Parents Share The Most Disturbing Way Someone Has Interacted With Their Child
There is no doubt that parenting is an experience which brings many highs and lows. Raising little humans is in no way an easy task. The journey often comes with strange moments that leave parents scratching their heads; moments like dealing with bullies at school, or even other adults. The latter in particular makes the job even more nerve-racking (but it’s also simultaneously entertaining).
Recently, parents responded to a poll asking them to describe the most disturbing moment they have ever witnessed of someone else interacting with their child. Moms and dads did not hesitate to share some hilarious moments they’ve encountered with strangers. They also shared stories of when a stranger gave off a weird vibe to them or their children. Always keeping safety in mind, it’s fun to imagine some of these scenarios. Check out the best responses below.
Don’t forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#42 Take Strawberries Seriously
My three-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 found her sitting at the bar eating strawberries with them. I went ballistic. They said they “didn’t see the harm” and of course they didn’t. 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 I or my husband are there too. I can’t trust them to not do it again.
#41 A First Kiss To Remember
We attended a neighbor’s party and while we were there another woman who I’d never met before asked if she could hold my six-month-old boy. No problem, I said, he’s adorable. She then proceeded 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 for the rest of the evening without being seen as “the rude one” at the party. She didn’t take hints well either.
#40 “I Work At A School”
I brought my 11-day-old out to 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, it isn’t okay.
#39 Hop on!
An old man in a mobility scooter told my four-year-old daughter how pretty she was and offered to have her climb up onto his lap and go for a ride (he said this in a more flirtatious voice than what you would use with a young child). She’s seven now and has always been fairly outgoing but I have never seen her instantly afraid of someone like she was with that man. I was pretty shaken up once my brain was able to process the whole exchange.
#38 Just Wanna Get A Better Look
My siblings are twins. When they were very little, maybe six months old each, we went to Walmart. People are generally fascinated by twins, so we often get random strangers asking us questions about them. One time, mom and I were fastening them into their car seats and this little old lady wanted to see how cute they were. She literally CLIMBED into our minivan to get a better look. I know she didn’t mean any harm, but still… My twins were creeped out.
#37 Tastes Like A Baby
Apparently, when I was a baby, a woman came up to me on a train, 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).
#36 An Average-Sized Human
When my son was about a month old we were driving back to see his grandparents and spent the night in a hotel. While carrying my son in a baby wrap at the free breakfast, a lady asked me how big he would get. Dumbfounded, I just said I didn’t know.
Then I looked around and saw all the dogs…
It was at La Quinta. Pets stay free.
#35 A Rawring Toddler
We ate out for dinner and there was an older man eating alone a few tables away. The old man stared a lot. When we left, my son roared at him (’cause you know, dinosaurs). The old man roared right back without missing a beat.
#34 Just As Good As Soap
My mother-in-law thought it was a good idea to lick my daughter’s hands clean after lunch. She put her whole tiny hand in her mouth.
#33 Please Don’t Pet The Children
I took my four-year-old and one-year-old 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 nowhere, grabs my older nephew and starts petting his hair.
I bolted towards him as soon as I saw her reaching for him, and grabbed him within five seconds of her picking him up. Then I grabbed my younger nephew in case 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.
#32 A Blockbuster Bargain
When I was a little over a year old, my parents took me to a Blockbuster so they could pick up a couple of 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.
#31 Welcome To Vegas
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 one-and-a-half 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 “Aw yeah, I’m about to twerk it out for your son real quick, welcome to Vegas, little man!” And then she twerked for my child.
#30 Cry For Grandma
The first time my mother-in-law met my son, he was maybe two weeks old. She walked through the front door from the airport, sat down and I let her hold him.
She smiled and then stared straight into his eyes and turned to me saying, “He’s so beautiful. I want to see him cry!” She turned to the baby and said, “Will you cry for Grandma?”
We all just stared at her, dumbfounded. Who does that? I can’t even remember how I responded, honestly.
#29 A Caffeinated Toddler
When I told my mother-in-law not to give my toddler coffee, she proceeded to dip her finger in her coffee and put it in my toddler’s mouth. It’s a TODDLER, does it need more energy?
#28 Babies Like Ice Cream, Right?
A total stranger walked up to my seven-month-old son in Golden Corral and tried to feed him ice cream from his spoon. I put a stop to that real quick.
#27 Nothing Suspicious Here
Our next door neighbor asked if he could babysit me after telling my mom that he wasn’t allowed to be alone with his grandkids.
#26 Boys Love Dinosaurs
A grown woman confronted my dinosaur-loving two-year-old to say that girls can’t wear dinosaur clothes because people will think she’s a boy.
He was a boy.
#25 A Different Tourist Attraction
This was many years ago when my children were very young, about two and four. We were at Grand Canyon West getting ready to leave. While we were waiting for the bus, a group of Asian tourists roll off another bus.
The group runs over, rips my youngest out of my arms and starts passing him around taking photos with him and pinching his cheeks (which were admittedly pretty darn chubby). My son, of course, is trying to figure out what is happening and starts to cry.
They gave him back and went on their way, but the whole thing was just weird. Who takes vacation pictures with a random baby?
#24 A Disturbing Birthday Spankin’ At School
The elementary school principal spanked my kids on their birthdays. I have girls. No one in my small town saw a problem with this.
#23 Strangers Stay Outside The Stroller
About six (or eight) weeks after our daughter—our first—was born, we took her out shopping for the first time. As soon as we walked into the mall, a woman we didn’t know put her face into the stroller to have a look and a goo-goo with my baby. I firmly removed her head from the stroller with my hand. She was shocked that a new father would forcefully remove a strange woman’s face from his child’s stroller.
#22 I Can Take One Off Your Hands
I went to a pool with my children when they were younger. We had a set of twins that were around two years old at the time and it was a local hotel pool off the interstate. A woman had asked if both the kids were mine and if they were twins. I told her they indeed were and that they were a lot of work. She then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to sell one of them. I didn’t really know what to say as it took me off guard. I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t and made it very apparent that she wasn’t. I told her no, then stayed close to them the rest of the time we were there, which wasn’t long to be sure.
#21 See You Never
My partner was at the checkout queue in a DIY store when a middle-aged man told our six-month-old daughter that he would “see her in 20 years” because she was smiling at him.
#20 En Route Entertainment
My four-year-old has gorgeous, dark curly hair (all my children do, actually, but her’s is to her waist). Once I had a 40-something lady on the subway try to pull her into her lap. When I yelled at her, she whimpered and pouted about how she was a hairstylist and “just wanted to play a bit” with her hair.
#19 A Blonde Kid In Asia
When I was a kid we lived in an Asian country where my dad was assigned to work. My brother was born while we were there, and by the time he was a toddler he had a full head of blonde curls. This caught the attention of many locals because blonde hair was a rare sight there.
My mom went out for coffee one day with him in his stroller. A random man came over and sat at the table next to her. He didn’t say anything, he just stared at my brother. Mom tried to talk to him and ask him what his problem was, but he just kept staring. She left pretty quickly.
#18 Keep Covered
My kiddo was probably two to three months old when this happened. I carried her in one of those front carriers and had her completely covered while she was feeding. A woman in her mid-thirties comes up to me and yanks my cover off so she could see my baby. My child, either startled or curious or whatever, unlatched. The woman had the nerve to tell me it was inappropriate to show my breast.
#17 The Yarn Store Creep
A complete stranger at a yarn store offered to take my three-year-old son out for ice cream so I could “take my time to shop.” He said it was cool because he knew the shop owner.
#16 Curing Left-Handedness
Apparently, a substitute teacher forced my left-handed son to write with his right hand. She also made him stand at the board in front of the class to practice writing the numbers 3, 7 and 9 the “correct” way.
The teacher said he shouldn’t be writing his numbers backward anymore because he’s already in the fourth grade. But she doesn’t understand that what he has is an occupational disability. Did she think she would suddenly cure him by forcing him to practice?
#15 You’re Not Her Soccer Mom, I Am
When my seven-year-old daughter played soccer, this other parent would yell at her about how she played. I admit she wasn’t the best player, but this was a non-competitive recreation league where they were simply learning the skills and not playing at like, David Beckham’s level. The way he screamed at his daughter was even worse.
Unfortunately, officials would not ban him from the games because my husband and I were the only ones who complained. He yelled at every kid and the other parents were too afraid to stand up to the jerk. My daughter is now nine and doesn’t play soccer.
I found out last year that she has flat feet and ankle problems that made it hard for her to keep up in soccer. My son has no issue in soccer and I’m glad. Most soccer parents just suck.
#14 When Other Parents Tell You How To Parent
I was a Target with my two-year-old daughter and she was refusing to let me place the items in our cart onto the belt at the register. After some time, I was able to get the items from her hands, much to her dismay. She became upset and aggravated.
A young woman behind me who was a couple months pregnant started looking at me like I was the worst parent in the world. She said, in the most condescending tone, “You really need to learn how to pick your battles.”
My response was simple: “If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked.” It took a lot to hold back.
#13 A Deafening Diss
My oldest had just gotten her cochlear implant. While we were grocery shopping, another little girl saw her devices and asked her mother what they were. The mother replied, “That little girl is too stupid to hear, so those are supposed to help.”
#12 The Halloween Creep
My daughter was always a cutie, and we always had a lot of strangers come up to us asking if they could take her picture.
When she was five years old, she went trick or treating at a house and the guy who answered the door started stroking her hair. He literally wouldn’t stop. It was creepy enough that I told every other parent we passed to avoid that house.
#11 No Hair Sally
A woman once told my infant daughter that there was no way she was a girl because she didn’t have a lot of hair.
I was shocked and confused.
#10 Deep-Voiced Girl
When I was really young, I had a very deep voice for a girl. Some people told my parents that I had a “sexy voice.” Nothing about a four-year-old should be sexy to anyone…
#9 Walmart Demon
One time, mom took my baby brother and me to Walmart to go shopping. An elderly gentleman walked over to the stroller and asked to see my brother. My mom said sure because she thought he was gonna compliment him or something.
Instead, the man leaned over to my brother and said: “I see the devil in you, child.” My mom just stood there staring at my brother… Then we turned around and left the store.
#8 She Has Two Dads, Get Over It
A lot of people go up to our 21-year-old kid when she is with us and will straight up ask her:
“How do you feel about having two daddies,”
Or,
“Do you miss your mommy?”
Why are people so dang weird.
#7 Touchy Old People
I find it so strange when old people touch my infant daughter without even asking for permission. I have yelled at probably four people in the past week who didn’t respect me when I told them they couldn’t. Old people just seem to think it’s okay to touch kids they’ve never met before.
I once had this lady who was a coworker of my mom kiss my daughter when she was like two weeks old repeatedly on the face. It was so weird.
#6 It’s Okay, I’m French
Years ago when my daughter was two years old, we attended an arts festival. She was up ahead of me, running and having a grand time when out of nowhere this lady swoops in, picks her up and starts twirling her around, with her arms outstretched. When I ran up to her, I started yelling. She tried to calm me down, explaining that she was French and that’s how they do things. It was pretty shocking to say the least.
#5 Imitation Is The Best Form Of Insult
I was at my best friend’s house and her boyfriend was over. My son was maybe six months old, and he would often scream at the top of his lungs for no reason. It was annoying, but harmless.
The boyfriend walked over to him and said, “Hey baby, if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna scream too!” He proceeded to mock my son’s screaming for a couple of minutes. My son just stared at him… and then shut up.
#4 Target Parking Lot Drama
I pulled into a parking spot at Target at the same time as an elderly man. As I loaded my baby into the cart, he went up close to him and said, “Tell your mother to turn down that colored music, it’s too loud for your eardrums.” It took me at least 10 seconds to even process what he said. I was flabbergasted.
#3 This Lady Is So Persistent
A non-English-speaking woman I didn’t know walked up to my buggy at the mall and tried to pull my six-month-old son out. She was very angry at the fact that I had him buckled in. Security intervened quickly because she was trying to undo all the clips and I couldn’t get away. She kept following me down the hall, trying to reach into the buggy.
#2 Not A Church For Kids
I used to bring my three kids to a church in our neighborhood. There was a crotchety old lady who went there every Sunday and one time we had to sit next to her because there were no pews left. My daughter was playing with my necklace when all of a sudden the lady reached over and smacked her loudly, saying, “Shhhh!”
I stood up immediately and started yelling at the lady, a lot louder than I had anticipated. The church got quiet and the lady looked mortified.
I grabbed my kids and walked out in the middle of the service. I went back a few times but I left that religion about a year later.
#1 Shoved By A Grown Man
When I was six years old or so, I was shoved to the ground by a grown man in Time Square. I started to cry and my mom flipped. His response was, “He shoved me first…”
Then my grandma hit him with her cane.
