A man noticed a lady following him in the grocery store for a few minutes. He had gone there to grab some stuff with his 6-month-old baby when a strange incident happened.
He noticed that the woman followed him into every aisle he stepped in. Everything was fine until she started conversing with him and his baby.
Her last comment made the man lose his temper, while other people in the store looked at them in shock. He saw the woman’s face flush red when he snapped at her.
A man holding a newborn baby | Source: Shutterstock
The 27-year-old man shared that he had to take his child to the grocery store because no one else could look after him. His baby had been feeling cranky lately because he was teething.
After stepping out of his house, he realized he had forgotten the baby carrier at his mother’s place. So he placed his baby in a stroller and decided not to spend more than five minutes in the grocery store. He explained:
“Normally, he’s calm when I have him in his baby carrier because right now he just wants to be held by me.”
A baby sleeping | Source: Unsplash
As he shuffled through the aisles looking for the things he had to buy, he saw the same lady pop up everywhere. Since the store was not that huge, he believed it might be a coincidence.
OP confessed he was a reserved person and always avoided confrontation, but this lady was asking for it.
However, when his son started crying, the lady interfered and said, “He’s hungry. Why didn’t you bring his bottle?”
A grocery store | Source: Unsplash
He told her his son had his meal fifteen minutes earlier, so he wasn’t crying because of hunger. After hearing his response, she started talking to the baby:
“Uh oh, sure hope your daddy remembered to change your diaper this morning.”
OP (Original Poster) knew his son’s diaper wasn’t dirty. But instead of replying to the lady, he hurried towards the checkout counter, holding his child in his arms.
A baby in a stroller | Source: Unsplash
But when he got to the counter, he had to put him back in the stroller to put the things he intended to purchase on the counter. This made his child cry, overwhelming OP. Then the lady he met earlier reappeared, and seeing him struggle at the checkout counter, she suggested:
“Maybe next time he should stay at home with mommy, don’t you think?”
OP confessed he was a reserved person and always avoided confrontation, but this lady was asking for it. So he snapped at her, informing her that his wife had passed away, and she should mind her own business and leave.
People lined up in a grocery store | Source: Unsplash
Other people stared at them after the man yelled at the lady. He quickly grabbed his bag and walked out of the store with his baby in the stroller.
While loading his things in the car, the same lady approached him in the parking lot. She said she was sorry about his wife’s death and felt he shouted at her unnecessarily. He described how he felt:
“I really didn’t wanna get into it anymore I just told her to get the hell out of my way and leave me alone.”
Cars parked in a parking lot | Source: Unsplash
After reaching home and calming his baby, he thought about what happened at the grocery earlier. He wondered if he had overreacted, so he wrote a Reddit post, asking other people if he was at fault.
Buttercup303 assured OP he wasn’t at fault. She explained that people generally make judgments instead of trying to help. She shared that she was a widow and had seen people apologizing after learning about her late husband. Meanwhile, another Redditor named lemon_peace_tea replied:
“People definitely should not be so nosy about a child crying.”
A child crying | Source: Unsplash
The Redditor felt sorry for OP’s loss and encouraged him to take care of his child by sharing that her father also cared for his children in the best possible way. She felt he wasn’t at fault for yelling at the unknown lady.
ocvagabond, a father raising two children singlehandedly, shared that he experienced similar scenarios when he stepped out with his children in public. He confessed it was always older women who tried to teach him how to take care of his kids.
A woman holding a phone | Source: Unsplash
One day, a lady came up to him while he was holding his crying child. She asked him if he wanted her to calm him down. He immediately told her to leave, wondering how she thought about carrying a stranger’s kid.
Most users thought OP wasn’t at fault. They believed the lady was unnecessarily poking her nose into his business, and he did the right thing by yelling at her.
