to give dd food before paying for it?

[cantsleep]

Went to shops today with dcs. Dd was a bit tired and hungry and I wanted to get in and out quickly and home.

She was very hungry and has health issues and needed to eat that minute so I picked something up and let her have it. I have not done this before but couldn't have gone and paid then given it to her and continued shopping as she needed to eat straight away. Usually I have a snack in my bag for her but she had already had that one and I was going to buy more snack bits for her from the shops to replenish the ones I carry for her.

I noticed that a shop assistant was watching us intently and kept seeing her as we went round the shop.

When we got to the till I took the packet off dd for the man to scan and gave it back to her. As we were leaving the member of staff who had been watching approached us with a security guard and asked had we paid for what dd had eaten round the shop. I replied yes we had but she asked to check the receipt which obviously was fine.

She then told me that in future we HAD to pay for food before consuming it. I explained to her that it was a one off as I had run out of snacks I usually carry and dd needed to eat immediately but the security guard said food has to be paid for first.

It wasn't like I do this all the time and tbh as long as the food is paid for does it really matter?

WIBU to have let dd eat her snack before we had paid for it?

I can't bear to see parents shoving chunks of French bread at their kids in trolleys. It's just a bad habit, uneccesary and poor manners.

I think that most people should be able to get round a supermarket without eating.

In the case of the OP, I think she should have paid for the food item first - it wouldn't have taken a minute at the kiosk and as she has said, she's going to take more snacks with her in future to avoid this.

I don't care what most ppl do or how much food is in their cupboards before they go to buy more.

Anyway. I have chosen.
Waitrose wins today.

Re the query of theft (other lawyers please jump in and correct me if necessary) there was a case where someone swapped price labels in a shop to get the goods cheaper, and the court said that this was assumption of the rights of an owner, which amounted to appropriation as required for theft- so you not relevant that you have not left the shop. However to be guilty of theft you ahve to be dishonestly intending to deprive- and here you always intended to pay for the goods. Not dishonesty, not intent to deprive = no theft.

Morally/ettiquette wise? Based on the number of Mums who do it I would say it's offically the done thing now

Unrelatedly, my FIL who has type 1 carries a small (hotel size) pot of jam/honey- rub on the gums, the sugar passes rapidly through the membrane. And you're unlikely to just eat jam as a snack, so it's a really good emergency back up.

My kids often broke the end of the French bread to eat.

I've never shoved it in their mouths though.

It's called " theft by consumption" , you proved you actually paid, it was embarrassing to be stopped and you probably will not do it again. The store's staff were in the right though

Only if your not in the uk. Or if the consumption has something to do with piss arsing around with utility meters.

Of course it's shoving food in or scarfing or stuffing faces usual. Because they're being judgy. Same as people who 'wap a boob out in public' or 'dangle their breasts in a toddler's face' when we're criticising public or extended bfing. The language is deliberately used to denigrate. And it's tiresome.

I can't get excited about this I'm afraid. It's not theft. And yes of course you need the intention to permanently deprive for it to be a crime. Same as with a lot of areas of the law. You need intent. Otherwise, you could define all sorts of accidents as crimes.

It's fine to not like people grazing in supermarkets. But that's all it is. You don't like it. It's not necessarily indicative of a malaise in society or instant gratification (and interestingly, if you're advocating taking your own snacks with you instead, you're contradicting yourself. Either you approve of the snacking or not). There's bog all wrong with giving a child a snack when it's cross or tired or hungry and it's a snapshot of that day. Doesn't mean the child is immediately given food at every difficult juncture. And as far as food/drink to placate/entertain goes? Pshaw! How many people go out for dinner to celebrate or commiserate. How often do we recommend cake and chocolate to sad MNers? What about the proffered on here regularly to placate a miserable person? It's a snapshot, a decision at that time and making sweeping generalisations, huffing and puffing and riddling your posts with hyperbole to illustrate your point says everything about you and nothing about a 5 second snapshot of somebody's life.

By the way, I have never given my dc food I haven't paid for. Because oddly enough, I don't like it. No more, no less. I don't like dummies either. Or t-shirts with slogans. Or babies with v little hair having a pony tail on top of their heads. Or rap music. Do I think any of it shows the breakdown of society? No, I just mildly dislike some things.

True, it's not really the best manners. But I think in a supermarket situation it's not that bad.
A small baton will suffice for lunch for a large one, with nibble able crust at the end is going to keep a LO distracted hike in the trolly.
I'd be seriously impressed if he could eat an entire baguette before I get to the checkout.

My son just takes a bit out of everything on the shelf. I dont need to open anything and hes only stealing a small bute of each item.

Its a win win.

On a serious note. Its not a big issue yet people are trying to make it one.

Lets bring back hanging for those who 'aisle graze'

Bite**

Would have taken more than a minute to queue and pay as it was so busy.

We have found that if dd blood sugar is between 4.0-5.0 and she is heading for a hypo that if she eats something like crisps/biscuits/white bread with a carb value of 12-15g it brings her blood sugar up just enough. If she goes below 4.0 and has a hypo and has juice/glucose tablets etc we then have high blood sugar a couple of hours later.

As she is so young we want to try and keep her blood sugar as low as we can without her having too many hypos. It is difficult, lots of checking her levels but worth it as I'm so worried about long term effects.

I know people do it all the time. I know there are often reasons for it. Even dh has done it with a drink. But personally I don't like it at all and wouldn't do it. I think it's ill mannered ripping things open and handing over wrappers at the till.

I don't remember seeing it done when I was younger.

happygirl, you're right. Theft is the dishonest appropriation of goods with the intention to permanently deprive. Swapping the labels over is dishonest appropriation, never intending to pay full price for the goods is the intention to permanently deprive.

You don't need to leave the shop necessarily though I think they would always wait and apprehend you as you leave to strengthen the case. If a known shoplifter took goods from the shelf and concealed them in a bag/jacket and then continued to wander, you can assume theft to have been committed. The appropriation has been dishonest (goods concealed about the person) and the intention can be assumed from past actions, coupled with current behaviour.

I understand why you did it, OP-for health reasons.

But to me, it really smacks of bad manners/entitled children.

Just wait until you are out of the shop & teach your children to as well!

Very good points Show. ( hides the dummy )

"I don't remember seeing it done when I was younger."

Same here.

Also don't remember people eating in the streets much either.

We had our meals & rarely anything in between-often only fruit-and we certainly had to ask.

But children today seem to demand & get unlimited access to the fridge/snacks.

If your DD needs food on a regular basis, then it's your responsibility to make sure you've got it available. You need to plan ahead, and when she's old enough, you need to teach her to plan ahead too or she may well end up in a life-threatening situation that could have been avoided.

People have been eating bags of chips in the street for as long as I can remember.

I honestly can't believe there are people on this thread who think that eating something in a shop and then paying is not ok. Surely everyone does this? I do it all the time (for me, not DS!).

Yes the eating in the street I see amazes me. People seem to eat all the time rather than at just mealtimes now

My mother would have been most if I'd just helped myself out of the fridge to between meals snacks. It never occured to me to do it.

The cinema too. A few sweets maybe but people go in armed with enough food for a siege.

And nicking sweets from woolies pic and mix was a regular occurrence in the olden days.

Agreed diddl

My memories are the same as yours.

Ha ha bad mannered / entitled 2yr old children. Heard it all now. In any case I never rip open , delicately separate, teaching DGD as I go.

No bonadea we don't all do it. Plenty of people on here don't and can't sleep only did it in an emergency.

It is not something I do, my children have always been told they have to wait until it goes through the till. Technically it is wrong, just because lots of people do it does not make it right and this shop obviously does not accept it. I can see why you did it in your situation, but I would hazard a guess that the shop has experienced finding lots of half eaten items dumped around the shop or empty packets where people have eaten and not paid for but have eaten, hence their strong response. I have a family member who quite openly admitted to sharing packets of sausage rolls and bottles of drinks while shopping and dumping the packets. There reasoning was that technically the items were not leaving the store as they had already gone!

OP, your child's illness means you need to be better prepared really. I have the same problem with DS and always carry more than 1 snack ( I find oat cakes great, the nice Nairns ones cone in didferent flavours).

If it was a one-off, not a big deal, everybody makes mistakes.

People who always feed their kids supermarket foods in the aisles.... I think it is sloppy, bad manners and unnecessary pandering.

This whole culture of kids having to snack all day long just irritates me, for a child who does not have diabetes, surely going 30 minutes without a snack should be possible?

Apparently not.