u/Anuyushi

This was short but it was bothersome. Every year, my family assists with the local parade and barbecue. We start with cooking in the morning and handing out free hamburgers for about 6 hours, then the parade starts in the afternoon.

I always volunteer to help out with them, and this year, I asked to help put together the hamburgers. The event is run by the local fire department, and every fireman is in uniform. If you're a volunteer and not part of the department, you can wear whatever you want, and there's no dress code at all. Pedestrians serving pedestrians, basically, except volunteers can only be family or friends of someone on the force.

I was wearing a horror themed shirt from the Terrifier movie. It had the movie title sparkled and bedazzled with gems, and a black and white silhouette of the movie's villain grinning. There's no blood or gore on it, one of my most sparkly shirts.

While I was working the hamburgers, a dad and son comes up. I can maybe estimate the son to be 10 or 11? I see them staring at my shirt while they're waiting for the patties to cook, but I ignored it to focus on what I was putting together.

Then the dad pulls his son closer and partially covers his eyes. Like, sheltering him, and his dad's response was causing him to stress out more than my clothing was. He starts telling me that my shirt was scaring the kids, and I was being unprofessional by wearing it while I was working.

I entirely ignored him and pretended he wasn't there, acting like I couldn't hear him. I was too busy and it was too hot to start something with someone in line, the line still had 150-200 people waiting behind him.

He continued to complain until the next batch of patties arrived, saying things like I was rude, reckless, hating kids for making them look, unprofessional, that I should hide or or go home and change. The kid didn't say anything, but his dad's ranting was making him look more visibly distressed.

As soon as I gave him his burger, he walked away like nothing happened. I didn't say a single word to the guy aside from a short "Here you go" while I handed it off. I'm not sure if he wanted to just start something, but we do this event every year. Hundreds of people attend and nobody has ever complained about the volunteer's street clothes before.

I'm not sure if this counts as an entitled parent or not, or if I was in the wrong, honestly? I know the smile on the shirt can be a bit creepy, but volunteers didn't have a dress code and we were giving out free food, I didn't expect someone would care that much. I guess let me know your thoughts?

I have always refused to hold babies until a little bit ago. A mom handed me her baby and asked me to just hold him for less than two minutes so she could plug something in (She couldn't reach down while holding the baby) so I was like sure whenever she's sitting right next to me and it's just a second.

But as soon as I was holding him I realized something. He was SO delicate and fragile. Like, if he slightly leaned the wrong way, he could've been hurt. If I didn't hold him perfectly right, something bad could've happened. He could've nodded off and if I don't hold his head in time, he could've needed a hospital.

And that was terrifying to me. I didn't want to be responsible for something like that. Like it could go from normal to omg I have lifetime guilt in ten seconds.

And that was a single minute. Feeling that every day, multiple times a day, for hours at a time, would stress me out more than I could handle.

I haven't seen family since I graduated highschool. My grandmother has been looking after my baby sister in another state, and I've been busy at work, so it took a long time for either of us to make a trip, and I happened to be the one to travel this time.

So I'm with my grandmother in the car and we're talking about the past.

Things I remember growing up and visits I had with her when I was little. I mentioned sledding in her backyard which somehow leads into "I'm so glad you were potty trained back then. Imagine an accident while you're in the snow? You know, your baby sister still isn't potty trained. She's on normal food now so it SMELLS and sticks to her butt. No matter how much you wipe. You just need to give her a bath because it cakes on."

And I was just left in silence because... Didn't need to know any of that. Definitely didn't ask. I don't understand how people can casually talk about poop and dirty butts in normal conversation when it comes to kids. I hope to never be one of those people. Thank God I'm sterilized 😭 I'm a little frustrated the conversation was dominated by talking about the baby when I haven't seen her in so long, but the poop bothers me a lot more.