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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/steingrrrl on 2023-09-16 22:50:48.

Hi all, not trying to sound dramatic but this just happened a few hours ago and I’m feeling quite embarrassed and just perplexed.

I was at a baby shower, and several moms brought their kids. They were playing with these big pieces of confetti. This little boy (maybe 5 or 6? Old enough that he was obviously potty trained and all that, but young enough that he was running around and super hyper) came up to me and gave me a piece of the confetti. I said thanks and opened my hand. Then he was like “no, in here” and pulled the front of my shirt out and down. I immediately pulled back and said no, but he kept going for it, and trying to put his hand IN my shirt. I was sitting down with a plate of food on my lap and he was standing in front of me, so i couldn’t like physically step back. I was so mortified and naturally have a freeze response. Luckily my shirt was quite tight and I was wearing a sports bra so I wasn’t really exposed, but what the fuck??? I don’t even really remember what I did, I think I was just like “no, no, no touching there” while awkwardly laughing and looking around for his mom or someone else to notice. I didn’t know many people there, but the people who did see kind of just laughed and looked entertained, like wondering how I was going to handle it.

Obviously I didn’t feel like I was in danger, it was a child. But it was so infuriating that because it was a little kid I felt like I couldn’t fully stand up for myself, I was worried it would look like I was trying to “make a scene”, you know? Like I didn’t know most people there, and I was worried people would think I was overreacting, and they’d be like “its just a kid, why are you choosing to make a big deal about it?”. Babies have grabbed at my chest before and that doesn’t phase me, I get that they think boobs mean food. But this kid seemed wayyyy too old for that…

So I guess I’m reaching out to Reddit because I genuinely have no idea how I should have handled that. I don’t have any kids of my own, so I don’t know what’s appropriate for asserting yourself with children, but clearly my attempt didn’t really phase him at all, he just ran away laughing. I contemplated later speaking to his mom privately and saying something like “hey I’m not trying to be judgemental or anything, but I thought you would like to be aware that this happened”, because I know that if I had a child and they did that, I would want to know so I could address it. But again, most of the women there were like a very solid group, and I was worried that I would come across like accusatory or confrontational. I’m also REALLY pissed off thinking that a little human who is one day going to be a big human just had the learned experience that you can go up to a stranger and touch them without any consequences.

So, what’s the etiquette for when a child you don’t know does something incredibly inappropriate and their parent isnt there?