Mum Left Speechless After Woman Pulls Out Her Son’s Dummy

A mum was left speechless after a stranger pulls out her two-year-old son’s dummy at a supermarket.

Mum, Corissa Rieschieck, 33, from Gippsland, Victoria, was at a supermarket with her son (who she nicknames Gizmo) and gave him a dummy when he started to have a tantrum.

Suddenly, a woman who didn’t approve of Gizmo’s dummy didn’t just comment, she swept in and took it out of the boy’s mouth. In her blog, Ms Rieschieck recounted what the woman did.

“[She] approached Gizmo and “promptly [plucked] the dummy out of the gremlin’s 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,” she said, adding that the stranger then walked off with the dummy leaving her completely speechless.

A few moments later, she said that the same woman returned and gave the dummy back along with a totally unsolicited serve of parenting advice. “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’,” she wrote.

Ms Rieschieck says that she regretted her decision to remain silent. “I pride myself on using my voice, on standing up for myself when I feel I need to do so, and this sudden silence, this sudden loss of agency, had me furious. By the time I had gathered my wits enough to respond at all, the woman was gone,” she wrote.

She said that it took her a week to get over what happened and that she found herself venting about it at every opportunity. “That anger at myself for not responding, for being so shocked by the situation that I didn’t tell that woman to go f*** herself still sits inside me to this day,” she said.

Ms Rieschieck said that the dummy incident has left her with more questions.

“Why do people feel the need to comment on the way those around them parent? Do they not remember how hard being a parent is?

“Have they never experienced moments of doing something as a parent just to get through? Or, if they’re not parents themselves, did they never learn that it wasn’t okay to be so rude?” she asked.

Ms Rieschieck admits many do not approve of the fact her son still has a dummy. “I get told frequently, by those I know and those I don’t, that I shouldn’t be doing so. Generally, I laugh at such comments and tell those commenting that he’s fine with it for now,” she writes.

“After all, he’s my child and I’m the one who has to deal with that choice in the end,” she wrote.

Source: Essentialbaby.com.au