Public Property ?

[lakeland27]

today i had an incident occur involving my 3 and 3 quarter year old son . its something that happens reasonably often.. and i wonder if it is rude of me to respond in the way i do.

I take him with me to the local shopping precinct in order to run some errands , and he tends to attract a bit of attention from some 'ladies' there as he is rather a cute little chap (its in his DNA 🙂 thanks tone).

anyway, the first lady drops down to his level and says 'i'd like to take him home .. what a gorgeous little boy.. etc'' i say 'yes , a lot of people say that' (or something similarly bland) and the woman ignores me totally and continues to annoy him with tickles and other unwanted attention. I take his hand and walk on only for the same thing to happen again... lady talks to my son and ignores me totally. dont get me wrong, i don't want the attention of these people.. but i do get annoyed with the ignorant behaviour so i asked the 3rd person not to talk to him, and told her to 'retreat' in no uncertain terms as the boy gets tired of it himself. needless to say person No3 gets irate and calls me various things .

am i being unreasonable ? it seemed a fair number in the crowd there thought so.

[izabsmiling]

I can understand how you felt .Could it have been the 'no uncertain terms' used that others thought unreasonable (rather than the reason you felt the way you did..others wouldn't have known 'why' would they  ?)

[donnashuggy]

He probably needs a haircut, used to happen to my son all the time too, one of those mullets should do the trick 😄

[just_me_karen]

Most parents would be proud, why can't you thank them and move along? Or teach him some self protective behaviours. Most kids of that age are excellent at letting adults know when enough is enough, so I'm thinking it's more your problem than his. I'm thinking of a tshirt he could wear that would discourage the women 😄

[lakeland27]

possibly iza 🙂 i can be a little caustic.

[azureline**]

Unreasonable to expect strangers to respect boundaries? no.

However, twice already and then you let them have it....maybe a tad unreasonable. Person 3 took the brunt of it undeserved. However, person 3 should not respond like that.

There are polite ways to get people to leave children alone in public.

[lakeland27]

He probably needs a haircut, used to happen to my son all the time too, one of those mullets should do the trick 😄

no , he had a haircut recently

[cherry*135]

Can you just say something like.. we have a lot on today, can't stay and chat... and keep moving. (keep moving might be the most important bit, unless they are accosting you while you are standing in a shop queue).

[izabsmiling]

some admirers can be a bit much and even scary

[lakeland27]

Most parents would be proud, why can't you thank them and move along? Or teach him some self protective behaviours. Most kids of that age are excellent at letting adults know when enough is enough, so I'm thinking it's more your problem than his. I'm thinking of a tshirt he could wear that would discourage the women 😄

i've exhausted all of the 'nice' and 'tactful' methods. his t-shirt hasn't any of the more obvious motifs karen. besides, with a child in tow i'm very well behaved. i don't want to influence his behaviour in any way (set a poor example for want of a better expression)