Reach your kids some fucking consideration! [ranty]

[someonestolemynick]

This has been inspired by the mummy who let her two charming kids scoot around Tesco. But it also goes out to the geniuses who keep their little darlings watch Peppa Pig on the bus or the pub. The parent who doesn't think it necessary to teach their kids that the appropriate response to bumping into another human is to apologise.
I have noticed this more and more: children (being children) act loud, entitled or aggressive and the accompanying adult smiles indulgently rather than correcting behaviour that infringes on others.

Ianbu

Lots of kids are lovely. But seriously I am gobsmacked by parents who think it is fine to let their kid ride a scooter around the supermarket.

I think what I object to is the idea, perpetuated by some on this thread that a) people in the past were all morally and behaviourally better and b) modern parents are crap. Those are unpleasant generalisations that can't realistically be true.

No it is not true. But when I was young adults would readily tell off other peoples kids. So kids with useless parents were still told clearly what is okay and what is not. That is what has gone.

Unfortunately the people who need to read these comments to learn from them won't be the people reading these comments

It's not kids, it's some parents who teach by example that no one else matters.

We were at Woburn Safari Park the other day, in a traffic jam in the tiger enclosure. Despite signs everywhere saying please keep moving slowly, do not stop, unsafe, and a guy in a jeep doing his best to wave people on, there were a number of families who insisted on parking up right beside any wildlife and sitting there to look as long as they wanted. After 15 minutes stuck in this jam seeing nothing my kids (one with ASD) were getting restless and wanted out. The only thing people could do to escape was drive very carefully around the idiots and move on, seeing nothing.

We later went to the bouncy castles area, heavily sign posted 'under 5s only' and 'if you're older than 5, this is not for you' (designated play areas for older kids elsewhere) where I had to pull my under fives away fast because of multiple parents sending on their at least 10 year olds who threw themselves about with gay abandon oblivious to the toddlers they were knocking flying. Their parents stood fondly taking photographs of this, oblivious.

Selfish twats.

Peppa pig has saved us much trauma when having blood tests. And it was the GOSH staff who had it loaded on the iPad ready.

These days I have our kindle loaded and charged ready for hospital stuff. She won't keep headphones on so it's on low volume. Last time another little girl joined us in watching an episode in the clinic.

I've never, ever seen a child on a scooter in a supermarket. Ever. Nor on a bike.

Admittedly I live abroad, but I do return to the UK regularly.

I am tempted to start a TAAT to see how common this is...

Has everyone posting on here seen this phenomenon? Once? Or daily? I'm sure it has occurred, but it honestly feels like a MN urban myth to me.

Same with the Peppa Pig actually - I've never heard Peppa Pig at a volume which would allow me to recognise it as Peppa Pig in any public place at all. Is this really ubiquitous or something that actually once happened to everyone's friend's neighbour's postman's brother's dog's former dog-walker?

LoyaltyandLobster
If other people's children's behaviour effects you when you are out, perhaps you should stay home. There has been times when I've been out and seen other people's children act out of place and I just choose to ignore it as I am in a public place.
There are only two reasons for a statement like that:
1: You're a troll trying to get a rise out of everyone, and succeeding
2: You're an arrogant, entitled mother whose children will grow up the same.
Shame on you to think your kids can behave as badly as they like and everyone who doesn't like rude, disruptive children should become housebound.

I use to work in a supermarket, I have had to throw out a 20 something guy who though it was a good idea to ride his scooter in -a moped scooter!

Also a 30 something that I repetitively had to ask to stop bmx riding over walls benches and even over a metal waist high fence that is 2 inches wide.

Also those bloody toddler trikes that people seem to like because their child is a big boy/girl and no longer in a buggy with the long handle at the back. Funnily enough toddlers like to peddle around the smooth floor taking out old ladies/wine bottles/anything in their path

Evelyn

Yes it does happen there are plenty examples on this thread and it's a disgrace that parents allow it and shops do not stop it from happening. I can't understand how a parent would think it's ok.

Evelynismyspyname I see this very regularly in our local supermarkets many of them are not large - not much room for two trollies down each aisle let alone kids on scooters and heelies!! However, if a child was to hurtle around a corner and hit a trolly, the parent would have no recourse as the only things on wheels in the shop should be trollies. My grandchildren will go everywhere faster and without complaint on their scooters - they are welded to them. Howerver - the supermarket is not within scooting distance so therefore the scooters would not be used for transport. The other day I witnessed an adult on a scooter at the 'mini-supermarket. He took it into the shop but thankfully did not ride it around the store :-)

YANBU I am totally sick and so pissed off with the amount of people who fall into the entitled generation. There are good people, yes, but so many entitled arses these days I want to scream.

Willow I know there are examples on the thread, but it just smacks of urban myth to me because I've never seen it... Kids on scooters in supermarkets are wheeled (da dum dum sorry) out regularly on the inevitable "parents of today are rubbish, the youth of today have no respect, the world is going to hell in a handcart, when I were a lad children were seen but not heard" threads which pop up every week or three...

These threads do attract people who'd like to pile on and agree that other people are dreadful, and prove how brilliant they are by being the loudest critic of everyone else. The kids on scooters in supermarkets are just such perfect fodder... To bad/ good to be true... At least to be common (think of anything dreadful and it will have happened somewhere to somebody obviously).

As I said people have been claiming the current generation of parents are bring up entitled brats, and the youth of today are far worse than the youth of yesterday since the age of Socrates ...

when I was young adults would readily tell off other people's kids

That may be true. But, according to some MN threads, that still happens. It's all anecdotal, isn't it (unless anyone has any data they're keeping secret?!).

The trouble is, no one has been part of more than one generation, and we all view our childhoods through a certain prism. It's very tempting (and, as a PP proved with that reference to the Socrates quotation, a truly ancient human tradition) to believe that 'the youth of today' is going to the dogs.

We can quote various anecdotal examples all day- doesn't really prove anything.

My LO loves to scoot - but when we get to the supermarket it goes upside down on the top of the buggy till we get back outside....I thought thats what everyone did - I've never seen one ridden inside the shop

Our first experience of peppa pig on the ipad was when in a coffee shop with friends - our toddlers were both around 3, babies aged 1, toddlers getting a bit noisy - we both reached into our bags - I pulled out crayons and paper, other mum pulled out the ipad and put peppa pig on so loud we could no longer talk

Evelyn

prove how brilliant they are by being a loudest critic of everyone else

Exactly! Beautifully put!

the loudest critic

Heelies......... at what point is it every appropriate for a child to be whizzing around a hospitals in these ridiculous shoes..

Evelyn
Nobody is saying every parent is bad not every kid. But when you are faced with it every time you go shopping it's reasonable to think it shouldn't be happening at all.

Why didn't you politely ask her to turn it (the fuck) down?

What's wrong with watching peppa (quietly)

Nobody is saying every parent is bad

True. But, unless I'm really misreading the thread, there's a sense that many believe that on average parents/their offspring are somehow worse.

And that's a bit unpleasant, not to mention unlikely, when you look at it in the context of recorded human history.

At best, this assumption, that it's all going to hell in a handcart, shows a lack of critical thinking and an over-reliance on subjective experience.

What's wrong with good old fashioned books or comics ? Especially in a hospital waiting area . !

BitOutOfPractice Ah- ha! As I suspected! It's not the volume but the nature of the disturbance! I half suspect that some posters would prefer the constant sounds of leery men catcalling a succession of women from the nearest window... At least then the natural order would be preserved! But children being catered for in public??

How the actual fuck did you extrapolate that from my post about Peppa Pig merchantofvenice

Luluuuuuuu she is 2, has developmental delays and degenerative condition. Peppa works for us in that situation.

It makes me so mad that people bump into my son and because I have taught him manners he says sorry to them! Most people grunt. My son is allowed his tablet whilst we are out but on silent or with headphones, I also have kids running wild which is why I am very strict with my 7 year old. So YANBU!