Nope, you’re completely in the clear here. Maybe mom thinks it’s ok to sit like that in a dress?
I’d say you were perfectly justified. If Mom wants her little angel to be above reproach from other adults, even in their own homes, then it’s her responsibility to make sure the kid’s behavior actually is above reproach. She failed, you took over, end of story.
As for her accusing you of being a pervert, that’s really wrong and kind of scary.
I would have done the same, though I probably would have said something like “Please do not show your underwear in public. It is not polite.” Takes it away from the “unladylike” stereotype.
I totally agree with this.
And SHAKES, you totally did the right thing. I wouldn’t take the mom’s comments to heart. Keeping up with such a small child can be exhausting and if someone, no matter how innocently, implies you’re not keeping up with the kid can make you a little crabby.
I was taking care of my goddaughter one weekend. While we were at the zoo, someone helpfully pointed out that she was on the verge of lobbing her shoe into the meerkat pen, and I’m afraid my response was a very snarky “I know already!” that the person didn’t deserve all. I’d been juggling food, wet wipes, and was trying to get mustard out of her hair, so the fact that she’d pulled off her shoe was way down on my list of deal-with-NOW-stuff.
So my reaction was a frustration/defenseive thing. I’m sure the innocent bystander at the zoo was trying to be helpful, but part of you really hears it as: “Dude, playing ‘Dad’, you kinda suck.”
I agree with Manda Jo about the humiliated feelings a child may have as a result of such remarks; on the other hand, culture about kids and sexuality being what it is, if the adult does NOT make such a remark, he or she is the one feeling uncomfortable. It’s a no-win situation, I think.
And now to commiserate. 
My friend and I once watched my friends’ three year-old niece sitting on the lap of her grandma, being read to. Grandma couldn’t see over the edges of the book she was holding, so she didn’t notice that the three-year old was absentmindedly, but very obviously, masturbating herself. Both Grandma and the niece were completely innocent about the situation, but my friend and I sat in full view and we didn’t know what to do or say.
In the end, we never mentioned it, figuring it wasn’t our place to do so, and because we were too cowardly but we sure were uncomfortable!
I would have phrased it more neutrally, and wouldn’t have used the word ladylike. When talking to other people’s kids, I try to make requests of them like I would of adults. “Name, would you please put your feet down? … Thank you.” or “Name, could you please wait a second until I finish doing this with your mom? … Thank you.” They usually respond well, mostly because they’re surprised to be spoken to that way by a new person. (It’s so much easier being a friend-of-mom.) Of course, if it’s a kid that I’m around all the time or babysit regularly, I’ll order them around. “Hey, I heard your dad tell you to stop jumping on that! Stop it.”
However, I think the word “ladylike” naturally comes to mind when a little girl is wearing a skirt, and I truly doubt that the 6 year old is going to develop some sort of gender-linked inferiority complex because of his use of the word. She was probably embarrassed, but really, shouldn’t she have been? In our society, you show your underwear, you embarrass people. Six is plenty old enough to be able to handle that. It’s also a bit young to have a productive discussion about sexism, body issues, culture, and sexuality. Being embarrassed of showing your underwear is hardly in the same realm as being ashamed of your body. There’s a whole range of normal up to and incluing “Eep, I showed my panties.” and “Yes, I’m a nudist and that is my vagina, thankyouverymuch.”
“That’s not ladylike,” is only one of many messages she’s going to get about her behavior, and the woman she becomes will depend on all of those messages, not just this one. Maybe “classy” should replace “ladylike” and “gentlemanly,” if you want to be completely neutral, but I don’t think it’s a big deal. To me, the lessons and attitudes are more important than the words.
Also, I don’t think you were creepy, and if the mom really thought you were checking out her 6 year old by noticing her underwear, she’s a weirdo.
I agree that **SHAKES ** was in the right. With all the benefit of hindsight, could he maybe have chosen slightly better words, sure. But who on earth can hold themselves to that standard? What you did was well short of creepy, and is just mired in the same muck of any issue related to correcting someone else’s child.
One other reason the mom might have overreacted is if she has actually had to deal with genuine inappropriate, pervy behavior before, either related to her daughter or herself. Not that that excuses her overreaction or failure to proactively correct her kid, but it is a possible explanation.
Ditto. And FTR, father of 2 girls, 2 and 11.
Maybe I’m weird, but I think it would have been just a little creepier if you had left OFF the “unladylike” part. Just saying, “Put your legs down” to me implies that the person you’re talking to KNOWS why; i.e., maybe they were doing it on purpose.
What you said is exactly what I would say/ DO say to the 3-year-old girl I babysit. “Ladylike” in this instance is not a limiting gender-role distinction; it’s rather a distinction between socially appropriate and not.
Although, I guess to avoid confusion, “it’s not polite” would work too. “Polite” is a convenient catchall for all things that are proper, or NOT “not cool”.
That’s the one thing I hate the most about these kinds of threads. The endless hindsight second guessing and moral posturing about what someone should have said, how every fucking word was a minefield because of their own personal trauma, and how the poster would have said it ten thousand times better. :rolleyes:
Whereas I say to these people: No, you fucking wouldn’t have, you would have blurted out something completely innocent and been roasted over the coals for it because it touched on some secret shame or personal power trip landmine of the mother in question. Fucking stop with the “you said this wrong and I would have said X” crap already!
Maybe you want to take another look at the OP? He said exactly
No mention of panties. No mention of sex. Plus, I gather that enough time went by for the mother to say something about it if she was going to. I’m not even sure if underwear was involved, actually.
As for unzipped boys, men have developed code words to deal with this situation, and we would much rather be told then not. None of these involve making a big deal about it. I bet the girl, if she thought about it at all, might have thought the unladylike behavior was having her feet up. I doubt that this girl even thought about the sexual connotations. When my younger daughter was about that age, we went into NY to see Cats, and she informed us, just after we parked, that she had forgotten to put on her underwear. We made a quick trip to the department store, but there were no darker connotations.
I wish I could be as subtle and appropriate as SHAKES was.
I’d have stuffed a dollar into her waistband.
Based on the math, I would say a quarter or maybe a half dollar if this was in Thailand.
It still floors me that the mother insinuated that the OP was a perv. I mean, if he were a perv, wouldn’t he have said nothing and let the peep show continue?
Or asked the mother, “Hey, can you do that too?”
FTR- SHAKES made the right call in my book.
Responding to the other thread, another thought occurred to me. Have you ever noticed that when parents tell kids to do something, they frequently, habitually give a reason? “Put your legs down” to a lot of kids gets the response “why?” just like every other thing a parent says to a kid. I think it’s entirely plausible that he just responded with the first thing that came to his mind after realizing the mother was not going to say anything to the girl. Sure, maybe SHAKES could have just said “Put your legs down” or “take your feet off the table” and gotten away with it but IMNSHO, why should he have to? I really do not believe in my heart that any reasonable girl would be scarred by SHAKES’s statement.
If you are a parent who doesn’t want other people to ever correct your children, particularly in that person’s home, keep your kids at home. They will not behave 100% of the time and if you aren’t watching them every single moment and are unprepared and unwilling for a 3rd party to call them on their mistakes, do the rest of us a favor, stay home.
Heh, remember when your mama used to beat your friends? How incredibly humiliating that was? (She was right, of course.)
There is nothing wrong with the word “ladylike”, as long as it’s not “Don’t play catch with the boys, it isn’t ladylike.” Sitting so people can see your underwear is neither ladylike nor gentlemanly.
ETA - I have indeed told a little boy “Gentlemen don’t do that!”, in reference to peeing on my rosebush.
Inflation has run it up to about 63 cents now. 
That could be, quite possibly, how she wound up with a kid in the first place.
As for my 2 cents, SHAKES, your comment to the child was perfectly acceptable. My husband and I don’t kids, but I expect a certain level of behavior from any of our friend’s kids or from our niece’s and nephews when they are guests in my house. The same rules apply for all the kids in our circle of family and friends. If you’re caught doing something you shouldn’t be, you’re going to get talked to. It might not be your parent, but it is someone with your best interests at heart.
Ooh, or dropping a pencil into your friends’ pants who are “crackin’.”
I just never want the pencil back, though.