Don't play games with people's children. Always plaster on your phoniest smile and reinterpret your inner thoughts like so... "They're so cute and so well behaved," Yeah right.
"I wish I had ten just like them." Then walk away. Or be sincere in your words, then walk away. It's the only way to roll. Now also taking it upon yourself to discipline or touch other's children is just a human no-no. It doesn't matter what they're doing, you don't lash out or manhandle at other's children. Set an example, you're the adult. Plus that can lead to some messy trouble.
Redditor TlGHTSHIRT asked Parents of Reddit, what's been the most WTF moment that you've witnessed with how someone interacts with your child? Some Do's and Don'ts to live by.
26. People are Cray!
GiphyI have a few, though I only witnessed one firsthand.
- Shortly after she was born, I took my daughter to my mom's house. I ran into my mom's neighbor while carrying her to the front door. He stopped to say hi, then told my daughter "I'm sorry you were born, sweetie. Life is going to crap all over you, you'll learn that soon enough."
- My husband was at the grocery store one day, and had our daughter (then about a year old) in the cart. A woman scooted over on an electric scooter and told him she was cute. He said thanks, and she followed up with "but she's so skinny she should be in a concentration camp." He immediately texted me what she said, and we both pondered over the "should" in that sentence.
- Another one from my mother-in-law: my daughter, mil, and husband went out of town together and were staying at a nice hotel. While taking the elevator to their suite, another passenger told them that she's afraid of "little people." She then apparently screamed at my daughter "you're going to kill me!" over and over for the rest of the ride. My daughter was three. fatbottomedsquirrels
25. Slow down!
I've been the wtf person. I grabbed a child and sped off with him.
I was ice skating and zoomed unintentionally towards this kid. He wasn't small enough to go under my legs so I grabbed him and we both slowed to an awkward halt.... I apologized profusely to the parents.
Hey, you apologized! And it was a total accident. At least you didn't plow him over. You saved him from getting a face full of ice after your directional screwup. callmeAllyB
24. Hands to yourself!
I had my 11 day old out at a restaurant for my sister's birthday. I was wearing her in a wrap. A woman came up to me, commented about the baby, and tried to lift her out of the wrap saying "It's okay, I work at a school."
No lady, it isn't okay.
breaking into someone's house Oh hey it's okay I work as a housekeeper. BlondeShadow
Note that "working at a school" doesn't necessarily mean that she was a teacher, or even works with the children.sethben
23. Coloring starts at 3 silly...
When my son was about 2 my husband was at the store with him and a lady came up and said, "Your son's hair is gorgeous, where do you get his highlights done?" Husband came home and asked me if people actually get their toddler sons' hair colored. No, not sane people . . .
22. Kids should carry mace...
My siblings are twins. When they were very little...maybe 6 months, we went to Walmart. People are fascinated with twins, so we got random strangers asking us questions about them all the time. One time, mom and I were fastening them into their carseats and this little old lady wanted to see how cute they were so she CLIMBED into our mini van to get a better look. She didn't mean any harm...but still 7 year old me was creeped out.
21. Stranger Danger!
GiphyWe were invited to a neighbor's party. At this party is another woman I'd never met before, who asked if she could hold my six-month old boy. No problem, he's adorable. She then proceeds to kiss him on the mouth and said, "There, remember that I was your first kiss!"
I immediately took him back and had to avoid her the rest of the evening without being seen as the rude one in the party. She didn't take hints well either.
20. Mrs. Bates is that you?
Nothing as bad as the rest of these, but at age 4 or so, my kid asked a 5 or 6 year old at the public pool if she wanted to play. And the kid gave her a look like the question was insane. But the WTF was the mom's reaction.
"Why was that girl talking to you, do you know her?" And then the mom looks at my kid like she's got 3 heads for daring to ask another child in a public pool to play.
By their appearance and lack of accent they were Midwestern Americans, so there wasn't a cultural reason for the WTF.
19. Traveling can get make you famished...
Apparently when I was a baby, a woman came up to me on a train and said hi to me and played with me for a second then took one of my feet and put it in her mouth.
My parents switched carriages after that (thank God).
18. Near Amber Alert
We were at Walmart during a serious regional water outage, so it was absolutely swamped with people looking for bottled water.
A friend of my mother in law was there, unknown to us, and without any warning, came up from behind and tried to lift our infant son from my wife's arms.
This of course sent my wife into a panic, since she thought it was an attempted abduction using the crowd for cover, and she was still on edge even after recognizing the woman.
Neither MIL nor her friend understood why my wife was so upset with the woman. We don't really talk to the woman or her family anymore, and MIL still thinks we're too hard on her friend. Reddit
17. Don't Tell Dad The Babysitter's Dead
When my oldest was about 2 months old and I was still on maternity leave, I had a homeless (I suspect) woman approach me and ask if she could have my baby.
We were living in a not so great area of a suburb of Dallas. A place where we'd sometimes get homeless 40+ year olds trick-or-treating by themselves on Halloween. I had just taken my baby to the doctor for a checkup, it was probably a week after I'd been cleared to drive after an emergency C-section. This crazy woman, who I'd never seen on my street before, and who looked and smelled like she hadn't bathed in at least a week, approached me as I struggled to get the baby carrier out of the car. She said my baby was beautiful, and asked if she could keep it for awhile. I said no, so she asked if she could babysit. I said no thanks, and made a limping break for the front door. I locked the door and called my husband for help. She hung out around the front porch for the half hour before he made it home. We moved away from that area a month later. Reddit
16. Ummm... thank you?
GiphyWhen my son was around 8 mos and I was changing him in the bathroom a woman came out of a stall, strangely surveyed my diaper change practices then proceeded to tell me how my son has a big penis before leaving without washing her hands.
15. If you see something... DO SOMETHING!
I was at the park with my then 4 yo and my ex and our friend were both there with us. We were letting him run around but we sort of made a perimeter just in case he fell or got too far away, when all 3 of us immediately noticed a couple following him around the park. Now, it wouldn't have been terribly strange to see other parents sort of keeping an eye out on other peoples small children- but these weren't parents. They were at least in their 50s and visibly on drugs. Every time my son would move- they would move. And they kept closing the distance a little more each time. Until eventually they were calling to him, and beckoning him to come over to them.
The man kept staring over at their van- I can't make this up, it was the creepiest windowless van I've ever seen- and that's when we scooped up the boy and left the park. There wasn't any way I could have proven they were going to try to steal him- but every single bone in my body- as well as his dad's and our friend- pretty much told us to get the hell out of there. We didn't even mention that we were all 3 watching them until we were all back in the car- and almost all at the same time we said to each other "did you see those people watching the kid???" So. Creepy.
14. He's not your Precious!
I took my 4 yo and 1 yo nephews out to the park a couple months ago. While they were running around chasing each other in the grass this woman comes out of no where, grabs my older nephew and starts sort of petting his hair.
I bolted towards him as soon as I saw her reaching for him and grabbed him within 5 seconds of her picking him up and then grabbed younger nephew Incase she tried to go for him next.
I'd never seen this woman before in my life and have no idea why she thought it was okay to grab a stranger's child.
13. Not for a penny under $11,000.00 Sir!
When i was a little over a year old my parents took me to a blockbuster so they could pick up a couple movies. An elderly man approached them and offered to buy me for $10,000. They thought he was joking at first. But no, he was dead serious trying to buy me.
12. You are NO Phd my friend!
This happened to me when I was about 3 years old. My mom told me about this like a year ago: Some guy who was known as Dr. House in our village (because of his insane drug use and his appearance), walked up to me in a park and started talking to me in baby language: goo goo ga ga blah blah blah, etc... My mom thought he was just being funny, but he became really angry when he heard I could actually talk. He lifted me in the air and stumbled away with me in his hands, yelling: Little liar! A guy who was also in the park then tackled our beloved doctor and brought me back to my mom.
11. How about I smack you sweetie??
One of my ex husband's aunts was obsessed with my daughter. She was constantly trying to separates my daughter and I so she could be alone with her. Like she'd offer to change or feed her then take her to separate room away from me.
I can honestly make a list of some of the weird things she's done.
Probably one of the most wtf thing was when my daughter was 2. She was toddling around being her normal cute self. Aunt reaches out and slaps/grabs my daughter's bottom and says "Such cute little butt." I start yelling at her, everyone thinks I'm blowing it out of proportion. That was probably one of the most wtf things I've seen.
10. Wanna lose an appendage?
My daughter is my biological daughter. We are American. She was born in Atlanta, Ga. She's now an adult. However, she and i have both been asked her entire life if she is adopted. Complete strangers when they see her in person or in a photograph will always ask where she is from. They never believe us but oh well lol.
Once when she was around 13 we were in the mall and a female employee approached us in a store and started making small talk. She then starts asking about my daughter's ethnicity and commenting on how exotic she looks, how beautiful she was, etc.
She starts asking if my daughter was a dancer? Not sure why. My daughter says yes. Then the woman starts asking where she danced, if she has recitals, can she come watch sometime. I mean she's just staring at my daughter like she's in a trance. Then she starts touching her face and rests her hand on her shoulder. I grabbed my daughter by the hand and left. Touching my kid crosses the line. Wtf!
9. Twerk, twerk, twerk, twerk, twerk...
My husband, son and I had just moved to Las Vegas and were at the Walmart grabbing a few things we needed for our new place. My son was 1.5 and caught the attention of an older lady, who was there with her adult daughter. As we were talking, the daughter's daughter (in her 20s) showed up. She heard we were new to town and said "ahhh yah, I'm bout to twerk it out for your son real quick, welcome to Vegas, little man!" and then she twerked for my child.
8. Save it for therapy Nana...
First time my mother in law met my son, he was maybe 2 weeks old. She walked in the front door from the airport, sat down and I let her to hold him.
She smiles and then stares straight into his eyes and turns to me and says, "He's so beautiful. I want to see him cry! <turns to baby> Will you cry for Grandma?"
We all just stared at her, dumbfounded. Who does that? I can't even remember how I responded, honestly.
7. A Mother Scorned
My 3 year old daughter is allergic to strawberries, my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law both know this and have been asked multiple times to not keep them where she can find them.
A few weeks ago I went to pick her up from their house, and I find her sitting at the bar eating strawberries with them. I went ballistic. They said they "didn't see the harm" and of course not. They weren't the ones who had to comfort her for the following 24 hours while she was covered from head to toe with hives and having explosive diarrhea.
I no longer allow her to be over there unless my husband or I are there too, I can't trust them not to do it again. Reddit
6. Beauty can be Painful...
My sons are all very good looking. My first eye-awakening moment came with my oldest. By the time he was in high school, I got use to girls his age and slightly older making comments but I was left speechless and shocked when I overheard the Mothers of my daughter's friends... people my age and older talking about him in the same sexual way. It was sickening and then when they noticed I heard them, they laughed and tried to pass it off as a joke or light-hearted banner. Still upsets me.
The other issue I had to deal with is the amount of pictures other girls would take of my sons and spread them online. Learned through the grapevine some of the hashtags used. At one baseball game, there where some high school girls making rude comments about one of my sons and taking pictures of his butt everytime he bent down as a catcher. I didn't say anything to them as his girlfriend went after them and after she was done, she had managed to embarrass them in front of the entire crowd enough that they quickly left. Tbjkbe
5. Rude.
I moved a bowl of peanut M&Ms out of reach for my 16 month old (at the time) who is highly allergic to peanuts. It was from a low table on one side of a walkway to a higher counter, literally 2 feet away. My sister in law then says to me, "you can't keep her in a bubble forever." No kidding, a**hole, but she's a baby and doesn't understand that those beautiful little pieces of candy will kill her, and she can't talk to tell me if she eats one and has a reaction. With about million kids running around and chaos all over, I'm not taking any chances. My sister in law also has food allergies so you'd think she'd understand, but it turns out she's just rude. jessipowers
4. I don't want him!
This isn't creepy and probably doesn't belong here but it's funny. Whenever my mom and us kids would go to the grocery store, my baby brother would find any empty shelf and sit down and say, "Free boy for sale!" (I know but it was cute) Anyway, one day he did this and an older women said, "I'll take him!" to be funny. We laughed. My brother ran to my mom and wouldn't stop crying because he didn't want her to take him. bakersdaughter95
3. Teachers should be patient. No?
I didn't witness this, but I heard it from my son and his classmates. Apparently, a substitute teacher made my left handed son write with his right hand. In 2018. She also made his stand at the board in front of class and practice writing his 3,7, and 9 the correct way. He's in 4th grade and of normal intelligence, so he shouldn't be writing his numbers backwards anymore, but he does. It's an occupational disability and we're working on it. Did she think she would suddenly cure him by forcing him to practice? Like nobody had thought of making him practice before? Wtf. caseylynn1978
2. College Funded by Looks!
We were visiting Galveston TX when my daughter was 2. She looked like a doll. Big blue eyes and bouncy curly hair. The entire day Hispanic people would come up to her and give her money! I would say oh thank you but that's not necessary. To which they kept saying yes yes it is custom. Good luck to give beautiful children money. At the end of the day she had 50.00! Is this a common custom? blueirisheyes
1. You're not Peter Pan!
My mom's boyfriend has never had kids, but has a TON of nieces and nephews. So you'd think he'd know how to interact with my kids, right?
Once, he came out of the kitchen, yelled "look guys!" and put a plastic bag over his head. I had to explain to him why not to do that.
Another time, we were camping, and he yelled "look guys!" again, and began throwing large rocks at our tent. Again, confused about why I was concerned. He's not allowed to be alone with my kids. mindiloohoo
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