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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be disgusted

75 replies

StickyStickyStickStickSong · 19/04/2022 22:32

Visited our local Zoo and Castle yesterday with DS who's not long turned 1.
I was disgusted by the behaviour of some people in front of their kids and at a place full of families with children!

So we saw a guy smoking a spliff!!! Walking and smoking it whilst with his kids effing and jeffing at them may I add, as he puffs away...then, I assume it was the son (I'd say around 6yrs old: so old enough to know better really) pulls his pants down on the path way and starts peeing up the fence where some of the animals were (both parents found it really funny which encouraged him)

Then we passed a guy who full on spat out phlegm in front of everyone (again, with his kids)

Then another guy who finished his cigarette and just flicked it onto the grass hill (luckily no animals there but still a place where I should say they can get to)

Then another family taking a photo of their kids on a wall, I think there were 4 or 5 of the kids between 4-14yrs I'd say.. mum was taking the photo and dad was telling them to all put their fingers up.. she laughed and just carried on taking the photo. Finding it hilarious.

I just can't get my head around how people can behave like this around not only their kids but at a place where it's full of children everywhere!
I feel sorry for the children because this is how they're being brought up to think this is socially acceptable behaviour!
All of this just ruined our visit, we didn't even do the whole tour of it, we just came away and I don't even feel like ever going back which is sad as it's on our doorstep and DS loves animals.

Disgusting

OP posts:
Hawkins001 · 19/04/2022 22:57

@StickyStickyStickStickSong

Visited our local Zoo and Castle yesterday with DS who's not long turned 1. I was disgusted by the behaviour of some people in front of their kids and at a place full of families with children!

So we saw a guy smoking a spliff!!! Walking and smoking it whilst with his kids effing and jeffing at them may I add, as he puffs away...then, I assume it was the son (I'd say around 6yrs old: so old enough to know better really) pulls his pants down on the path way and starts peeing up the fence where some of the animals were (both parents found it really funny which encouraged him)

Then we passed a guy who full on spat out phlegm in front of everyone (again, with his kids)

Then another guy who finished his cigarette and just flicked it onto the grass hill (luckily no animals there but still a place where I should say they can get to)

Then another family taking a photo of their kids on a wall, I think there were 4 or 5 of the kids between 4-14yrs I'd say.. mum was taking the photo and dad was telling them to all put their fingers up.. she laughed and just carried on taking the photo. Finding it hilarious.

I just can't get my head around how people can behave like this around not only their kids but at a place where it's full of children everywhere!
I feel sorry for the children because this is how they're being brought up to think this is socially acceptable behaviour!
All of this just ruined our visit, we didn't even do the whole tour of it, we just came away and I don't even feel like ever going back which is sad as it's on our doorstep and DS loves animals.

Disgusting

And with examples like these, and some people wonder why politicians, it could be argued, would frown upon this type of behaviour and the people conducting themselves this way, ?
Ohmnomnom · 19/04/2022 22:58

Those people you're looking down on were most likely raised by parents just like them or even worse. They were innocent children once, but grew up thinking that behaviour was normal and are now repeating it.

I agree it's fucking annoying, but people rarely behave like that if they grew up in a loving, supportive family.

FlosCampi · 19/04/2022 22:59

I've seen parents at a farm: swearing at their children and belittling them; spitting and shouting at the animals; screaming in their children's faces, smacking a dummy out of a child's mouth and laughing; encourage their children to shake barriers, kick fences, and scare the animals by throwing sticks at lambs or donkeys for instance. The last is the worst I think, and I did intervene there, but yes how are those children going to have any hope of growing up with self-respect or empathy?

RedMake88 · 19/04/2022 23:01

Dud-lie 😂

PortalooSunset · 19/04/2022 23:05

How on earth did you have time to look at any of the actual exhibits?

BitOutOfPractice · 19/04/2022 23:05

@RedMake88 I was literally counting the posts until someone said that. 🙄

Hawkins001 · 19/04/2022 23:06

@RedMake88

Dud-lie 😂
Indeed, till the glass vanished
Fingerscrossed2022 · 19/04/2022 23:09

Sounds like Dudley zoo? I’m not surprised sadly, unfortunately it’s these kind of families who seem to have the most kids Sad they all grow up the same, no manners, awful at school and then turn out just like their parents.

TheUsualChaos · 19/04/2022 23:09

Unfortunately bank holiday weekends seem to bring people like this out in droves. A few years back we were at a gorgeous national trust garden on a sunny Easter weekend and watched in horror as two boys picked up sticks and systematically bashed the heads off the tulips planted as part of the formal garden, which as it happens they weren't even meant to be running around in. The parents weren't oblivious, they just didn't care. I was too far off to say anything but people closer were just standing there gob smacked. I was just about to go and find a staff member when someone came running over to tell them to stop and the parents just seemed to laugh and wander off. I think what I couldn't get my head around was the idea that someone would pay to come and be in a place like that in the first place and then stand back and allow their kids to destroy it.

Nonimai · 19/04/2022 23:09

We went to Chester Zoo last Friday - it was the same sort of thing. So many parents swearing at or in front of small children.

tootsierubs · 19/04/2022 23:12

Disgusting behaviour, such a shame it spoiled your little one's Zoo outing. Sadly this kind of behaviour seems to be common these days. I took my kids and step kids for a day out and a walk by the canal. We were watching a mother duck with her ducklings and a saw two little lads crouched down by the waters edge. At first I thought they were chucking food but the ducks seemed to be trying to swim away. It was then I realised they were throwing stones at them!!. I went nuts and shouted at them, told them to clear off! Got a mouthful of abuse, they were only about 7 ! Parents nowhere to be seen.

Girlmumdogmumboymum · 19/04/2022 23:12

Sorry this reminds me of how I feel when we visit merlin attractions. Not the same as national Trust or English heritage attractions TBH.
K despair at some of the behaviour I see, mostly adults though.

miamiaow · 19/04/2022 23:13

Dudley?

Yeah, I live here, sadly. I pass parents smoking spliffs outside the school gates. It’s a shithole all round.

ElenaSt · 19/04/2022 23:14

My children were young in the late 90s/2000s and we all hated going anywhere busy where atrocities like you describe would also be attending so we would go to places at off peak time (riff raff don’t like getting up early) and even on occasion taking them out of school.

Flickflak · 19/04/2022 23:14

This reply has been withdrawn

Message from MNHQ: This post has been withdrawn

Blinky21 · 19/04/2022 23:14

Got to be Dudley, if so horrible zoo

thisuser · 19/04/2022 23:15

@DesignerRecliner

YANBU. The behaviour of some members of the public shocks me. People behaving like that when they have children, means that those kids are likely to never stand a proper chance in society, because they're learning that type of behaviour from such a young age.

I find it horrible hearing constant swearing on the school run. Also, no manners, selfish/rude behaviour when around other people and a total lack of discipline means I judge the parents harshly. Unsurprisingly there's usually a correlation with the children being significantly overweight - as the parents don't give a shit about behaviour, so why would they care about nutrition?

I know I'll be slammed for this, but we all know the 'type' of family, and they're the ones to avoid

this.
tillyandmilly · 19/04/2022 23:16

I agree totally how many so called parents allow their kids to behave in public - what hope have they got with imbecile parents like these - some of them should never have had kids

whatyousayin · 19/04/2022 23:19

Urgh you're right, that's disgusting and a shameful. I feel sorry for the kids and how embarrassing that they are English.

BrentfordBee · 19/04/2022 23:21

I think what I couldn't get my head around was the idea that someone would pay to come and be in a place like that in the first place and then stand back and allow their kids to destroy it.

Mystifying, isn’t it. I could understand on some level if they weren’t interested at all and had somehow found themselves there, but they’ve obviously paid money and made the journey so must value it in some way.

The worst I’ve ever seen was when I was a child myself on a holiday day trip to Trier in Germany. Mindless parents were encouraging their children to scratch their names into the walls of the Roman ruins. I was about eight at the time and knew then that what they were doing was awful.

SuchAsSeals · 19/04/2022 23:21

YANBU.

It's horrifying, the behaviour that some people think is acceptable. It always makes me wonder, if this is how they behave in public places, what are they like behind closed doors?

ChampagneJustBecause · 19/04/2022 23:22

Yes it’s disgusting.

I often wonder if they do it for attention because they won’t get it any other way.

SushiShopSearch · 19/04/2022 23:22

The fall of the Roman Empire. Watch.

Women's rights destroyed. Not being able to say what is a woman (we see you Keir Starmer)

Children being groomed www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-61149449

Society is on the way out.

GayParis · 19/04/2022 23:23

Well you will go to a zoo...

LuluBlakey1 · 19/04/2022 23:24

I am quite often shocked and saddened by the horrible, ill-mannered behaviour I see from people who are parents with their children present, but also from people in their 20s and 30s without children there, all of whom seem to have no idea at all what good manners, courtesy, self-respect, dignity and kindness are. They treat the world and everything on it like crap and think they are somehow clever or funny for doing so.
I would have been upset by what you described OP.

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