Other People's Kids

[whatever]

I'm always annoyed when I wander into a store to shop for grocieries or something and there's other people's kids running around making noise and all around being disturbing (grabbing my leg, yelling, rolling about on the floor and etc.). My parents would NEVER have let me behave like this in public!

However, whenever I respond as I tend to:

*cue best Uncle Scar impression* Where are your parents?

I'm considered to be rude and stepping out of line!

Why is it considered rude for me to take over when parents are obviously neglecting thier duty to society?

[heart]

It always amazes me when people have come to my home with their children and expect that I'll be just fine with having my stuff torn apart and my cat harassed without them saying something to their children.

The worst time was when I took the time and expense to make a prime rib dinner and a relative's six-year old sat there spitting during the whole meal (spit was hitting me and my husband accross the table) and alternately spewing his food back on his plate and laughing. It was revolting and ruined the meal and I felt totally put upon to have to be the one to say "If you don't stop that, you'll need to leave my table."

A friend sat and watched her child mark my carpet with a crayon marker. I was in shock that she was saying nothing. Finally I said "Look at what he's doing!" She just smiled as if saying "wow isn't he a cutie!"

Another time a friend allowed her child to take my couch apart and drag the sofa cover all over the floor and sit there slobering all over the couch cushions, I came back in the room and saw this and she's just like watching it like it's totally okay.

There's other examples like this.

[Jeffster]

I'm very rarely bothered by kids. But I don't think you're rude for asking where their parents are.

In my case, if I leave my 9-year-old son alone in an area of a store, when I come back to meet up with him, he'll have usually found a way to combine two seemingly unrelated toys into some kind of super-weapon and attracted the attention of any and all girls in the surrounding area.

When he was younger, I had to watch him like a hawk, because he would just start taking things off shelves and doing all kinds of things with them.

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by whatever

I'm always annoyed when I wander into a store to shop for groceries or something and there's other people's kids running around making noise and all around being disturbing (grabbing my leg, yelling, rolling about on the floor and etc.). My parents would NEVER have let me behave like this in public!

However, whenever I respond as I tend to:
*cue best Uncle Scar impression* Where are your parents?
I'm considered to be rude and stepping out of line!

Why is it considered rude for me to take over when parents are obviously neglecting thier duty to society?

I don't think you are rude -- but some parents do take it pretty poorly. (Obviously if they're negligent enough to allow their kids to run around without respect for everyone else, they're probably also the sort to be offended if you insinuate they are "bad parents" by correcting their kids.)

We had a situation where a kid at church had been cutting up for a long time (he was obnoxious, disruptive, using foul language, bullying other kids, etc.) and the teachers were ineffective because the parents wouldnt' believe their child was behaving that way. Finally one of us took him to task for it because our kids were sick of it, and his parents showed up and ended up marching him to our house to apologize to our boys; but on their way out they insinuated they would have rather had us go to them [which of course wouldn't have worked, but whatever], and ever since then they've avoided us and do not talk to us.

(Which actually isn't a bad thing, but it's just rather crazy. If our children had been treating other people that way, we would have WANTED to know and would have changed what we were doing, to make it stop. They just were embarrassed that their pride had been hurt, and meanwhile their son's still acting like a jerk.)

Generally, if you can go through the parents, you should.
Then it seems almost more prudent to avoid the situation, to spare yourself some grief.
And if you discipline someone else's kid, expect to be looked at as the villain.

(And if I guess that, if I were in their shoes, and I didn't think my kids were being bad; and some parent publicly criticized my kids, I'd feel embarrassed and angry. So I guess I am saying, it's reasonable for you to expect a negative response.)

[whatever]

I just don't get that! Why would a parent sit by and watch thier kid destroy things that belong to other people?

A 9 year old in the toy aisle is ok by me- I'm not wandering through that area, and if I were I would expect to find children there playing with things- it's when a child runs up and grabs me when I'm inspecting the olive oils that really annoys me.

I've had the parents of these little monsters tell me that "I shouldn't talk to thier children like that" when I asked where thier parents were or asked them politely to please leave me alone... I usually ask them to please watch thier children more carefully in the future. I've been called a bitch for this I'd say that THEY'RE the rude ones Sure I'm criticizing thier parenting ability- they DESERVE it if they let thier kids behave like that!

EDIT: if the parents are available I'll happily ask them- if the parents are NOT available (all too frequent) I'll address thier little monster

[heart]

When we first lived in our house, the neighbor's five-year old would visit the little boy on the other side of us, only problem was he crossed right up behind our back windows and would slow down and look inside the whole way! They also played in our yard.

When I went to his mother and asked that he use the crosswalk and also stop playing in our yard where my husband was collecting building materials to build a yardshed, she jut shrugged and told me that she was lucky when he obeyed her on *important* things and that it wasn't a priority for her!

The neighborhood children also decided since we weren't out in the yard during the day that our yard made a great football field. (We worked night-shift) So we'd have to go out there and ask them to not play in our yard that it was tearing up the seedlings we were trying to grow grass from and they would scowl and complain, called me a bitch at one point. One of them said "Where else are we supposed to play?" I suggested their own homes and I was told their parents forbade it!.

When I was a child, I never dared trespass into people's yards and never would have spoken back like that much less cursed.

[Martoon]

First wanna say, heart, all of your stories, just, wow. You gotta get better friends.

Yeah, it bothers me, too, when kids are being little snots, and their parents aren't doing anything about it.

What bothers me even more, though, and I seem to see it more often, is parents who scream at their kids in public places. I'll be in the grocery store, and there's some kid who's really not causing that much trouble from what I can see, but the parent is chewing the kid out at the top of their lungs, right next to me. The kid isn't bothering me, but wow, the parent sure is. I think they're so used to doing this at home that it seems like the norm, so they have no qualms about screaming in a relatively quiet place with people around.

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by Martoon

What bothers me even more, though, and I seem to see it more often, is parents who scream at their kids in public places. I'll be in the grocery store, and there's some kid who's really not causing that much trouble from what I can see, but the parent is chewing the kid out at the top of their lungs, right next to me. The kid isn't bothering me, but wow, the parent sure is. I think they're so used to doing this at home that it seems like the norm, so they have no qualms about screaming in a relatively quiet place with people around.

Ugh. I hate that too.

I can distinguish between a mom who is merely exasperated and you can tell she's at the end of her rope and just can't deal anymore (so you feel sort of bad for her and the kid), vs a mom who just lashes out at her kid in a way that says it's her first reaction to anything they do (so you sort of get pissed at the mom).

Note: I only say mom because usually it's the moms who have the kids out at the store. I don't see the men out much with their kids especially at the grocery.

[heart]

Yes, I can't stand the people who shout at their children in public either.

Used to work in a discount department store during my college years and good grief the dysfunctional crap I used to hear. A parent whinning at a child saying "Well, I don't get what I want in life either." In a tone that was practically in tears! Good grief that child is going to have issues.

Parents who agrue with their hysterical children as if they were equals are also sickening.

[Anonymous]

Originally Posted by Martoon

First wanna say, heart, all of your stories, just, wow. You gotta get better friends.

Yeah, it bothers me, too, when kids are being little snots, and their parents aren't doing anything about it.

Yes, definitely. This all sounds horrible! Something must happen to certain people after childbirth. Some of the most rude people I've met have been mothers (Note: I'm definitely not saying that all mothers are rude, but for some, motherhood seems to trigger rudeness). If I had kids trespassing in my yard to play football, and their parents calling me names when I tell them to keep them in line, I'd be sorely tempted to either buy a dog or call the cops on them.