A mum was shocked when a stranger pulled out her son’s dummy on a shopping trip then shamed her for allowing him to have one.
Corissa Rieschieck, a mother from the US, said the older woman approached her “out of nowhere”.
“She reached out, promptly plucking the dummy out of the gremlin’s [a nickname for her son] unsuspecting mouth while scolding me about how he doesn’t need it and I shouldn’t be so bad a parent as to give it to him,” Rieschieck wrote on her blog.
Rieschieck said before she had even gathered herself to respond, the woman had walked off. However, minutes later she came back to criticise the mother.
“This time it was along the lines of ‘What kind of parent did I think I was to be using a dummy’ and ‘I should know better, it’s no wonder he screams’,” wrote Rieschieck.
“The dummy was pressed into my hand out of the gremlin’s line of sight. My - perhaps petulant - response was to promptly place it right back in his mouth.”
Rieschieck said she was again too shocked to reply, so she simply stood in silence. Writing on her blog, she said to this day she still feels angry with herself for not defending herself.
Commenting on her blog post, one person wrote: “I myself probably would of [sic] gone nuts at the woman but I’m gobsmacked at the fact a random would do that.
“Who did she think she was, the Queen? Gosh. Yes it’s frustrating at times, but ignore what others say about little mister’s dummy. Heck my step nephew was six before he gave up his dummy.”
Read Rieschieck’s full post about the incident on her blog.