Whole families going food shopping

[Shiningstarr]

Just came back from food shopping, there were a couple of young families in there, one in particular, the mum was pushing the trolley, her two young children walking near her and the dad was following with a pram and carrying another toddler.

Surely it would be easier for just mum to go and do the food shop, or just dad? Why bring all those children plus pram? I can't think of anything worse. Both mum and dad looked stressed.

Do you never moan about things other people don’t find irritating?

To the degree of investing the amount of energy some have on here in moaning, about a perfectly regular and legal behaviour, no I don't think so.

Don’t believe you!

Don’t believe you!

Believe what you want 🤷‍♀️

But just maybe, not everyone is as intolerant to other people's perfectly acceptable behaviour as you.

I don’t believe that you’ve never complained about somebody else’s perfectly legal behaviour because it’s slowing you down. People hesitating before pulling out, driving too slowly, fumbling for change at a till, stopping to chat on the pavement so you have to step in the road…

pretending to be a 24/7 paragon of patience, virtue and serenity is a mumsnet concept which just doesn’t exist in real life. We all moan. It’s normal and healthy. Doesn’t make you a bad person or even ‘intolerant’.

Well, presumably OP wants her voice heard, hence the thread. She keeps popping up to tell us how we’re wrong about this family she saw, so it seems logical to expect her to engage with the perfectly reasonable counterpoints 🤷‍♀️ She doesn’t have to come across well, but presumably she wants to as she keeps defending her position.

Hard to believe this is a topic. Isn’t it there business what they do??

She doesn’t need a counterpoint though. The fact the Smiths are there because little Johnny enjoys counting the apples, or because Mr Smith won’t sniff the veg, is totally irrelevant to the fact they’re blocking the aisle and crowding the shop. They’re perfectly entitled to do what they’re doing of course, but OP is also entitled to be annoyed.

*People hesitating before pulling out, driving too slowly, fumbling for change at a till, stopping to chat on the pavement so you have to step in the road…

pretending to be a 24/7 paragon of patience, virtue and serenity is a mumsnet concept which just doesn’t exist in real life. We all moan. It’s normal and healthy. Doesn’t make you a bad person or even ‘intolerant’.*

I can very honestly say that I do not get irritated or moan about anything you've listed. With regards to the last one - if someone is in my way, I politely say excuse me and then they move. No need to step into the road, nothing to get worked up about.

I'm not making out I'm a 24/7 paragon of virtue and patience blah blah. I get impatient and irritated by plenty of things. But I'm just not going to get wound up over normal, mundane behaviour from strangers.

It’s just weirdly obstinate, as an OP who claims to be interested in other views on this, to refuse to engage with those other views.

I don’t believe that you’ve never complained about somebody else’s perfectly legal behaviour because it’s slowing you down.

Thats not what I said. Of course I've complained.

However I don't believe I've invested as much energy/headspace in complaining similar things as you have here.

Then you’re being very intolerant of OP and her perfectly legal desire to start a rant thread 😉

I think we should all go out shopping with our families much more often!! It will cause the easily annoyed to implode and stay home, and we won't have to put up with them anymore!! These threads always make me care less about people's annoyances not more, it just all sounds so trivial written down.

People like me, who have had to put up with outrageously rude behaviour from members of the public while out and about because of our disabled offspring, really, really don't give a shiny shit about Mumsnet Karens who think us and our families are better off out of public spaces.

Water off a duck's back, OP. But do keep on quacking, I find it amusing.

Its ridiculous and unnecessary. Even when dd was a newborn I enjoyed that 2hrs of the between feeds to get to the shops alone. Its when they have six primary school kids tagging along at well past bedtime I don't get it. Can't be fun for anyone!

Op has been very insistent that she's not annoyed though. Just baffled apparently. And since receiving hundreds of replies that should answer her question, still keeps up the faux, wide-eyed amazement and bafflement.

If they have six primary school kids and run out of milk they can't really leave all six at home can they? They're primary aged after all.

Op has been very insistent that she's not annoyed though. Just baffled apparently.

Except later she switched to referencing 'criticism' (i.e. talking about posters' reaction to that), so she went from bafflement to criticism.

Which is where I take exception.

Yes - if she were simply ‘baffled’ it would be easy enough to say “oh ok - I hadn’t thought of that” when people explained. Instead, she dug her heels in and started suggesting she’d ‘touched a nerve’ 🙄

Yes, exactly. The bafflement was all just a cover, so that OP could continue being unkind. I'm with you completely. This thread is pretty horrible.

Yes, exactly. This thread has annoyed me more than any have in years. I think it's because it's not a conversation. OP has asked for explanations. These have been given, but she continues to just reply with laughing emojis etc, and more criticism and judgement.

This is what jumped out at me most.

Horrible thread.

How can anybody be unkind about what annoys them in a supermarket 🙄 I’m sorry but if it genuinely upsets you, you need a thicker skin. There’s no grey area between an ‘acceptable’ thread and a ‘so, so nasty’ one anymore.

I go shopping with my whole family quite often. I'm amazed that people even notice this stuff. But who cares. We'll carry on anyway.

So sorry that we can't afford a car so have to go shopping together so we can carry our food home. So very sorry for being poor. What do you want my family to do? Disappear, so we don't annoy you?

It's not the discussion about kids in a supermarket that has irked us all, its the op's responses that really grated