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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder why parents give their children food in supermarkets when it is not yet paid for?

535 replies

purplepeony · 21/12/2009 18:50

Do you?

is your child so hungry that you have to grab a frnech stick, break bits off and feed it to them then present the empty packet at the checkout?

Are mums so disorganised that they cannot feed teir child before they shop?

Are they keen to feed (ha!) the "I want it now" mentality?

It really annoys me when I see this going on, asit means kids grow up not being able to wait one second from asking to being given.

OP posts:
mrsmincepiesharket · 22/12/2009 13:36

fwiw i used to work on checkouts at a busy supermarket and the number of mums who used to apologise for empty packets - i used to turn round and say it's better for me to scan an empty packet than for you to have a screaming hungry child, whatever age they were. what i don't agree with is eating foods that need to be weighed before they are eaten, if (as in sainsbury's for example) it is perfectly acceptable to weigh goods and for a hungry child to eat some of those and then for the parent to pay for said goods whether the bag is empty or half-empty. this system f course relies on honesty and the greater majority are honest.

so i would say that yabu and happy christmas

PuppyMonkey · 22/12/2009 13:39

My top tip is to go to Costco to do your shopping with a toddler. There are always people there giving away free samples of stuff. There's even a woman giving away free cups of tea and cake on a Friday morning.

I used to always nick grapes from Tesco and give them dd, but I've been rehabilitated now.

tethersjinglebellend · 22/12/2009 13:40

Hully, I think you'll find I was the first to agree with bran.

Get your facts straight before you go around accusing all and sundry. Or, specifically, me. Or bran.

Original poster
purplepeony · 22/12/2009 13:42

No matter how much ds screamed, I just couldn't bring myself to do this, it would just feel so..... wrong! Maybe I have some repressed issues.

Thanks Frag- you have said exactly what I was feeling- and I am pleased to have at least 1 person who agrees. Sorry if I have not thanked anyone else- too much to read through and I really do have better things to do now.

It IS wrong, it feels wrong, and I would never ever do it and have never ever done it. Maybe I just don't have the brass neck like the rest of you- maybe I was brought up too well.

All this tosh about restuarants- in case you didn't know, the routine in a restaurant is that you order, eat and pay.

In a shop you choose, pay and eat. There is a difference.

OP posts:
NoSnowHereBoo · 22/12/2009 13:43

Aren't there more worthwhile things to get worked up about?

Maybe concentrate on having a very merry Christmas instead of worrying about what other people are doing that don't really affect you?

Lotster · 22/12/2009 13:50

mummysgoingmad - oh yesssss, about a thousand times hence my "groundhog thread" comment!

Seems this thread along with:

"What's wrong with Fruit Shoot's? / Greggs the Bakers" / "I forgot to pay for something in Tesco - is it stealing?" / SAHM v WOHM / "Someone parked in a P&T space today without a child in the car, the buggers!!!!!!!!!" / Are formula feeding mothers selfish? / Is Boden a pile of bollocks?

..will always be at the heart and soul of MN. You gotta love it

ChrisMissWooWoo · 22/12/2009 14:08

... yes, all of us mums who feed our kids in the supermarket were dragged up by mums who fed us in supermarkets ...

Flightattendant · 22/12/2009 14:09

Well, that's a nice easy get out clause for you PP, consideirng you didn't bother to answer the questions when put to you most pollitely yesterday

I'm fairly proud to have had that post deleted, in fact - apologies to MNHQ, but my little 'fuck' was far less offensive than some of the suggestions and comments you have made imo.

Never mind...it's really not worth getting into a fight about. Just think for a minute about the fact that not everyone is in the same situation as you, OP, but few of us who feed our children in the shops intend to offend anyone. I suppose intent doesn't mean much to you if you are willing to tar us all with one nasty little brush.

SantieMaggie · 22/12/2009 14:21

PP - no time warp but maybe just a village with no supermarket (not by todays standards) and my mum never had a car so we had to help carry the shopping too! Put me off shopping without a trolley or car for life - those carrier bags cut your fingers to shreds!

Romanarama · 22/12/2009 14:26

who cares? I do this all the time, and the checkout staff just ask whether I'd like them to throw the wrapping of whatever it was away. It's not shoplifting after all. There are plenty of things that you pay for after - like restaurants for example.

Flightattendant · 22/12/2009 14:31

I thought PattheHammer's post said it all really.

and I ws in an angry mood when I said 'fuck off' but it was in response to the order to 'leave the shopping till you have someone else to watch the children, as supermarkets are open 24 hours' bla bla.

I found it rather offensive that the OP completely discounted the fact that many of us - and not just single parents - are unable to delegate childcare, at all, ever. Even in the middle of the night.

It's just so ignorant.

PhaseolusNativitatus · 22/12/2009 14:55

Common??? Admitting to being a narrow-minded lemon-sucker takes you down a notch or two, but not feeding a hungry child a piece of bread!

Highlander · 22/12/2009 15:11

I've never done it myself, simply because ti never occured to me. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest; too busy

LurcioLovesFrankie · 22/12/2009 15:27

"It IS wrong, it feels wrong, and I would never ever do it and have never ever done it. "

Hmm, things that come into this category - murder, child abuse, rape, third world poverty, domestic abuse, atrocities perpetrated in time of war, female genital mutilation....

A few grapes in the supermarket? I think not.

Anyway, I have a high-tech solution. I will get DS fitted with a bar code. He can then be scanned and weighed on the way into the supermarket. He and the remains of the apple can be scanned and weighed on the way out. Problem solved. I can now shop safe in the knowledge that I will not get lost amid the geographical complexities of the grocery aisle due to the wild wobblings of my moral compass.

2kidzandi · 22/12/2009 15:31

"maybe I was brought up too well"

Seriously? Are you for real?

golgi · 22/12/2009 15:32

"maybe I was brought up too well"

I was brought up very well, according to my mother anyway, but I still feed my children in supermarkets. I work in education too (not sure what that's got to do with it, but other posters have been mentioning it so thought it might have a bearing on the issue).

Lurcio - that idea would work, as long as he didn't also poo while there.

I was brought up in a timewarp. On the IOW. They have supermarkets there now, but they didn't in the late 70s.

LurcioLovesFrankie · 22/12/2009 15:37

golgi - no problem on that front, local coop is too downmarket to have a baby-change in store, so effectively you'd be weighing and scanning toddler+apple+nappy contents.

MIFLAW · 22/12/2009 15:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

InMyLittleHead · 22/12/2009 16:25

Wow, some people are seriously tetchy at the moment. It wasn't that bad an OP, chill out. Yes there are more important things in the world but you could say the same of pretty much every thread on mumsnet.

Oh I don't know. I do think it's a bit distasteful that parents now seem unable to say no to their children, and this is one example. However, if it stops the kid a meltdown then whatever. FWIW my mother used to give me stuff before it was paid for, but I would never do the same.

I guess if something's scanned at the end it makes no odds as you have paid for it.
But I am a bit at people, adult GROWN UP people, who haven't got the self-restraint to wait until the check out before they eat/drink something (excepting the lady who had bad morning sickness).

I probably wouldn't think too much of it if I saw a (small, like toddler) kid eating something on their way round and would assume the alternative was a strop. But an older kid or an adult? Christ's sake, is no one capable of waiting five minutes for something anymore?

Lotster · 22/12/2009 16:36

I have done this one or twice in Waitrose when my son was begging for grapes, and once when I had morning sickness - but ask permission at Customer Services.

Argh, I'm getting dragged in to the Groundhog thread again!

GiveMeChocolateNOW · 22/12/2009 16:47

I am normally a "lurker" ... Is this some sort of joke????

onagar · 22/12/2009 16:54

"who haven't got the self-restraint to wait until the check out before they eat/drink"

Why restrain themselves at all? I see no moral downside to eating something while they wait. It seems an arbitrary personal rule to me. I'd rather eat sitting down with a cup of tea, but that's just my preference.

Imagine if you were serving a meal at 7pm and a friend said "you mean you're not going to wait until 8pm??? have you no self restraint!" You'd think 'why 8pm'? what's the difference?

Also isn't it usual to eat before paying in a restaurant? They know you are going to pay so there is no problem.

InMyLittleHead · 22/12/2009 17:00

But you go to a restaurant specifically to eat, not to take the uncooked ingredients away with you. Supermarkets are for shopping in, restaurants are for eating in. I don't know why people keep bringing up the restaurant thing.

I guess it is arbitrary, but if you eat something whilst wandering round a supermarket there's a chance of dropping it/making a mess, and maybe the other shoppers don't want to watch people munching away while they're trying to buy food.

MIFLAW · 22/12/2009 17:09

Can't BELIEVE my last comment was deleted - is this some sort of joke?

I didn't even represent what it stated as fact - just as a maybe. In the same way that, according to the OP, "maybe" I am less well brought up than her/him.

Seems a bit of a double standard to me.

Flightattendant · 22/12/2009 17:13

I didn't see it miflaw but I think sometimes when they are stretched they just delete when people ask them to nicely.

I can understand it's hard to keep up with thread...maybe they don't know just how provocative this OP is being.

All I said was 'basically in response to that suggestion, OP, f*ck off' meaning more a fuck off to the suggestion than to the OP herself. But I phrased it badly. And yes I was really pissed off. I don't generally insult people but do insult their comments an suggestions at times.