‘Who tickles babies they don’t know?’: A Michigan mom says she maced a stranger who touched her daughter at Walmart

A Michigan mother is getting widespread support online after admitting she maced a stranger inside a Walmart for tickling her young daughter. According to The Nerd Stash, the mother, who goes by Jewel, posted a TikTok video explaining what happened after someone else shared footage of the incident online. She said a “big, burly man” walked up to her daughter and started tickling her without permission. “So, I maced him,” she said.

She went on to question why anyone would do that in the first place. “Why would you do that?” she said in the video. “I don’t even play tickle at home! There’s no tickling of the baby! Who tickles babies they don’t know?”

According to her, this was not an isolated incident. She said she had started carrying mace after a separate encounter days earlier at a library, where a man tapped her on the shoulder to tell her that her baby was “cute.” She said moments like that, where strangers touch her without asking, are what pushed her to start carrying protection. “I know my baby is beautiful,” she said, before holding up a can of mace for her audience. “Don’t touch us or you can get it, too!”

Parents online overwhelmingly backed her up

The video drew thousands of comments, most of them supportive of her reaction. Many commenters said they were parents themselves and would have responded the same way. One commenter summed up the broader frustration simply: “Why is anyone touching strangers.” Another shared a specific incident, writing, “A Walmart worker grabbed my little cousin’s arm that was in a cast and tried signing it without even asking.”

Some commenters went further, arguing that tickling in particular can be used as cover for inappropriate touching. “Tickling is how a lot of predators start their attacks,” one wrote. The general sentiment across the comments was that touching someone else’s child without permission crosses a clear line. That specific concern does line up with general child-safety research, even though nothing here confirms the stranger’s actual intentions.

According to Rainn, the nation’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization, physical grooming by abusers often begins with seemingly harmless contact like tickling, hugging, or wrestling before escalating over time. A similar case recently made headlines in Florida, where a man allegedly asked to pet children at a pet store before a confrontation broke out involving pepper spray.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents teach kids about body autonomy from an early age, including the idea that a touch is not okay if it makes a child feel uncomfortable, confused, or scared, regardless of who is doing it. As for the mace itself, Michigan law generally permits adults to carry and use pepper spray for self-defense, provided it stays under an 18 percent concentration and is used only against an immediate threat rather than offensively.

No injuries were reported from the Walmart incident, and it does not appear that police were involved. The man involved has not been publicly identified, and neither he nor Walmart has commented on the incident.