To think you don’t let your children behave like this in public?

[IfIHadAHeart]

Saturday afternoon, Tesco. It’s a bit manic, lots of last minute Mother’s Day shoppers plus the usual. People dragging kids round who are obviously completely bored, the parents look flustered and have my sympathy. It’s loud. No issues, I just decide to get in and out as quickly as possible.,

I get to the cereal aisle. There is what appears to be a mum, grandma and three girls under 5. The kids are building a fort out of boxes of weetabix, one of them is climbing up the shelving as if it were Everest. Lots of giggling. The weetabix castle has expanded out into the aisle, some boxes are being used as chairs. Mum and grandma completely ignoring them. Mum disappears round the corner, grandma says she needs juice. The girls start shrieking that they want to stay in their castle and so grandma says they can “as long as you don’t get in anyone’s way”.

Grandma then catches my eye. I have one of those faces that shows exactly what I was thinking, which in this instance was definitely disapproval! She asks if I have a problem, to which I reply that I’m just thankful I didn’t want to buy any weetabix. She gives me a mouthful of abuse, tells me the girls aren’t harming anyone and it’s none of my business. Off she trots to the juice aisle leaving the little darlings to carry on climbing and building.

AIBU to think this is a ridiculous way to carry on? My kids are teens now but I’d never dream of allowing them to behave like this. Not that it’s the kids fault obviously. Do people genuinely not care about other people around them?

It always seems that when children are behaving badly, you can bet the person responsible for them not only doesn't care, but is happy to give a mouthful of abuse.

Who is going to replace the products on the shelves? Who is going to buy it? Wasted products....prices go up.....who suffers? We do. So this kind of feral behaviour affects us all. Some people should have to take a test before impregnation.

Well I hope you went and reported it to a member of staff.

Some parents shouldn’t be allowed take their kids out in public.

And probably some poor 16 year old on their Saturday job will have to go and deal with it. Some people are absurdly selfish and provide negative rôle models for children.

Its disgusting behaviour- the adults, I am talking about.

The children clearly have no hope with those role models in their lives.

Sounds like an episode of bluey! Not ideal parenting but not sure I could get that worked up about it.

Honestly some people shouldn't be allowed kids. If I had a pack of dogs acting like that in public they would rightly be taken off me. It's neglectful to allow children to think it's okay to behave like that, they have utterly failed them as parents.

The kids will turn into more useless adults that perpetuate the problem and the rest of society is forced to look on in disgust.

The Grandmother's reaction tells you everything you need to know. She will have brought her daughter up that way and now the grandchildren are being given the same messages.
Problem families are created over generations.

Reported it to a staff member? Why? Do you think a retail assistant also deserve a mouthful of abuse?
It will be wasted probably and help push prices up but some people are selfish and don't care about others.
The grandmother (who probably brought her daughter up that way) sounds vile and the mother not much better.
Imagine if they trip some poor person over (no doubt it won't be the little angels fault) and really who leaves young children alone in a supermarket?

This. Such a shame and such a waste on those boxes of weetabix which hopefully won’t now be resold (provided they’re all crushed up). Shame they can’t be forced to buy all the boxes their kids have played with!

And when they fall when climbing the shelves I guess the grandmother/ mother will be suing the supermarket

Do people genuinely not care about other people around them?

No, some people don't, although those types of people absolutely expect to be treated with care and respect by others, and will kick up one hell of a fuss if they're not treated like the world revolves around them, or if they're asked to consider and respect other people around them or their property.

And in places like this it's reinforced that this type of behaviour is fine when people start blaming the supermarket and the staff for 'allowing' it to happen, thus directing the responsibility elsewhere. If someone is willing to give another customer a gob full (or threaten to hit them as in another thread about a child running in a supermarket) do you really think they're going to listen to someone working in the shop?!

I'm not saying don't tell the staff, but people have a habit of blaming them when they too are ignored and given a load of shit for trying and then the focus is on the shop and the staff and their failures rather than the people actually behaving that way in the first place.

Im a retail assistant feral kids are the bain of my life I would of told the parents they need to pay for the damaged items or get out of the store as they won’t be served my employers would probably have something to say about it but after 30 years with the same company I really don’t anymore they treat us like crap too

I was only thinking the other day how much more hostile and ill behaved the public has become since 2020.

I feel sorry for the retail workers who have to deal with people like this.
I used to work in retail and have been spat at, threatened etc when politely asking parents to control their children / stop them doing things like this.
There was also the time the fire alarm went off and we had a child, approx 5 years old, playing with a box of Lego they'd opened off the shelf. When we asked where their parent was they said they'd gone for a haircut and would be back later. We had to hand them to the police and then got lots of abuse from the parents when the shopping centre reopened for not looking after them

They sound like scum, plenty of people like that in the rough area that I used to live....

This is exactly why my mum chooses all her products and produce from the back of the shelves/fridges. I also do it now too after I saw someone’s child repeatedly sneeze all over a box of cucumbers and then stand and take a singular bite out of several of them 😳

There were a load of feral ones running round in our Tesco today too, playing ‘it’ at full-speed. They looked 10-12, far too old for that, but their mum did the ‘what can I do about it, they don’t listen to me’ shrug when the cashier raised her eyebrows.

I once saw a dad playing football in a supermarket aisle - 1 of the shop balls and goals made out of packets of toilet rolls, same mouthy attitude when people questioned it. There are some very cheeky entitled people out there!

It’s nothing like Bluey, Bluey is fantastic and the parents parent.

Absolutely feral.

These are the same idiots that will mouth off about the staff and pickers who are trying to do their jobs whilst their kids create havoc.

Nightmare. Hell really is other people. A few weeks ago I found a child pouring fabric conditioner onto the floor of a Sainsburys aisle. The mother genuinely said "Oh sorry, he's only playing" and laughed as they walked off. I did tell the staff as obviously quite dangerous.

The irony for me is I was once told off in the very same shop by some gentle parenting extremist for giving my own son a hard time when he had been acting up. Was called a 'mean mummy' and everything!

In addition to allowing the children to damage stock two adults walked off and left three under 5's unsupervised in a supermarket? Those poor kids. Some people are just not suitable parent material.