When Corissa Rieschieck's son was having a meltdown while they were grocery shopping [1], this mom quickly solved the problem the same way many parents do — she put a pacifier in his mouth. However, one stranger didn't approve of Corissa's parenting and took physical action to let her opinion be known [2].

According to Corissa, the woman approached 2-year-old Gizmo before "promptly plucking the [pacifier] 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."

The stranger walked off, and her unwelcome actions took both Corissa and her child by such surprise that it left them both speechless.

Despite leaving with the toddler's pacifier [3], the stranger later returned to give it back — and further criticize Corissa's parenting.

"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,'" Corissa wrote in a blog post.

What bothers me most about this entire situation is not actually that yet another person had the nerve to question my parenting. Being entirely unsure of myself in this aspect of my life, I frequently do just that anyway. No. What bothers me most of all is that the absolute shock of that situation stunned me into silence. What bothers me is that a complete stranger actually had the nerve to get so close to my son as to take something from him without any care for getting my permission . . . That anger at myself for not responding, for being so shocked by the situation that I didn't tell that woman to go f*ck herself still sits inside me to this day, months later. Though it generally no longer spills out as a rage of vile cursing that I can't control. Instead, it comes out in this form — a blog post about the situation itself (with perhaps just a hint of that vile cursing). Most of all though, it comes out as 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?