So annoyed

I have to say, I think I’ve been pretty lucky so far.

I’ve heard so many stories about strangers coming up to mothers and criticising them, or providing unsolicited advice. Every time I read about this happening, I think to myself, “Oh, if someone did that to me, I’d tell them where to go…”

So, yesterday, I took Pumpkin out to the shops for a change of scenery, as I’d been working at home all day (or at least trying to).

Now, the shops are directly below our flat. I go out the front door and not even 20 seconds later, I’m in a shop.

Convenient, right? It also means that, even in really cold weather, I don’t need to worry about bundling the kid up in all sorts of layers. The cosytoes on her new pram is nice and warm and I pop a hat on her if she’s not wearing something with a hood. Literally, we’re outside for seconds. She’s not going to freeze – and actually, a few days earlier, she had her coat on when we went shopping and she started to overheat.

 

We were in a clothing store, attempting to stock up on pyjamas (her feet are going to burst through her current collection of onesies soon), when a woman – a complete stranger – walked up to us, bent down, TOUCHED my baby’s face and said to her: “Your mama needs to dress you more warmly.”

I was livid.

But what did I do? I went in to defence mode.

Instead of telling her to eff off. I started babbling on about how we live nearby.

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“Oh, we live just up-” I stopped myself when I realised what I was doing. It was too late, though. She’d gotten in her little jibe and was starting to walk away, with no interest in my response.

But then she stopped, turned around and started to speak again, directly to me this time. Maybe she’d realised what she had done and was about to turn around and apologise?

Nope.

SHE INVITED ME TO HER CHURCH.

I was, quite honestly, gobsmacked. Standing in the middle of the store with my mouth actually hanging open, fuming on the inside, but unable to say anything.

When I finally regained my senses, she was gone. And I was left standing there, completely annoyed.

But not annoyed at her.

Well, annoyed a lot at her. But even more annoyed at myself. Why did I go into defensive mode, rather than tell her where she could stick her unsolicited criticism? Not to mention, chewing her out for touching my child…

Maybe because I live on the outskirts of a big city and don’t want to get stabbed? I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t want to get stabbed – but I’ve also been much more assertive than that because somebody pushed me out of the way getting on the train.

I don’t know, but I have a feeling that if something similar happened again, I’d do the exact same thing. Let’s just hope it doesn’t. I have enough to be annoyed at myself about – I don’t need to add anything else to the list.