People really think they can just say or do anything, don't they? Especially when it comes to other people's kids. The parents took to Reddit to share their stories about the craziest interactions random strangers had with them and their kids. Content has been edited for clarity.
The Glory Of God
“My husband and I were shopping at Walmart one time and had our 4 year old daughter with us. My husband is a big, burly biker dude with tattoos. We were leaving the store and he was holding her hand as we were walking to our car.
Out of nowhere, this crazy bible thumping lady ran up to us, snatched our daughter’s free hand, and tried to drag her away from us. She started yelling about how my husband was an abomination and we were going straight to the underworld, and she was ‘taking this precious child away from (us) and (our) evil ways so that she can be taught the glooorrryyyy of GOD!’ Needless to say, that crazy witch almost met Jesus that day!”
Zero Respect
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“One time I was at the bowling alley with my husband and kids for a birthday party for my niece.
The place had a kitchen where you could order food and drinks with a long counter overlooking the bowling lanes, and a couple of pool tables (relevant) jammed into a small area.
My 10-year-old autistic son was sitting at the long counter. He was happy to be there but wanted to chill away from the crowds. He had his headphones on watching something on YouTube, quietly eating his food.
Some old guy and his son showed up and started playing pool. The old man got annoyed with my son, claiming he was in the way of his shot and thought he was ignoring him so he slapped the headphones off his head!
Luckily my sister happened to walk by when he hit my son. She ripped him a new one. Found me, told me about it, then I went and ripped him a 3rd, 4th, and 5th butthole. He had the gall to try to justify his hitting my son mid-chewout. I was fuming.
He’s lucky I didn’t take his picture and blast his stupid face all over the Internet.”
Way Over The Line
“This happened to a close friend with her 2 year old son. She had to give him a bath at her mom’s house one time for whatever reason, and her mom’s husband, who was verbally abusive to my friend throughout her own childhood, was there.
She had her back to the door when she felt eyes on her. She turned around and her mom’s husband was in the doorway staring at the naked 2-year-old. She asked, ‘Can I help you?’ and he’s got his phone out and was like, ‘I just want to take a picture! Look at him all naked, I can see his privates! Show it to me! Show me your privates. Look at his privates, there they are!’
She blocked her son, and told him absolutely not when her mom came in and asked what was going on. Her husband acted all innocent and said, ‘Oh, I just though a bath pic would be cute to embarrass him with when he’s older,’ and her mom was like, ‘Aww, yeah, move and let him take a picture!’ My friend was slack jawed and said no, then kicked them out of the bathroom.
She had had issues like that for years where he did and said these crazy outlandish things to her, and totally about-faced when his wife was around, plus she wouldn’t hear a word against the man. She would tell my friend she needed to get over her issues with him. Needless to say, that child is not allowed to be alone in his presence. My friend’s mom constantly guilts her about not getting to spend time with her only grandchild, and thinks my friend is just mean.”
“That Way Doggy!”
“We were going through Heathrow Airport and my son (who at ten thought it was a massive adventure) was racing down a ramp in front of us. There was a T junction at the bottom and he was heading the wrong way, so I whistled at him.
I’m from Africa, and it’s just a thing that when I’m not near the kids and they hear me whistle they know to stop and look at me because it usually means there’s something they need to be wary of. By the way, when I whistle it’s like a banshee getting his giblets squeezed, so it’s a good warning system.
Anyway, this woman stopped dead in her tracks, glared at me, and said to my son, ‘You should tell him you’re not a dog,’ and then yelled at me, ‘He’s not a dog, you know!’ I politely replied, ‘Buzz off lady, mind your own business,’ and pointed my son in the right direction.
Then the scariest thing happened; she grabbed him by the face and screamed, ‘GO THAT WAY DOGGY, GO THAT WAY!’ We dropped our stuff and started running forward, but he reacted beautifully. He kicked her hard in the crotch (he probably thought that she had canastas down there) and ran back to us.
The security guys appeared and much yelling ensued between us all before I said, ‘Enough of this,’ and we walked off. Bloody loony.”
Parental Instinct
“I had to go to the grocery store to pick something up really quick, and put my 1 year old son in a shopping cart (because he generally liked to ride in it). As soon as I got in, he proceeded to start crying inconsolably.
I hate being ‘that’ parent, but all I needed was something quick, and I was already in that aisle. I passed a guy, who immediately told me that I was rude and needed to ‘shut that kid up.’ I apologized profusely, and explained that I was grabbing one thing and then leaving.
I turned to grab what I had come for (I honestly can’t remember what it was), and out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy move toward my son with his arm reaching out.
I used to play football, and this guy instantly got a full blown shoulder tackle into the shelves behind him, knocking a lot of stuff down. I screamed at him, and told him that I’d kill him if he ever came near me or my kid again.
I grabbed the item and got my son and I out of there as quick as I could. As a first time father, I really hadn’t understood the whole ‘parent instinct’ up to that point. I learned that day why parents have been known to do insane things protecting their kids.
I’m the kind of guy who talks people down, and the least likely to go into a psychotic rage. I realized that day what I was potentially capable of when it comes to my kids.”
The Tootsie Toucher
“My son has gorgeous, curly red hair. It’s beautiful and we always get comments on it when we are out.
There have been multiple times though when we are running around and someone will reach out and run their hands through his hair without saying a word! Like, don’t touch the freaking child!
The one that made me literally scream was a woman at a mall. He’d just gotten out of the hospital for surgery on his legs, and we were picking up pain meds on our way home.
He was casted toe to knee and had pins in both feet. We had him in his little wheelchair and I’m looking at the medication and hear him whimpering. This woman came up and was playing with his toes!
I loudly asked what she thought she was doing, and she started stammering that she was just wondering why he was casted. I told her that you ask the adult, you don’t touch!
Seriously, don’t touch a stranger’s child!”
Dallas Derelict
“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, and 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 a while. 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.”
“He Was Waiting For An Opportunity”
“An acquaintance of my husband, after being invited out for dinner with our family, started detailing being violated intimately in front of our three children and then tried to continue the conversation directly with our 13-year-old daughter after we segued to a more appropriate topic.
He wouldn’t stop trying to talk about it until I squared up with him and told him that he was way out of line trying to force this conversation with my kids as appropriate. We are super open with them, and no topic is really off limits within reason for their age, but topics like that are definitely for the parents and he wasn’t talking about good tips to avoid it, he was wanting to talk about what pedos do to children.
Up until then he had been an odd duck, but nothing too weird. But that set our alarms off, and after talking over other behaviors and using the benefit of hindsight, we agreed this was an attempt to begin grooming our girls. He had a strange attachment to our then 3-year-old in particular whom he’d met twice for maybe 20 minutes each.
We cut off contact immediately. Then we found out later that other mutual acquaintances felt the same–that he was a pedo just waiting for an opportunity, and it was just a matter of time. We also learned he would obsess over our kids in conversations with others.
I believe to my core that if we hadn’t picked up on what he was doing, one or all of them could have been victims. Thank goodness he played his hand so overtly and so quickly.”
Shaman Lady
“There was once an incident with my wife’s brother’s mother-in-law at her birthday party. We’re pretty chill when it comes to friends and family holding our 1 year old’s hand or something similarly innocent.
This lady started out fine by holding our daughter’s hand…then proceeded to start kissing it. It was weird, but it got worse. She started licking the baby’s fingers like some kind of frickin’ holistic shaman.
We were both quite shocked and weren’t sure how to react since she’s technically ‘part of the family,’ and we’re not the confrontational types. We made an excuse to jet on outta there without having to see the goodbye rituals from her. Hand wipes for the win.”
“Purely Disturbing”
“An employee at a hardware store once thought my 3 year old daughter was carrying around a stick because I was making her…in case she was bad…so I could hit her with it.
I think she misheard something I said when answering her initial question but I had just said, ‘Yeah, she found it outside earlier and just wanted to carry it everywhere with her today.’ From that, she heard something like, ‘I’m making her carry this stick as a reminder to be good, or else I’ll use the stick to hurt her.’
The worst part was that she said, ‘Yeah, I remember when mine were that age. You have to keep them in line and never let them forget who’s in charge.’
It was weird until that point, at which it was purely disturbing. I couldn’t pay and get out of there fast enough.”
“My Reaction Was Far Too Tame”
“I was at a baseball game with my firstborn when he was about 6 months old. I had him in a wrap and I was walking through the stadium by the vendors to find a mother’s room where I could nurse him quietly.
As we were walking, a random lady came running up to us out of the blue and kissed him on the face! Honestly, I was so stunned that a complete stranger would find that appropriate that I don’t even remember what she said. I was freaked out but just walked away.
In retrospect (and several children later), my reaction was far too tame. If that happened now, I would raise up a storm and call her out, but as a first-time mom who was still pretty intimidated by motherhood, I didn’t know what to do. I still regret that today.”
No One Thinks That’s Weird?
“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. She was still on edge even after recognizing the woman.
Neither my mother-in-law 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 my mother-in-law still thinks we’re too hard on her friend. So absurd.”
“Completely Mind-Boggling”
“We were at this small lake beach in Rochester, Minnesota, when my daughter was 2 and a half. She was with my ex’s kids who were 4 and 6, plus his older son who was 12. They were all sitting right at the shore, digging in the sand.
Mind you this was a small lake, but it was pretty busy as it was summer in Minnesota. We were sitting just up the beach and to the right of the kids, hanging out and talking. I swear I must have took my eyes off of the kids for a minute, tops. I looked back and the other two little ones were there, but not my daughter. The 12 year old was also gone, so we didn’t immediately think something was wrong.
I got up, wandered down to where they were, and looked up and down the small beach line. I asked the kids where she was and they said they didn’t know without really looking up at all. My ex found his older son playing off near some bushes at the far curve of the lake, and he also didn’t know where my daughter was.
I was starting to get worried; I walked up and down looking through the people sitting on the beach, starting to panic while my ex went to search in the water close to where they were playing.
I thought to walk up toward the restrooms, and there at the top of the hill was this woman holding my daughters hand. I ran up to her, and she said that she saw this baby playing near the water, and didn’t think it was safe!
The whole experience lasted maybe 5-6 minutes, but it was completely mind-boggling later because that lady could have been a predator, and if she was, my child would have been gone so quickly.
I’m not sure why, with all the people around, that she assumed that my daughter wasn’t being watched. I guess, to her credit, during the few seconds it took for her to grab my kid by the hand and start walking up the beach, we were not watching.
But it really could happen to anyone, and it’s so scary when people just decide to step over those invisible boundaries and become involved busy bodies!”
Worst Supervision Ever
“My wife and I were at a public play area with our son, who was two at the time. There was another slightly older kid, maybe four or five, that was already playing a bit rough with some other kids, but they appeared to all know each other so whatever.
Not even five minutes into being there, he tackles our kid and starts repeatedly spitting on him, which my kid initially thought was funny but irked the heck out of me, because I don’t need him getting sick or thinking that that’s acceptable behavior and repeating it elsewhere. I calmly ask the other boy to leave mine alone and say something to the older woman that’s too absorbed in her iPhone to bother watching them. She chastises the kid for a second and then goes back to her phone, and our kid goes to play in a different spot.
Not five minutes later, this other boy throws my kid to the ground, holds him down, and starts spitting on him again while he’s panicking. I lose my crap and yell at the kid to get off our son and yell at the grandma for not watching or having control of her boy, and she doesn’t even bat an eye. Just gives him a half-hearted ‘so-and-so stoppp, I told you not to do that,’ and goes back to playing on her phone again. So I picked our son up and left with him crying because he just wanted to play.
I’ve never seen anyone so cavalier about what the kids they’re watching are doing.”
“She Was In A Trance”
“My daughter is my biological daughter. We are American, and she was born in Atlanta. She’s now an adult; however, she and I have both been asked her entire life if she is adopted. When they see her in person or in a photograph, complete strangers will always ask where she is from. They never believe us, but oh well.
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 started asking about my daughter’s ethnicity and commenting on how exotic she looked, how beautiful she was, etc.
She started asking if my daughter was a dancer…not sure why. My daughter said yes. Then the woman began asking where she danced, if she has recitals, and if she can she come watch sometime.
She said she wished she had pictures to send back home to show her relatives because she’s just so beautiful. I mean, she was just staring at my daughter like she was in a trance. Then she started touching her face and resting her hand on her shoulder. I grabbed my daughter by the hand and left. Touching my kid crosses the line, what the heck!”
Kittens And Prayer
“I was walking with my son back from the park, and this weird looking old dude came off his porch and walked up to me and my son and asked him directly, ‘Would you like to come in and see my kittens and pray with me?’ and kinda reached out toward his shoulder.
I answered for him, ‘No, WE do not want to, thanks,’ and walked away.
That creeped me right the heck out and I still avoid that house whether my son is with me or not.”
“I Hadn’t Done Anything Wrong”
“I was a parent at 18, and was pretty tatted up and pierced at the same time. I was in Walmart one day and an employee approached me with security and said that they wanted my child and I to come with them to answer some questions. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I told them to kick rocks.
A few minutes later two cops and the same employee come up to me. Apparently the manager profiled me, and thought I had kidnapped my own child. Luckily my dad is a cop in the county we were in, and I told the officers to radio him because he was on duty.
Within 45 seconds they had confirmation that she was in fact mine, and I was informing the manager that profiling people might end up in more than embarrassment one day.”
Boys Vs Girls
“I really don’t like the differences in how my babies, and I do mean actual infants, are treated when assumed to be boys vs when they’re assumed to be girls.
I was at the grocery store when my fourth child was about eight months old. She was sturdy with almost no hair and was wearing just a onesie. This guy came up, assumed she was a boy, and talked about how big and strong she was and how she’d take care of all her sisters.
He asked her name, ‘Marie.’ ‘Oh.’ His entire tone and demeanor changed. He suddenly spoke much softer and said how pretty she was.
It’s always stuff like that. I had a woman apologize to me once for saying my son’s eyes were beautiful once she learned he was a boy. Like somehow the word was insulting.
It’s really ridiculous. If my son does something reckless, 99 times out of a hundred it’s because he was aping his big sister. But ‘boys will be boys!’ There’s nothing my sons do that my daughters don’t, or vice versa, but you can’t tell from the way folks talk about it.”