that was just a one of type.

My dd had a patch and also a facial disfigurement, I used to get this a lot. Like you, I once lost it with some man in the bank. You have my complete sympathy.

My strategy when somebody asked what's wrong was to smile proudly and say "Nothing is wrong with her." The people would then either look at me like I was mad or else get embarassed. Either way I didn't have to get into discussions with strangers about dd's medical condition.

And of course there was (and is) nothing wrong with my dd. She is perfect

I've been there too mrsmaltesers. We get a lot of "are they real glasses?". What kind of weirdo puts 'pretend' glasses on a 2yr old? My worst one from a stranger was when I was buying a copy of autism file, and he sneered and said "you're not worried about giving him the jab are you?", pointing at ds2. I was so caught off guard that I just told him, "no, my other son has ASD". The man disappeared but I felt like he'd won as everyone in the shop was staring at me.