Ewwww.....primary school kids in shopping trollies

But you wash your food before you eat it?

I don't see the relevance of the shoes in the house thing at all. Shoes come off in my house because a) it's comfier and b) I don't want to look at dirty marks, mud, stones etc on my carpet, nor do I want to clean it five times a day.

A better comparison would be, do you wash/sterilise the inside of your cupboards and fridge before you put all your shopping away?

But surely you acknowledge trollies are kept outside subject to rain, shitting birds, insects and whatever leaves/crisp packets blow into them? I could understand your position a bit better if they were kept safely indoors and sterilised every day but they’re not. They’re unclean to start with, so luckily food is either packaged or if loose something you generally wash and boil/peel.

Accidents can and do happen. I worked in a supermarket and those have older children sitting in the trolley are asked to remove the child. More than one accident has been caused where the child has leaned over, disturbed the weight balance and the whole thing comes crashing down. All neatly captured on CCTV when parents try to claim compo

Interesting, there have been many many other MN threads where lots of people say that children should not be allowed to walk in a supermarket, you strap them in the trolley or don't bring them. Or words to that effect.

If one was the kind of person to live their life according to the MN consensus, what would one do??

I thought this was going to be about safety tbh.

People put raw chickens in the bottom of trollies (and yes they are absolutely contaminated on the outside of the packaging). That's far more likely to make you ill than a 5 year old child.

Unclench.

I am one of the 23% who values hygiene though, or just thinks walking around a supermarket is OK for a school aged child.

This.

However, the hygiene part isn't really an issue. I wouldn't presume a trolley cart is overly,clean anyway.

We have rats by our local tesco they built it between a river and a canal we also have ducks pigeons mice flys and loads of other disgusting things we also have scratch and sniff who uses the trolleys too so nothing is paticularly hygienic here

An explanation of scratch and sniff not for the faint hearted

A group of particularly dirty people (they are NOT POOR they CAN afford soap) who scratch inside there trousers and sniff their fingers occasionally they flick lumps out from there (fucking grim) fingernails the original scratch and sniff was nicknamed in the 70s went on to have children who have the same habits they are quite well off buy nice food just have the personal hygiene habits of the undead and smell about the same

Shopping trolleys are stored outside overnight so will have shit and piss from rats, foxes etc on them. Much more likely that the child catches something.

Ah. You live under the belief that if you have never seen it happen it can't happen.

YABU @CanIbeRio . I assume you’ve never seen all the rats, mice, foxes, pigeons et al. that clamber all over the shopping trollies out of hours?

Hate to tell you...they're filthy whether a kids been in it or not! I always put my shopping directly in my own bags.

I must’ve visited a supermarket tens of thousands of times in my life and I’ve never once seen a trolley tip over, where are you shopping?

Bless them, been at school all day walking and standing in God knows what - in and out of the loos with possible wee, poo, vomit covered floors, walking by dog poo and possibly stomping in muddy puddles on the way to the shops.

Where on earth do your kids go to school that the floors are covered in vomit? 😂

Meh. The loose fruit and veg may well have been grown using actual poo as fertiliser, so I can't get too excited.

We’re usually going on the way home from something else and between ‘I’m tired’ and the length of her legs, it turns a 30m job into a 1h+ job! Plus, she’s at the right height to be basket-height, and even when walking closely next to me she’s had a few baskets knock near her head - people are in their own words and aren’t looking around to see if there’s a 1m child next to them. It’s quicker, easier and (in my view given the above factors) safer to have her in the trolley.

I never let my children get in them, but the only thing I’m thinking if I do see a child in one is “ugh please don’t stand up and fall”.
I’ve never considered a trolley clean anyway.

@Cheepcheepcheep why can't she just walk next to you?

Same! I’m sure there were loads around when I was little (I remember using them!) but they’ve all but disappeared and I’m not traipsing a 2yo and a 3yo around all the trolley parks to find the rogue one still left…

Yes its really annoying as the trolleys were squeaky clean before the disgusting child got in it. Turns my stomach.

I put my child in the main bit of the shopping trolley because I have a younger child who needs the seat. There used to be trolleys with two child seats next to each other, which my kids would easily fit in, but they all seem to have disappeared. I asked about it a few months ago and it turns out they got rid of most of them and now only have two. This is an enormous supermarket with hundreds of customers... two. So if I manage to get one of them I will use it, otherwise the little one gets strapped in the seat and the big(ger) one goes in the main bit of the trolley, until she can reliably walk alongside.

My 3.5 year old fits in the seat, but I need it for her 2yo brother. She never stands up in the trolley - she’s usually quietly sat down playing ‘supermarket’ with a couple of items (pretending to scan/weigh them).

(Plus the stuff in the trolley weighs more than she does by the end of the shop!)

Edit to add: this is very child dependent. I am already fully aware that I will not be able to trust DS to sit quietly in the trolley when he is 3.5, as he was delivered to me stuck in ‘kamikaze’ mode and I can’t work out how to factory reset 😆

Agree with this.