Made to feel uncomfortable

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Flower

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gally that's just brought back a scary moment I had, with my two DC in the car aged 4 and 2. I rounded a corner going down a very steep and twisty country lane, with high hedges on either side to find an enormous fierce bull blocking the whole lane and coming towards me. Panic! I had to reverse back up and round tight bends praying nothing else was coming down until I got back to the main-ish road I had turned off. It was the days before mobile phones (1975) so I knocked on the nearest door and asked them to phone the police and the local farmer then, shaking like a leaflet (as Vincent Simone puts it ) I went back home another way.

Sorry to digress from the OP but it all came back in a vivid memory thinking about the baby in the road!

GM
My Mum had a similar experience many years ago on a country lane; drove round a corner to find a crawling baby in the middle of the road who had escaped from a garden. In this case, the mother wasn't 'bovvered', although my Mum was and had to compose herself for some time before being able to continue her journey!

Would you believe I meant gap and not General Practitioner or even GrandParent !!!

I am sure I have boredtold you all about the time in Edinburgh I grabbed a baby as it was determinedly crawing across the pavement towards the kerb - and not far off reaching it! I couldn't believe my eyes! There was no sign of a Mum until a young woman burst out of a phone box - bit like Superman- and rushed towards us, suitably contrite and grateful. Her baby had apparently crawled under the gp at the bottom of the phone box and she hadn't even noticed!!!

There's being careful and there's being rude! Nasty woman - poor little girl.
I spoke to a Dad carrying a smallish baby in our village shop last week, never seen him before - must be new to the village or only gets sent out at weekends for the paper. Anyway, I had a little chat to the baby as you do, and Dad glared at me as if I were invading his space - not so much as a smile or a reply on behalf of the child. If he carries on like that I can't see him managing village life for very long (probably a townie who can't stand the smell of cows or the sound of church bells ringing either )

B****y cheek! No manners themselves, ignore the child, and condemn you for acknowledging a friendly greeting. And if you feel embarrassed and slink out then you risk looking guilty. If they accused you of stealing a purse, you could be indignant, but such a vague suspicion is difficult to counter.

If I were feeling confident (not always the case) and had been in that situation, I would like to think that I would have paused at their table and said - loud enough to be heard by others in the cafe -

"Excuse me interrupting your chat, let me introduce myself.
While I was sitting drinking my coffee and reading my paper, your child wandered by and said hello to me. I smiled back and said hello, then went back to the paper. I have three grandchildren of my own, and much as I like children, I don't need another.

Nor do I need to be treated as a potential kidnapper for politely returning a greeting. I can give you my name and address if you would like to get me officially checked out. If not, please don't label me to all the customers in this room as a danger to children as you are now doing"

To do that would need some gall, though! We should be more assertive. why put up with it?

Thanks for all the replies, I did wonder whether I was being over sensitive! The mother was with a couple of other young women (neither of them had a child with them) and they all glared as I walked out.

I do sometimes smile and say hello to a child sitting in a trolley in a supermarket PROVIDED Mum is there. I often see kids sitting in parked trolleys and I have no idea where Mum is, then I don't speak to the child.

It is a sad society when we are wary of speaking, or even helping, a small child.

not a pleasant experience for you Sunseeker !

Yep! GUILT on the part of the 'mother'. Silly woman.

I am afraid that recently I deliberately ignored a crying, temporarily lost child in a supermarket. I could easily have escorted her to Customer Service but I was afraid of being accused of stealing her. A sad world.