It seems that people are more concerned about being embarrassed or *dissed* than they are about almost anything else. I don’t know if this is new, or has always been. But that seems to be the first reaction of most people these days.
It is nothing new, other than that the social impulses that would previously curtail such behavior have been abolished.
In the “self esteem” era - how DARE you point out that their child is wandering out into the street - why that is an attack upon their very being - their most precious asset - no, not the child, their own feeling of self worth.
“I am NOT a bad mother!” she screeched at me while her toddler wandered out into the street.