Cussed a woman out in public

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Had a loooong and tiring day and on the way home I went to my son's favorite fast food place to get him his favorite fast food, one of the few things he will eat.

While I was waiting in line I was counting money out of my pocket when a woman in her 40s starts screaming "CONTROL YOUR DAMN CHILD, YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER YOUR CHILD" and various stuff. He is four and non-verbal, I asked her what happened or what did he do with no answer but more ranting and everyone else in the place looking at her like she was nuts.

I get the food and leave and am walking home when she is across the street and again starts shouting s**t "YOU SHOULD STOP BUYING THAT KID FRIED CHICKEN AND GET HIM HELP" I said look if he bumped into you I am sorry, he is clumsy and FOUR YEARS OLD. Then she started on a rant "THAT KID IS MAD AND DISTURBED, YOU SHOULD PUT HIM IN A PLACE WHERE HE CAN GET HELP AND NOT BOTHER DECENT PEOPLE".

I cracked mentally and said "BEEP YOU b***h, YOU'RE MAD, WHY DON'T YOU GO BEEP YOURSELF AND STOP PICKING ON A FOUR YEAR OLD". Then I said "WHERE THE BEEP DO YOU THINK HE GOT HIS MADNESS FROM? ME i'M BEEPING MAD AHHHHHHHH".

I just couldn't take it, I am from the US but I live somewhere where mental and even physical disabilities are viewed negatively and hated. I know very well a whole lot of people think what she said, but she said it so she gets the anger.

Sounds like she deserved what you said. You don't go around insulting other people's children.

Good for you.

I think you did great and were far kinder to her than she was to your 4 year old.

Anyone who says the words, "get help", they've got their own issues. I've found it best to ignore them. And I mean COMPLETELY ignore them; act as if they simply don't exist at all. If they're standing in front of me and won't move, I simply pick one non-emotional thing to say and repeat it over and over again until they allow me to move past them or DO (not say) something that makes them appear to anyone else watching to be doing something downright disgraceful and socially unacceptable, at which point amazingly others intervene.

They have the right of free speech.
I have the right of not listening.

Maybe it's easier to do this when you're on the spectrum and just generally "care less" about being affronted?

Well, you did better than I would have. I probably would have screamed at that crazy witch in the restaurant. Some days I feel like I'm just waiting for someone to give me an excuse.

Wow, I am so sorry to hear you had to endure such an encounter. You were right asking what the issue was, that showed your interest in mitigating any issues that were affecting others, but she obviously wasn't interested in having conflict resolved. And, most likely, there wasn't anything serious happening; she probably just noticed your son making some odd stim and couldn't bear it. Her problem, really. But so very sad. We never forget people like that, but please try to remember that they are rare.

They try to pretend they are better than us but we, really, know so much more than they do. Hold onto that: you KNOW what you are doing; YOU have a wonderful family to enjoy, despite the challenges; while they have allowed themselves to get filled up with negativity, and long run that hurts them and their families more than you or yours.

I was just fighting with some people on a news board about how to handle aggression in children and it really tried my patience but if even one parent read all that and realized there ARE effective protocols out there that don't involve excessive restraint and in-your-face tactics, then all the thumbs down will be worth it. I don't understand why people can't bear the truth, sometimes; I guess it is all about the need to save one's ego.

(kept finding new errors to fix)

She had it coming. She may have thought your child was disturbing the peace, but I would pin the blame on her instead. Kids will be kids; that woman could have at least had the decency to restrain herself.

Wow! I couldn't imagine what I would do. That is horrible and she is lucky that all she got was that. I am so sorry for you and your son, that was insanely cruel,ignorant, rude and vulgar. I know that stuff happens everywhere, but luckily all have gotten was some side mom glances when my little man was younger and would melt down. He luckily hasn't had a real meltdown in public in close to two yrs. He gets flappy and verbally stims in public sometimes, but all I have ever gotten was some smiles out of it. Twice I have had people come talk to me about their own kids on the spectrum. A couple weeks ago a really nice man, late 50's, saw my man and had a 5-10 min conversation with him even though my guy wouldn't look him in the face. The the man told me he was just like my son when he was little. It was very sweet. Maybe it is because of where we live, San Francisco Bay Area.

You mentioned you didn't live in the states, where do you live?

f*****g awesome. Good for you.

Children get priority. This much is obvious. If an adult insults or hurts a child, that adult has lost already.

Also, it's right that you defend your child by any means necessary.

Some people have no tolerance for children at all. Once after a transatlantic flight my husband and I were trying to get to our seats on our last connecting flight in the US - my son was about 2 yrs old. He wasn't crying or making noise or being disruptive in any way. He was just being. He may have said a few words, that's about it. The flight attendant came up and asked us to keep him quiet because there had been complaints.

I really wish I'd had the nerve to say something - like asking who had complained when my child wasn't making any noise!!

I've certainly seen people in other sub-forums on wrong planet complaining about even being around children. So you don't know what kind of issues those other people have with children. But we all need to be kind and tolerant of each other.

Just wow. I have never seen an adult act that way but I have been around adults as a child who seemed to have no tolerance seeing a sight of them or even want them near so they would just get nasty to me and start yelling at me to leave and get out of here and I would get defiant I remember. It was only rare when it happened. I can only think of the two times it's happened when I was six and seven.

I remember seeing one other stranger in 6th grade at a Ross and I suspect she didn't like people with disabilities because when she called me ret*d, I followed her around the store and she was giving my mom dirty looks and she referred me to as the girl and she kept moving away whenever I got near as if I had some sort of disease. It started with me being in the kid's section and I was looking at the girl clothes and I got near her and she started to say "Oh god" and then cursing and I apologized and asked her if I did anything wrong that upset her and she didn't answer so I walked away and that was when she said I was ret*d. She was a grown woman who looked to be in her 30's and she was shopping in the 6X's so obviously she was a parent and she had a small child who could be five or six years old. I felt sad for her kid imagining her kid was going to grow up and hate people with disabilities.

Sometimes I get this urge to drive people crazy by doing things to piss them off after they piss me off. I hear lot of people do this.