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?

That's horrible

MissyB1 some parents (and I use the term loosely) should not be allowed to breed!

@Pussycat22 and who would decide who would and who would not be allowed to do that...?

It doesn't help that there seems to be no agreed and commonly held standard of censure anymore, I think.

@NeelyOHara1 agree! I feel like I am becoming a gow (grumpy old woman) who'll start tutting at any minute, like I'm the one in the wrong.

Heard some very choice words from a 3 y-o the other day to another 3yo. Was just about to gently tut when luckily the mum stepped in tg!

I must have missed the one where bluey’s grandma spouts abuse at strangers, is it on the iplayer?

This killed me 😂😂😂😂😂

YANBU, OP. The weetabix fort is way out of line. These adults shouldn’t be enabling children who don’t know any better to behave like that. Also don’t know about leaving three children under 5 to their own devices in a large supermarket. Climbing shelves is a trip to A&E waiting to happen 😬

Have you actually seen Bluey?! I feel like the saddest person ever for knowing it so well, but no it really doesn't. I work in a primary school so I've been subjected to a lot of Bluey (although I say subjected, it's actually not a bad kids show) and have a young child who I anticipate being a Bluey fan in the future. Anyway, I've seen enough of it to know that the parents in Bluey are portrayed to be fun but also responsible. That episode where Bingo finds a toy turtle that has been left behind and asks Dad if she can take it home. His answer was something like, "Sorry kiddo, it just isn't the done thing". I suspect if Bluey and Bingo tried to build a fort out of cereal boxes in a supermarket, their parents wouldn't allow it. The good people at Ludo Studio know better than to give children the idea that it's okay to behave inappropriately. Also yeah what someone said about the grandma. Don't recall, "This episode is called, 'Granny Profanities'" 😂

I suspect bluey’s parents would veto the supermarket fort building and, instead, have a massive fort building in their garden session when they got home instead.

Shopworkers aren't going to intervene. There's been a rise in incidents of verbal and physical abuse towards shopworkers over the last few years. My work has just rolled out a whole load of mandatory training aimed at deescalating confrontations because people are just shits once they get out in public.

I know it's only a small proportion of people like it, but when you deal with thousands of people a week, even 1% is a lot of bad-tempered foul-mouthed abuse. And then you get the people wondering why you're not happy happy smiley robot person (well actually, this woman trying to shoplift some random stuff just called me a cunt when I politely pointed out she needed to pay for everything in her trolley and I'm not in the mood tbh)

I actually enjoy what I do, but that shitty 1% really make things hard. I can take it, I can be teflon most of the time. I get angry if you make any of my cashiers cry, but I have to see the funny side of it or leave.

I’ll bet if you really, really explored the dark corners of your mind, you’d have to admit you’ve thought the same yourself.

A new post of something that didn’t happen 🤔🙄

😂😂 I love the little Bluey debate going on here! Guys, don’t worry, Bluey & co don’t really exist.

Those kids need a softplay. As many have said, it’s certainly not the kids fault, kids will play with just about anything (dangerous things too) without the guidance of an adult - which of course should primarily be a parent/guardian.

I have to say, I’ve never seen or heard anything like this before. I do the old ‘stick both my kids in a trolley, give them a free fruit and rush around Tesco’s leaving off half my shopping list’ style shopping. And see many families doing the same if their children are becoming restless.

The staff represent the business owner and therefore are the interested authority in the shop over the customer.

This is very naive, the staff may in theory have that authority but in practice the balance of power lies with the customer - and people like that know it and abuse it. People know they can ignore, abuse and intimidate the staff and because of 'customer service' there are no concequences and in fact quite often the opposite in the form of rewarding people to defuse the situation and just make them go away.

Low paid customer facing jobs are not respected because of society's general attitude towards them, they are there to serve to the customer and there to make a profit to the business.

This is unfortunately a side effect of the customer is always right, it's seen as an expected part of customer service to put up with whatever a customer chooses to dish out and as I said in a pp, those who then come along and blame the staff for not doing enough are making the situation worse because it's then about the staff being ineffective rather than the behaviour of the person causing the problem.

Look at the threads on here when someone has been refused the sale of something, from anything to the law to company policies, "idiots" "lack of common sense" "stupid" and how people have kicked off in the face of it and got what they wanted. And the thread where someone took exception to a lady being embarrassed because she shop lifted an item and was reminded to pay by a member of staff, and a lot of people agreeing that it was wrong to treat a customer (even one caught in the act of stealing) with anything other than deference.
It shows the complete lack of respect even for a fellow human being, never mind as a supposed 'authority' over the customer.

There's only ever one side and that's the
customers side, everything else is irrelevant.

'The customer is always right' has become 'The staff are always wrong'. It's socially acceptable to treat customer facing staff this way and while it remains so the staff will have very little they can actually achieve in the face of that kind of behaviour.

And if most people were honest if they thought their behaviour was acceptable and they were asked to modify it, they'd argue the toss as well - because they know ultimately even if they're unreasonable, the power is with them and not the staff.

And that’s how we end up with feral teenagers who care nothing for authority or other people’s property

Genuinely would never think that and would work on myself if I did.

Agree! Mental test!
Unacceptable behaviour! And I'm not talking about girls!

Feral scum 😡

Tbh I wouldn’t care.

I’d never let my child do this, but I couldn’t muster the energy to let it bother me if I saw other children doing it, if they weren’t getting in my way.

If I wanted some weetabix I’d have taken a box from their fort and been on my way.

And grandmother was probably 45 at the most 😁

When I worked at McDonald's about 20 years ago we had two kids that would spend every Tuesday sat in the branch I worked at. Often running about. They were left on their own from about 7-9pm each week. I told the manager who caught their Mum and had a go as they were about 5 and 7 years old and she was leaving them so she could go to an evening class. I get some people need childcare but they could have walked out, or anyone could have taken them and we wouldn't have known. Cheeky and dangerous.

I don’t really understand this question.

Clear up the cereal boxes and tell the children and family to move along.

I mean, no-one thinks the cereal fort is just going to stay there all day / into eternity, do they?

I meant that they do not really have any power.

Not quite in the same vein but last week I was at a restaurant with a friend. At the table next to us was a family group with a toddler and a slightly younger child.
Toddler was sitting at the table, younger child in a high chair. As time passed the toddler kept getting up so one of the adults gave them an ipad type thing to watch. No headphones.
They got ready to leave and cleared space on the table, among the debris of their meal, to put the baby in an outdoor snowsuit type thing.
Then they left.
Food all over the table and floor, scattered about under all the chairs.
Staff had to move all the furniture about to clean up after them

Why don't people have any consideration?