When you guys say that you're not a babysitting service

[Zell]

When you guys say that, do you mean like parents always just drop their kids off at the store to mess with crap until they come back? That would kind of annoy me, especially if they just sat there for an hour until the parents came back.

Has anyone literally said to you "Can you watch my son while I go to xxx store?" If so, I really wanna hear that story

[kerrisan]

If anyone says they've had an incident where a parent said "Can you watch my child while I go to an XXX store?" I really wanna hear that one.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Thankfully I have never had anyone actually ask me to watch their child. I would definitely say Sorry but I can't be responsible for your kid while I am working for the store. (Now, if you want to hire me as an actual babysitter and pay me for it, maybe we can work something out .)

I have however had plenty of people leave their kids at the Thomas the Tank table (sometimes as young as 2) and shop elsewhere in the store. That always bothered me because the hallway with the bathrooms and an emergency exit are just past the kids department, right around the corner from the Thomas table. Even if you are just on the other side of the department, if someone wanted to they could easily get out with your kid; yeah they would set off the alarm but they could easily be out of sight before someone got to the door.

[ZumZum]

I used to work for The Children's Place. Years ago they had slides and ball pits in the store, meant to entertain the children while their parents shopped IN the store.

Nope, we had many abandoned children in the store while the parents were off in other parts of the mall.
Ugh.

[Brighid45]

We never had any parents ask us directly to babysit, at least as far as I know. About half of them simply assumed we would take care of their kids--most of whom were ages 3-6--and never said word one to any of us, just dumped their horde and left. The other half figured if they were sneaky enough we would never know they'd left their kids in the store for us to watch . . . this despite the fact that 1) they had to go right past the front counter to bring the brats in, and 2) the area all the parents liked to use was about five feet away from that same counter. It isn't hard to get what's going on when Mom is stage-whispering to Junior, 'now we'll be back in just a little while, you stay RIGHT HERE and look at the books'.

[bigjimaz]

I love your avatar ZumZum, although I think that would be considered cheating at the rainbow party.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Nothing dirty meant against you, just expressing my first impression when I saw it, dirty minded that I am.

[ZumZum]

I love your avatar ZumZum, although I think that would be considered cheating at the rainbow party.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Nothing dirty meant against you, just expressing my first impression when I saw it, dirty minded that I am.

It's all good, darling. It is one sexy avatar.
I have my secrets......

[bigjimaz]

Dang, and I deleted my message because I looked at it thinking I went a bit too far.

Oh well, maybe I'm getting too conservative for my own good.

[AnaKhouri]

One of my co-workers did have a woman ask her to watch her kids for an hour. Her answer? "Hell no!"

Back when I worked at TJ Maxx a woman once asked me to watch her daughter while she was in the fitting room. I told her to take the kid with her, no way was I getting into that!

[bigjimaz]

I know that no one thinks of all the consequences of doing the things they do, but you would think in this day and age with all of the child abductions and those individuals that put Dateline NBC back on the map, that people would be more protective about who they leave their kids with. Nothing against anyone here, but you know what I mean, right?

[MadMike]

Dang, and I deleted my message because I looked at it thinking I went a bit too far.

Oh well, maybe I'm getting too conservative for my own good.

I can bring it back for you.

[BdwayBabu799]

I used to work for The Children's Place. Years ago they had slides and ball pits in the store, meant to entertain the children while their parents shopped IN the store.

Nope, we had many abandoned children in the store while the parents were off in other parts of the mall.
Ugh.

You took the words out of my mouth. I worked at The Children's Place as well and we could constantly have kids left there while the parents went to other stores, and we did not have a ball pit or anything..just clothes and accessories!

[hecubus]

While nobody ever came right out and asked our staff if we could babysit, I did work at the Number 1 holiday season babysiting venue: the movie theater nextdoor to the mall.

Every Christmas season our theater was filled to the brim with kids who were dropped off by their parents so that the parents could so their shopping. You haven't lived until you've had to deal with upwards of 300 unaccompanied kids running in and out of their movies, hanging around the lobby for hours on end waiting for their parents to come pick them back up, etc.

I never understood why it was so hard for these parents to figure out a mutually agreed upon time to pick up their kids. It's not like the movie theater has a schedule or anything so that you can find out what time your kids' movie gets out.

I'm so glad I'm not working there anymore.

[Rolling Star]

My friend told me that lots of parents leave their kids at the Toys R' Us she works at. It really pisses her off because the kids LOVE running around and throwing toys from the shelves onto the floor. She also said that if the kids go hurt, their parents would raise hell. It's not the store's fault that your little horrors made a mess and hurt themselves.

[GayleShy]

I've had people ask me to watch their shopping carts with children still in them while they ran back for a few things. I told them the cart could stay, but the kid went with them. I actually had a couple people take me up on it, but most of them got huffy and demanded to know why they'd do that. They didn't take well to my explaination of the store not being responcible for their children.

But the worst "babysitting" job was when this woman left her kids in McDonald's while she went shopping. And by kids I mean the oldest was about 6 or 7 and the youngest was about 3. They finished eating then the older one led her sister to my checkstand and started to watch me. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that her mother had told them to stay with me until she was done shopping. So I wasn't asked, I had no choice. I told the CSM about it and she paged the mother, who didn't come back until she was good and ready. I would have loved to call the cops on this woman, but the CSM didn't let me. Luckily, the girls were more than well behaved. I have a feeling that they have to do this a lot, poor things.