From what sort of age would you assume a child in a queue is the customer?

[SarahAndQuack]

Today I promised my DD she could choose a pudding at M&S. We put a few other bits in the trolley too. When we got to the till I saw they didn't have daffodils there (they usually do), so I gave DD a £20 note and told her to start unloading the shopping as soon as there was space. She knows how to do this. I went to get daffodils from the flower stand. When I got back, someone had come along and put her trolley in front of DD's. DD says the woman didn't say anything to her, just walked round her with the trolley.

DD is six; she is quite small for her age. Would you have assumed a child that age wasn't in the queue?

Doing what I should have done before and adding the mandatory MN diagram. This is what it looked like when I got back. DD says that the woman went past her before there was any space on the belt.

I would assume that the six year old was not going to unload pack and pay for the shopping so therefore no, is not in the queue. I don’t think you should be using your six year old to save a place in the queue and avoid you having to queue up yourself.

No, I wouldn't use her to save a place in the queue, I agree.

But there's nothing to suggest she was in fact going to unload her trolley and pay? She appears to be next in line, sure, but with no parent in sight.

Really surprised by this thread as I made a thread a little while back because I allowed my son to pack our shopping AFTER I had paid for it whilst I went outside with my child who was having a melt down, all my son needed to do was pack it as it had already been paid for, when the assistant came up to him and made a dig about me to him, it really upset me as I was having a hard time already but I got absolutely roasted by MN for allowing my son to pack my bags that had already been paid for and he is 11! Yet on here it’s perfectly normal for a SIX year old to queue alone with a trolley, load it on the conveyor and pay for it and pack it all whilst mum has wondered off for some flowers! MN is something else 😅

Oh, sure - I do see that, if you assume she won't be allowed to pay, you would just assume it's a mistake that she's been left standing in the queue. But it's the same for an adult - if you are standing behind a full belt of someone else's shopping, you can't do anything to show you're planning to unload yours, except to stand right there.

(Though, I suppose possibly if you were super-observant you'd notice she was clutching a £20, but I'm sure people notice the age/size of a child rather than anything else.)

Oh, you poor love! That's horrible; I'm sorry people made you feel bad. FWIW if I saw a mum whose child was having a melt down, I would certainly not judge her for leaving the other child to pack shipping, and I really hope I'd step in and offer to help.

Looking at the diagram I think the woman thought DD wasn’t in the queue because she was behind the belt rather than next to it.

Woman probably thought DD had been told to stand with the trolley while parent collected something else, and then wait for parent to return to join the queue.

Yes, I think she might have done - but, I suspect if she'd been an adult standing there, it would have been obvious she was simply waiting to unpack her stuff, and that's why I thought it might be age-related.

ODFO

People who nip out of the queue to get extra things are annoying. Finish your shopping. Then queue.

But DD could have paid and finished. If I'd got back, and she'd paid, I'd have queued again. Why should that be an issue?

Of course it was age related! She was a little girl with a trolley full of shopping. It was obvious there was going to be a parent nearby who'd run off to get a forgotten item and left her in the queue.
Nobody would have expected her to be paying the bill.

Yes, but I'm asking: at what sort of age would you expect a child to be paying? Should I be leaving it for a year or two? Or five? Or what would you reckon?

Thank you. Just a typical mumsnet pile on but it really made me question my parenting and whether I had been awful allowing him to pack the bags. The assistant demanded to see his receipt and told him I had left him to do the dirty work. In this situation I wonder if the cashier had assumed your child was just waiting so invited the woman to come in front, I’ve had that happen before.

(And not to be pedantic, but no, she wasn't there with a trolley full of shopping. She had a pudding, a few other items, and a £20 note that was easily going to cover all of it. It was clearly an amount she would be able to put into the shopping bag and carry.)

Except, that's what you did. I can't stand it when grown adults do that (one of them joins the queue before the shopping is completed) - nothing to do with her being a child.

And as it happens, I would never think that a 6 year old was a paying customer. I would be wondering why her caregiver had left her alone.

That's awful! Really, awful. I hope you put in a complaint about that assistant. Where I live, often the Scouts get children of that sort of age to pack bags. Never heard it suggested it was 'dirty work'.

The cashier won't, I think, have invited the woman to come in front - I know her by sight and the reason I know DD can unpack and pack shopping is that we often get her to do it there (because M&S is rarely busy and always slow). And I think DD would have mentioned it if she had said that.

personally I wouldn’t leave a 6 year old in a shop queue, I’d have asked the cashier to ring for someone to get me the flowers.
However, I wouldn’t push in if I did see a child there - but I might be fuming as I hate it when someone leaves another person in the queue to continue doing their shopping. A bit like someone saving a table in Costas when there’s a massive queue and I end up with no table to sit at because they’re full of customers who’s friends are in the queue behind me 😂

But I didn't. She had the money. There was no reason she couldn't have gone through the till before me.

TBH I wasn't that fussed about the flowers - it was more that, having said to DD she could buy her own treat, it seemed like a good opportunity to let her do it on her own. It's not the first time she's done that, but before it's been in places like Hobbycraft or Waterstones or our small local Co-Op, where everyone knows everyone. If people feel it's inappropriate to do it in a bigger shop, that's useful for me to know - I just wanted to get a sense of it.

From your diagram I would assume a child waiting in that position with a trolley of shopping is waiting for a parent to return with missing items at some point (but not necessarily imminently), not that the child is going to unload the trolley of shopping and pay.

If they were standing next to the conveyor belt with a pack of sweets or a couple of small items then I'd guess they were going to go through checkout alone.

Completely agree.

I would have thought about 10ish? Although it's not an exact science, of course... Around the age where it looks like they could have legitimately gone shopping on their own, I suppose 🤷🏻‍♀️
A 6 year old was always going to have an adult waiting in the wings close by.