Made to feel uncomfortable

Strangers often speak to my DGC when I take them out......they are adorable who could resist them . DGC are being taught that it is OK to say hello as long as they are with a grown up member of the family. I find it sad that the people who speak to them often feel they have to apologise to me for speaking to DGC. What a sad world this is becoming.

To digress slightly my car is being serviced today so I have had to use the almost non existent bus service between village and town. The bus driver was most unhelpful but the fellow passengers supplied me with the information I needed re bus stops. We all had a good chat and a bit of a laugh and I shared my sweets with everyone before I got off. I even said goodbye to the grumpy driver.

When we were having afternoon tea at a lovely NT property, GS3 decided he would prefer to be with another rather bemused family which he went to join and nattered to them in his own inimitable language for quite a long time until DS decided to relieve them of his company.

Someone once delivered my 2.5 year old DD to me at the front gate naked and very muddy. Last I had seen of her was in our (secure - as I thought!) garden running about fully clothed. We searched the garden and found that she had discarded her T-shirt and shorts and burrowed her way out under the fence like a puppy!!! - all in the space of 10 minutes. I was deeply grateful to the person who rescued her and brought her home and thanked him profusely. I did not for one moment think of her having been assaulted/abducted.

Sunseeker
Tch! In my day you'd have felt embarrassed that your child was bothering other people. When I was young it never occurred to me that old people had had babies of their own (I didn't have grandparents growing up).

If my child had interrupted someone reading a paper I would have assumed that OP would be annoyed. I expect Mum in question has very little support and perhaps feels a little beleaguered for her to have such peculiar ideas about other people.

Mishap - a very similar thing happened to friends whose 2 and 3 year old grand daughters escaped from the garden, despite both their grandparents and parents being in and out of the house. A car stopped, the little girls managed to point out grannies garden, and the driver brought them safely home. It's good that there are kind, helpful and safe adults around and a great pity that we have such fear of 'stranger danger'.

I may have told this story: Each year we used to go to a friend's farm to see Santa and real reindeer (they were the Cairngorm Reindeer who were staying on the farm while doing the Christmas rounds in Cambridge)

My two little granddaughters and a grandson were in the Santa queue and they were running around and being a bit silly. It was dark and crowded and it was a working farm so I told them firmly to stand still in the queue and wait their turn. They did this and were being very well behaved, which is more than their grandpa was. My granddaughter suddenly said 'Look Grandma, what on earth is Grandpa doing' I looked in horror at my DDH who had two little girls by the collars of their coats and was saying rather sternly 'You have been asked enough times to stand still with Grandma if you continue running around you will get in the car and we will go home!!' I lurched across the farmyard and grabbed him before their irate grandmother reached him. He had the wrong children. The thing is ours were 5 and 6 and these two were at least 9 and in different colour coats. He was mortified. The gran saw the funny side after the initial shock of seeing her two grandchildren being snatched by a bearded stranger.

Obviously he has never been allowed to forget his faux pas. It is too funny a story to let go of. The granddaughters do mention the time grandpa tried to steal two little girls.

Flower

I'm rather like anno's first post.

Could it have been a misunderstanding? Is it possible that your return to reading the paper could have been seen as a snub to the little one? Could they have thought you were grumpy and not interested in their little darling?

I simply haven't had such an experience and am an inveterate chatterer to little children and babies. Neither DH nor I can resist them.

She was probably embarrassed that she had been so preoccupied with whatever she was doing (talking/texting on the phone or chatting to her friends?) that she hadn't noticed her child had wandered off. It's the good old adage of when ashamed about yourself, blame someone else.

Flower - that is just hilarious.

Ds was always wandering off. He loved talking to strangers, so I kept him on a lead reins until he was well over three, he used to try to lose us on purpose when we went shopping, he was dreadful. So I do ask any children that look lost, if they are, but find that I am talking to them from about 2 yards away just in case someone thinks that I have an ulterior motive. I think I would have lost my temper in sunseeker's position, and asked what the problem was in a very frosty tone.

Ds now 18, still striking up conversations with total strangers, still deviating from prescribed routes. When we go out together I still sometimes wish I had him on reins.

Think I may keep my DDH on reins until he is 74

You might find this hard to believe, but it's true. About 30 yrs ago I was in a launderette in Maldon( Essex) washing my duvets.
In there at the same time were 4 gypsy women. We have a lot of sites in this area. The door was open and a toddler ( theirs) was making its way quickly to wards the road.
I ran and picked him up and brought him back into the launderette. In a split second, they shut the door, started screaming at me for touching their child and then they started to push me around. This quickly turned to them hitting me. By now I was shouting for help. Fortunately the owner lived above the shop and came down. Of course they stopped.
I didn't report it as all of us in the area knew what their revenge could be.
Not to say that this would have happened to me, but we all knew about a remote pig farm and what could/ did go on there.

I hope they only fed vegetarians to the pigs.

I did read that, just as we were always told that if we weren't good the gypsies would take us away (how awful!) that in the meantime, they too were saying exactly the same thing to their children.

Clearly the women isn't looking after her own daughter if she is allowing her to just wonder round a cafe.
Don't give it another thought the women is ridiculous in her rude behavior.

sunseeker I think others have generally pointed out that it is the mothers problem not yours. Inadequates generally blame others for their own faults.

I thought of this thread yesterday - I went to a big posh farm shop locally and it was heaving, as it sells the most amazing food ever. REALLY not a place to take small children, as it's the equivalent of Santa's Grotto for adults. We were making up a hamper of foods for DH's 80 year old uncle, his 80th falls on 28th December so we were pushing the boat out a bit, DH was carrying the food and we walked into a room filled with just cakes and chocolates and biscuits! Amazing ones, and a mother and grandmother were trying to ease a boy of about three out of the room. He wouldn't go. I started examining the cakes on offer and heard the women say 'that's it, we're going now, we're leaving you behind!' and they left. As I was just about to pick up a coffee and walnut cake, a grubby finger appeared and gouged a hole through clingfilm into a lemon cake next to it! Then pulled it out and sucked it and inserted it again! I hauled him away by his hood and turned him around whilst saying very sternly 'No! You are NOT to touch those cakes!' Only to come face to face with horrified Ladies...

I quickly smiled at them (forced, whilst remembering poor sunseeker's treatment) and showed them what he had done, thinking that they would take it and pay for it, but no. They just glared at me and walked off.

eeeuw. Reinforces my resolve not to buy those pastries that are left lying around in garages etc with no covering or protection

An elderly gentleman said to me that with people being so wary of 'stranger danger' these days, it means that he is fearful of even smiling at a child in case he is branded as a pervert. Such a shame. We do need to warn children as our parents did us with the 'don't talk to strangers' rule. However, this woman was with her child and the child made the first move. So what was wrong with that? My 2 GDs often chat away to people when I'm out and about with them - they are too young to be anywhere on their own. I'm sure their parents will gently explain the talking to strangers rule in good time.
Often elderly people are on their own and their grandchildren live a distance away so saying hello to a child makes their day. Lets use our common sense.

Good for you Jane.

There is an expression something like it takes a village to raise a child. I think meaning that adults should work together to ensure acceptable behaviour in their communities children. Its fraught with possible problems but you can get the drift of this as a useful concept.

Added to this I have often responded to a "chatty" smiling baby in a supermarket trolley without any problems.
When a baby is trying to engage with you it's hard not to.

I rescued a lost kid once in Cowley Centre when I lived near. He was wandering around with a blankie and crying....the second time I saw him I thought 'better me than someone else' and went over and said 'have you lost your mum?' and he nodded. I took him straight in the nearest shop and asked them, and they pointed me at the site office, where a uniformed woman took him and went off to see if they could find his mother.

It was an awful sight to see that no one was actually reacting to this child obviously lost and crying. And I felt even worse that I had had to hesitate before I did anything.
Also the office were not pleased to see me, and I got no appreciation, no thanks and no more information from anyone.....but I still am glad I did it because it was the right thing to do.

Writing this has made me cry again.

When I have a 'chat' with a baby or toddler in the checkout queue, I often end up having a chat with the mum and the checkout person as well. Our Waitrose is a friendly place!

Wish I hadn't posted that now.

Alie, ask GN to delete it for you - I'm sure they will. Or did you just mean it had made you sad to write it down?

First time I said it in public. I didn't know it would still be so upsetting...I wanted a friendly response