Major pet peeve, just me?

[DaisyChain505]

It really bugs me when I see whole families doing the weekly food shop in supermarkets.

The aisle are jam packed with whole families doing the food shop. Why is it necessary for both parents and the kids to all be there to do it?

They take up more space, the kids are ultimately in other shoppers way as they don’t have any spacial or situational awareness and are just wondering around aimlessly and it must be a more stressful trip for the parents compared to if one parent stayed home with the kids and the other went and did the food shop solo.

It's just part of real life, it's not like a job where you want to minimise the number of workers, that's like saying why go to knitting club you can just sit at home and knit.
Getting out of the house can be a godsend with kids, also discussing with your partner what you might want to have.
Even older kids they recommend having a conversation when your busy together rather than just diving in at home.
Also if your child doesn't eat well, taking them shopping can give them a better idea what's available.
Plus a million other possible reasons.

God, how depressing.

You have a DH who can't feed his own kids healthy food or apparently look after them while you shop.

I do my shop on my day off during the week because the weekend is so busy. However sometimes as a family we are out for the day and forget we need something so we may as a family appear in the shop, so what?

On my week day off I see lots of older couples shopping together, it doesn’t bother me they are together. why would it?

Actual wow!

Why does your right to let your kids use supermarkets as play areas, tripping people up, knocking into them, and being a hindrance to customers and staff, trump the right of others having a peaceful and calm environment in the shop to do their shopping? Good grief! take them to a Playbarn or a park or something if they want to 'play' and skid around! And I can assure you that the people your kids were skidding around did not have 'great memories!' of being bashed into by your kids flying across the shop floor! And neither did the staff!

Glad you're not MY neighbour. I bet your kids bounce up and down on trampolines gawping into people gardens, screeching and yelling, and kick footballs up against people fences, and run all over the front lawns. But hey they're'only having fun,' and they're just kids right?!

Makes me very glad to live in a small 2 bed cottage, where there are no bigger homes nearby, so very few kids! Most families with 2-3 kids or more are 5 minutes walk away or more! (Thankfully.)

And yes I was young/was a child once, and I have children - now grown and have their own homes, but neither they - nor I - ever behaved like this in shops and supermarkets! We were taught to behave ourselves and have respect for others.

.

I completely agree OP. It's infuriating and unnecessary on the whole. A few exceptions apply of course...Yanbu!

(But yabu to write wondering when it's wandering!)

Seems to be the case

YANBU OP, its infuriating!

I used to work in an ultra busy tourist retail shop. There was a small area for queues and a row of 4 tills with maybe 5 foot of space in front of the till block. Entire families would come up to one till & I mean parents, kids and buggies and often grandparents and friends too!. Then the people at the next till couldn't physically get out of the till area without everyone doing a mad shuffling of bags and prams etc. It used to boil my blood. Just send the person to the till that is paying and everyone else wait outside!

Don't even get me started on the ones that would then hold up a queue of 40 people as their child wanted to pay with their pennies (Literally 1 & 2ps).

I'm so glad I do online grocery orders as I can't tolerate it anymore!

Actually wow to you! You don't know me and have made such sweeping judgements
Just wow!
clearly haven't read my post AT ALL in any kind of depth
My kids have been brought up to have impeccable manners and are extremely thoughtful. They always had the best school reports and awards for their behaviour. My eldest was voted the kindest girl in her year and the youngest for her thoughtfulness. They are extremely pleasant and kind to everyone and teachers comment on this all the time
If you'd bothered to read my post I said I did take them places to run around and let off steam but if we happened to be in a supermarket late in the evening with an empty aisle then yes I'd let them have a cheeky skid or two.....AWAY from any other shoppers. I would be never let them bang in to others or make a nuisance if themselves. Jesus Christ....please read my post properly before go in to full on rant for no reason! If I see kids doing that now in a quiet aisle I just smile to myself and think good for you, have some fun. And for the record I know practically every one of my lovely neighbours and we all get on and are considerate of each other.

Some families seem to view it as a family half day out. Don’t ask me.🙄

People probably have lots of reasons for doing what they do and don't factor in your comfort when making their decisions.

I would have thought online supermarket shopping was available in most areas by now. My big shop is always online these days. Extremely easy to do on computer. Half an hour or less to compile and place the order in the comfort of my home office, then forget about it until delivery time.

Some people only have a phone for the internet and that would make it more fiddly. But for others, if they hate supermarket shopping and the online option is available, I have to agree that continuing to shop in person while moaning about it does seem daft.

In a world full of things to care about, this is quite far down on my list of things to get butt hurt over.

Well with online shopping, really nobody needs to be shopping. I think families have just as much right to be there as anybody else.
A supermarket manager told me that families are their target customers. As soon as your children have left home, they are not so interested in you. As for pensioners on a tight budget….

Exactly. Why anyone goes to the supermarket on a Saturday is beyond me. Get it delivered and you don’t have to deal with the chaos.

Whole families shopping I have no issue with, assuming they are all sociable in their behaviour and have spatial awareness. Probably the thing that I wish could change with some of them is the clothes they wear, but that is general for the slobby ill-dressed UK as a whole and applies beyond supermarkets.

It did actually dawn on my that my then 8 year old had never seen us do a weekly shop. He had absolutely no idea of the process, just saw food arriving at the front door each week.

We made a conscious effort to change that, so got him involved in the meal planning and take him with us when we do a "top up" shop. At 10, he now does the top up shop for us with little support.

I now often think of how many basic life skills are being lost because our children don't see us do them.

How do we feel about adults picking up elderly parents in mobility scooters for the weekly shop OP? Perhaps the adult child should just leave their elderly relative stuck in the house whilst they do the shop on their behalf? After all, those mobility scooters with baskets attached take up the whole aisle.

The benefits of doing something anything as a family, including the shopping, are actually important for children’s physical and social development. Just as they are vital for the emotional and social wellbeing of that elderly adult.

To the posters saying that kids learn to shop and budget cook etc by going to the supermarket, you aren't seeing the same reality as me. I haven't seen a single instance of parents engaging with their children in that way whilst shopping. What I do see are kids running riot, snatching things off the shelves with snotty fingers, going into meltdown and ramming scooters into other shoppers ankles. All whilst their parents occasionally and ineffectually screech their names. And we aren't talking about toddlers either.

But will food shopping be a life skill in the future? Probably not.

Are you saying that’s all children and families, no exceptions because it’s been your limited experience? (Considering you are one person shopping for a relatively small amount of time a week, in a relatively small sample of supermarkets).

In 15 years?
Yes, it will still be.

Wow, we haven’t had a thread on this for at least a week.

Ive never seen this. Maybe it’s an area thing?

Also not all learning requires direct input constantly. Simply seeing things done regularly is often enough for the average person to learn to do most basic life tasks. It's when these activities are hidden (either deliberately or by the use of technology) that it becomes a problem. Banking is amazing excellent example. My kids have never stepped foot in a bank, so I've had to specifically sit them down and teach them about bank accounts rather than how I learned - by seeing my main carers doing it frequently.

Yes, that's my experience but how have you arrived at your interesting analysis of my lifestyle? You're wrong by the way. But in any event, I imagine the majority of people don't visit a vast array of supermarkets during a week or month.