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?

Some parents are, sadly, just ignorant scum who pass their ignorance on like it's wisdom. We had two or three lairy, football chant shouting, blokes on our train home last weekend with two little boys in tow, aged about 8ish and 11ish. It was a late train at around 11.30pm and pretty crowded. The boys and men were necking bags of sweets, then started hurling them around the carriage, Skittles were flying like bullets smashing off windows, seats and passengers.

By the time one of the drunk dads crawled past my seat in search of his shoe (also thrown down the carriage), I had had enough, blocked his path with my foot and gave him a properly snotty teacher voice bollocking. He went into a whiny, they're only kids missus it's all in good fun defence and was very apologetic, then skulked back up the aisle to loudly bitch about miserable hags who don't like children...

When the time came for me and DD to get off at our stop we had to walk past him (as did a whole lot of men sitting nearby who'd done sod all about any of it). He had the cheek to start shrieking about me coming over and "starting" on him and telling me to get away (as his vile boys climbed over other passengers' seats like they were in a playground). I fully lost my shit, turned into a lairy cow myself and shouted "Or what, mate?! SIT THE FUCK DOWN!" And he did😂😂😂

I think the anger was a defensive reflex because my daughter was beside me when he leapt up (not sure what my EastEnders body language was about!). But it actually helped to diffuse my fury and made me laugh so I went home happy rather than stressed about the dreadful journey or cross with myself for not speaking up.

This reminds me, years ago i worked in the gift section of a department store. I remember a little girl who couldn't have been more than 2, came in swigging from a can of coke. While her mum watched proudly she climbed up and fetched herself a crystal goblet and poured her coke into it. I have to say I secretly admired her cheek, and her expensive taste.

A friend of mine was a child like this - she tells me she and her brother blocked a plane toilet with loo roll on a transatlantic flight because they were bored. She accused me of being 'authoritarian' because I said if I'd been her parent I'd have asked the flight attendants for gloves and a bucket so the kids could clear up their mess, while I supervised. I don't see it as authoritarian - it's simply basic parenting to teach your children that they aren't the only people in this world who matter.

And then there are posts saying that teachers who can’t control a class shouldn’t be doing the job. This is the kind of parenting they have to put up with.

My fat fingers voted YABU but obviously you are not😀

That's absolutely bonkers.

Ds3 is 6 and has a habit of fiddling with things in the supermarket. Nothing particularly drastic usually but just picking stuff up to look. He gets little leeway and told to put it down, it's food and someone else will be buying it.

I can't even imagine being in the mindset of watching him build with food items and leaving him to it! Awful behaviour (from the parents).

Made me laugh too 😆

I see this type of behaviour regularly and have got used to ignoring it - really no point in so much as an eye-roll! 😳
The parents appear confident that the world revolves around them and their little darlings. (They tend to be annoyingly entitled Scandinavian city dwellers).

I'm glad they intervened. In my local tesco, the security guards just don't care.

A few months ago at my local tesco express there was a man verbally abusing the man behind the till, shouting really loudly, it was frightening, racial abuse etc. The security guard was at the door just ten paces away, said nothing, didn't even walk over. Just kind of watched alongside the other wide eyed customers. I went to the guard and was like, why aren't you doing anything?! You're the one in all this gear and trained in self defence (I assume), but being a coward and letting your colleague face the music?! Guard did look sheepish but mumbled something about not wanting to escalate the situation (I could barely hear what he said over angry man shouting) and didn't even go nearer. What a coward, what was the point of him being there. I wish I'd written to head office or something.

In my world it isn’t that frequent that two adults are available when shopping needs to be done. Then there are all the single parents who never have back up.

So the DC have plenty of opportunity naturally to learn this lesson.

If on the way home, etc, I would play games in the car with the DC (or continue home with them). I could go on with solutions for your other scenarios but I am sure everyone gets my idea. Some will agree, some will genuinely think shopping counts as a Family Activity.

For avoidance of doubt, I am not at all critical of bringing DC shopping when there is no adult relative available to look after them.

But if both adults have shopping to pick up (happens often with my mum and I) then we both need to go in the shop. Neither of us can stay in the car. Not that my children would have been allowed to behave like those in the OP either!

Yea saw similar recently. Teenage girls. They were awful; literally throwing themselves around the furniture like they were toddlers. Their mother arrived and said "I hope they haven't been any trouble" to the GP receptionist "they don't do a thing I say".

She knew absolutely that they had been before the statement left her lips. Her teenagers looked her with contempt.

Mum and grandma are absolute scumbags!
YANBU. Absolutely dreadful behaviour.

People have always been like this. I hate the "in my day" rhetoric. I've heard this since a child over half a century ago.
Some people are cunts. I don't imagine granny suddenly changed from a decent person until the pandemic.

Jesus just imagine their behaviour in a coffee shop

I think people should have a licence before being allowed to have children. If certain criteria are not met then no licence issued. I'm sick of feral scum.

It's our future innit? And the village needs to pay for it.

I witnessed similar this weekend, in Pets-At-Home of all places. Children scattering birdseed on the ground down one of the isles, "Let's set a booby trap here!" I told them off and one little shit actually growled at me. Then they started making a fort out of the hay bales. Mum stuck her head around the corner to check where they were and then went back to doing whatever she was doing. The shocking thing was it wasn't just that one family. There was another letting their children run wild with the squeaky dog toys, and another helping theirs to dangle over the rabbit enclosure so they could touch the rabbits. The bunnies were terrified. I was so mad.

A few years ago I was in my local small supermarket and twin girls about 7 or 8 were racing round the store, shrieking, dodging trollies and shoppers. Parent was oblivious.
They were racing each other up parallel aisles and as they came all round the end they ran into each other. I can still hear the noise that they made when their bodies connected and how one or the other didn't break their nose I don't know.
There were tears.

Is there anything that can happen without covid being at the centre

I can just imagine in 2280 'things were different before covid, kids still won't go to school it's all covids fault'

YANBU those kids sound clueless and it's no surprise with the apparent lack of parenting.

It reminds me of a time I was in Aldi with DD when she was 4, there were 2 lads about 8 yrs old messing about on the pallets of kitchen towel behind us and she turned round and started telling them to get off of there and that they were being naughty 😂 no idea where their parents were but I couldnt stop myself from laughing and quite openly agreed with her

So you don’t mind if the food you pay for has been played with, sat on and messed with on the floor by a bunch of kids? And thay thr shelves your food is stored on is climbed on by kids wearing shoes that have been worn outside?

I suspect the mum and grandma probably thought people should be congratulating them on how creative the children’s play was.

Scandinavian?

A 6yr old child ran into my basket once while I was looking at the shelf of beans. He ran back crying to his mum and I heard her say What did the lady do to you? Completely ignoring the fact he was being a little shit