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  • Child care isn't part of our services

    I'm back on the front desk, front line of fire. Very bad place to be in at the food stamp office.

    Our lobby has a small play room, with toys, a dvd player (which plays the same cartoon movie over and over and OVER) as well as child and adult sized chairs. It is also about 5 adult steps to the automatic doors.

    Everyday, I have people tell me that they are going to leave their children in the play room while they are doing their interview so I need to watch them. For some strange reason, they get upset when I tell them that I will not be responsible for their child. Much huffing and pouting ensues.

    I have a very thick skin, huffing and pouting doesn't move me at all.

    Yesterday, the Parents of the Year expected me to care for 4 sick children while Mom was doing her interview. When I declined the pleasure, she told me that she would have to do her interview in the back because she couldn't keep them corralled during the process and needed them confined to someone's cube.

    During the conversation, I learned that Dad was unemployed and was at home, but told her to take the kids because he didn't want to watch them and get sick!!!


    Entitlement, pure and simple entitlement.

  • #2
    Why do people like this have kids? To be clear, I don't mean people who are having financial difficulties. I mean people who clearly don't want to watch or take care of their own kids.
    When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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    • #3
      My grandma had more kids than that lady, and she would get compliments about how good they were. She was like "I really don't have a choice here, they have to learn or it will be chaos." Someone at work was nonchalantly telling me all the things his girlfriend needs to do so the kids don't break stuff. I'm not talking about normal child safety, like baby gates or child locks. The way it was described, the whole house is a giant padded room.
      Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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      • #4
        Anything could happen, many people have children during good times and need help during the bad times. I'm all good with that.


        I am not good with parents who don't want to parent. Once, a child was running amuck and I told his mother to make him stop. She told me to tell him that myself because he didn't listen to her.

        The shocked look on her face when I told her that she was the parent and should act like one was very entertaining.

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        • #5
          Quoth MoonCat View Post
          Why do people like this have kids? To be clear, I don't mean people who are having financial difficulties. I mean people who clearly don't want to watch or take care of their own kids.
          Because they don't want to stop having sex, and don't want to be bothered about using protection ("Sex leads to BABIES...?!").

          My older brother got himself "fixed" after having his second kid, and I don't blame him for a second. And I say this as one of four siblings myself. If you can barely afford to feed and shelter YOURSELF, you should not be having more than one child.

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          • #6
            Family and societal pressure probably plays a huge part. There are still families who will pressure their children into getting married and/or making babies as soon as possible and some kids just don't have the strength to say no, not now.

            It sucks because later down the road, the kids are the ones who really suffer for it because they didn't get a say in the matter.
            Don't waste time trying to convince someone that the sky is blue.

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            • #7
              Quoth TheWolfEmperor View Post
              Family and societal pressure probably plays a huge part. There are still families who will pressure their children into getting married and/or making babies as soon as possible and some kids just don't have the strength to say no, not now.
              I'm glad my mother never put any sort of pressure on me about giving her grandchildren. Then again, all three of my siblings have had them (my younger brother married a woman with three kids from a previous marriage), so I guess she didn't care that she had one "dud" in the bunch.

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              • #8
                Quoth notalwaysright View Post
                My grandma had more kids than that lady, and she would get compliments about how good they were. She was like "I really don't have a choice here, they have to learn or it will be chaos." Someone at work was nonchalantly telling me all the things his girlfriend needs to do so the kids don't break stuff. I'm not talking about normal child safety, like baby gates or child locks. The way it was described, the whole house is a giant padded room.
                to be fair I sliced open my ankle when i was 3, causing me to have 150 stitches and not being able to put weight on that leg for weeks, which caused my lef to grow slighlty shorter, causing me to have balance issues my whole life so I would break things alot as a kid.

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                • #9
                  I guess I'm just gobsmacked by the number of people who think that someone else should watch their kids. You see so many stories about people leaving kids in a store or a library or wherever, expecting the employees there to watch them for hours while the parents do something else.

                  Again, I'm not criticizing people who are having genuine problems or feel forced to give in to familial or cultural pressure. I just don't get the ones who expect strangers to watch their kids in a store.
                  When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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                  • #10
                    It's the same mindset that makes parents think they can bring their five-year-olds into a 9:00 PM showing of Deadpool 2...the world just has to bend around them, because they have KIDS!

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                    • #11
                      My parents subscribed to the "if he does it once, he'll be careful to never do it again" school of thought. I can't tell you the amount of trouble I got myself into one time only.
                      Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you speak with the Fraud department. -- CrazedClerkthe2nd
                      OW! Rolled my eyes too hard, saw my brain. -- Seanette
                      she seems to top me in crazy, and I'm enough crazy for my family. -- Cooper
                      Yes, I am evil. What's your point? -- Jester

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                      • #12
                        I used to get some kids that would be hanging around in the station from after school until a parental unit finished work a couple or three hours later. We had no facilities for that, no chairs for them to rest in, no-one to watch them, and of course the ever present danger of fricking trains and crowds of strangers. The big problem was that because the parents came home during mass commuter times, we'd usually be too swamped to see when and by whom the kids were picked up.

                        This went on for a few weeks, until we had a ticket inspection blockade. This usually involves a load of our inspectors, as well as a handful of uniformed and undercover police. A few words to the right people, and when the parents appeared they had it explained in very small words just how bad an idea it was to tell their children to wait around in an area where they could be whisked away to anywhere in the country at a minute's notice...
                        This was one of those times where my mouth says "have a nice day" but my brain says "go step on a Lego". - RegisterAce
                        I can't make something magically appear to fulfill all your hopes and dreams. Believe me, if I could I'd be the first person I'd help. - Trixie

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                        • #13
                          I volunteer at a museum. We get the occasional kid who is just dumped off. But the ones that really get me are the so-called chaperones for our school tours. Since there is a tour guide to take care of the kids, the chaperones should be able to head out for coffee and come back an hour later, right? Or at least sit down in the lobby and play with their phones. The ones that actually stay sometimes refuse to take responsibility for any kid except their own. So what if those kids are rioting in the gift shop? That’s not my child, therefore it’s your job to escort him/her to the toilet.

                          We finally had to prepare a guidelines-for-chaperones handout and require schools to Give it to chaperones. Still hasn’t eliminated all idiots, but it helped.

                          (Then there are the helicopters, but that’s a different topic.)

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                          • #14
                            I chaperoned a few times when my kids were small. I would NEVER have been allowed back again if I'd done something that rude. The rules were well gone over, repeatedly. This wasn't some prissy private school, either, it was a very public school my husband went to back in his day, and then our children went to for a few years. In the classroom the kids might act up a bit, and 1 on 1 play dates could get a bit rowdy, but the expectation of public decorum was high, and there was a LOT of frowning for public misbehavior.

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                            • #15
                              One of the things my wife's business does is rest bouncy-houses for parties. For the first few years there was just a picture of the inflated bouncy-house to view. It was suggested that she setup a few, so she did and our kids, their friends had a blast playing and the public knew exactly what they were getting. Eventually on weekends and days-out-of school "parents" started dropping their kids off to play and just leaving without say didley to anyone. A lot of kids didn't even know their parent's names much less any phone numbers. Some days the "parents" didn't come to collect the kids until well after the store closed. The wife really read them the riot-act. Unfortunately that didn't take with some so when they came back later to get the kids the LEOs or CPS had the kids.
                              I could also imagine what would have happened if my Dad told my Mom to take the kids with her because he didn't want to be bothered with them. I don't think Dad would have said that twice. Mom didn't play.
                              Bow down before me for I am ROOT

                              Preserving precious bodily fluids sine 1952

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