I was scolded for letting my son 'wander' 15 metres away from me at a park

“He’s too far away from you. It’s not safe to have him this far away,” the mum was told about her toddler.

“Is he yours?” 

It was a Monday afternoon. My husband and I were at our local dog park with our Spoodle (hyperactive after a morning spent inside), our toddler (hyperactive after a morning spent inside) and our four-month-old (sound asleep).

As far as I was concerned, it was a totally normal visit to the park: my older son had just learned how to throw sticks for the dog, so the two of them were entertaining themselves while we chatted. We know the park well, and there were no other off-leash dogs around, so we were standing about 15 metres from my toddler.

When he wasn’t finding sticks to throw, he was mucking around in the dirt pretending to be an excavator. (Shout out to my fellow Blippi parents: if you know, you know.)

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"I didn't realise at first we were being told off"

There was absolutely nothing dangerous about the situation, except perhaps a passion for construction vehicles bordering on obsession. For my own sanity, I need to believe that this is not at all unusual, and is in fact an indication of a promising future as a civil engineer.

But then I heard it again.

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“Is he yours?”  

It was an older lady, probably in her late sixties. My first thought was that she was asking about the dog - maybe she had her own dog that she wanted to let off the leash and was checking if ours was friendly? When I glanced in her direction, though, I could see that wasn’t the case. She was standing very close to my son and pointing at him. 

“Yep,” I called back jovially. “That one’s ours!” 

At this point, I didn’t realise we were being told off.

I assumed she was going to say something else about my son - it wouldn’t be the first time a person of roughly grandparent age had stopped me to tell me how much he reminded them of their own grandchild, or how adorable he is. 

But this lady had not come to call my son adorable (rude). Instead, she said, “He’s too far away from you. It’s not safe to have him this far away.” 

Source: Supplied

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"Bring him closer to you"

My husband and I traded a look. We were alone, in a fenced park, nowhere near the road or any other identifiable threats. Our son was in our line of sight, and he had two parents with eyes on him. 

In our family, we like to use what we jokingly call “the dog park rule” for our dog and our son. That means, if we’re in a safe place, our toddler can roam within calling distance, or about 20 metres, as long as we can see him.

It’s about the same distance we’d let the dog go before calling him back, and we both feel comfortable we could cover quickly if needed. This has worked well for us so far - our son is generally happy to hold hands when required and hasn’t developed into a “runner”, partly because he knows he has lots of time and space to explore independently when it’s safe to do so.

He’s starting to develop his own risk radius, and use his own judgement to decide if he’s too far away. 

“Thanks, we’ve got him,” my husband said. I expected that to be the end of the conversation. She’d pointed out what she perceived to be a child in a “dangerous” situation, and his parents had confirmed they were on top of it. 

But she didn’t move from my son’s side. 

“He’s too far away from you. There are some unsavoury characters around here. You need to bring him closer to you,” she repeated. 

Source: supplied

The obvious solution at this point would have been to go and pick up my son, but it felt like that would be admitting we were in the wrong. The only “unsavoury” character I could see was this woman, and although she wasn’t particularly polite, she obviously wasn’t dangerous. 

“As I said, we’ve got him,” my husband said again. Finally, it seemed to sink in that we weren’t going to be told how to parent by a stranger. She reluctantly walked away, but not without performatively looking back over her shoulder three or four times as though she needed to check our son was still safe. 

Although we both felt confident we hadn’t done anything wrong, the interaction still shook me. It’s strange coming into contact with someone who is so adamantly sure that you’re doing the wrong thing as a parent, and it does make you question your own choices.

Was it possible that we actually had put our son in an unsafe position, and for whatever reason we just couldn’t see it? Was the park where I’d always felt so safe in the past actually full of lurking dangers? Did I think my baby was playing with sticks when he was actually playing with, I don’t know, a live grenade? 

In the end, the only comfort I can take is this: I don’t know anything about that woman. She might be a parent, or a grandparent. She might have a Masters in early childhood education, or be a maternal health nurse, or know absolutely nothing about toddlers at all. She might have had an experience in the past with kids that makes her more risk averse than I am, or her concern might be completely uninformed. 

I don’t know anything about her, but I know my own children, and I know my husband, and I know myself. I know I’m comfortable with the decisions we’re making as parents, and I know we’re balancing our own fears about our boys’ safety with their need for independence as they grow. 

And I know all the words to the Blippi Excavator song. 

Lucky me.

Originally published as I was scolded for letting my son 'wander' 15 metres away from me at a park