2 Rants in One Store!

[kerrisan]

I went to the grocery store with my mother yesterday, and I got doubles: an SC and an SE (Stupid Employee!):

SC:
I went to Customer Service to return something for my mom while she was shopping. While I was standing in line I hear a child (probably 1.5 years) screaming from the front entrance of the store. Thanks God that screeching isn't coming from over here, I think . . . all too soon. Apparently it is the child of a man standing in line at Customer Service! She and her mother soon come into view, and I see that the mother is doing bupkis to calm her. Well, I take that back. She tried to show her a pink backpack on clearance, and when that didn't work, she just stood there. The sound is near-deafening and the Customer Service people are having to scream over the sound. Other customers were staring (some glaring) at these two for not trying to quiet the girl. Seriously, it's ok to lecture in the grocery store! Just don't beat the child and you're ok. The mother was doing a very good job of avoiding everybody's glares though; I have to give her that.

SE:
As we were leaving, I started heading towards the end of the store that we had come in from, but Mom stopped me and told me to go through the other way. (A little background: my mom works for Hospice, a group that admits terminally ill people into their care until death.) This is the conversation that ensued:

me: We came in from that way.
Mom: I know, but I'm avoiding somebody.
me: ??? Who?
Mom: The greeter.
me: . . . there's a greeter over here too . . .
Mom: Yeah, but this greeter hasn't had her husband admitted into Hospice before. The one over there . . . her husband was on Hospice twice and has been let off twice, and every time I come to the store and see her she has to corner me and talk to me for 20 minutes about how her husband is doing. You know what? If he's not on Hospice anymore, I don't really care! Can't she see that I have a cartful of groceries that I need to get home? Either put him on Hospice or don't talk to me!

Now, my mom is a very sweet woman (otherwise she wouldn't be working for Hospice), so this has had to have happened many times for her to be this adamant about avoiding her.

[trunks2k]

The sound is near-deafening and the Customer Service people are having to scream over the sound. Other customers were staring (some glaring) at these two for not trying to quiet the girl. Seriously, it's ok to lecture in the grocery store! Just don't beat the child and you're ok. The mother was doing a very good job of avoiding everybody's glares though; I have to give her that.

In this lady's defence, that's the tactic my mother would use on us, and it worked like a charm in the long run. Once we were old enough to walk, whenever we would throw an unwarranted fit of some sort, she'd just ignore us. We learned real fast that throwing a fit didn't get us anywhere. So by the time we were 3, fits were rare occurances. But on the other hand, if it got really bad and we were in a store or something, she'd just leave (and not always with us ).

[kerrisan]

she can ignore the kid, that's fine, I'm an elementary education major so I have been taught how well ignoring can work, but I also know that if it becomes a disturbance to other students (or in this case, customers) the problem needs to be removed . . . she could have at LEAST waited outside until her daughter calmed down!

[JustADude]

Great Theory + Flawed Execution = pile of ing .

I'd bet she read about it in some parenting magazine, and the mag forgot to tell her to take the kid outside, so it never occured to her. Of course, I'm a generous soul and don't want to think it's because she just doesn't care.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Fact is, if a child is getting glares and mutterings from surrounding people... that also counts as getting attention! So just the mother ignoring her is pointless.

[I_Hate_SCs]

This reminds me of a time a few months ago when I heard a small child screaming bloody murder from the back of the store (a medium-sized Target, when we were slammed on the weekend!) Out of curiousity, I decided to see what the commotion was. I saw a mother and her 2 or 3 year-old daughter in a long line of people, and the daughter was screaming "I WANT A TOY! I WANT A TOY!!!! A TOYYYY! STOP IGNORING ME, I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME MOMMY!" at the top of her lungs. Everybody, including the nearby cashiers and other people in the long lines, gave the mother death glares in a passive attempt to get her to quiet her child.

Guess what the parent was doing? Calmly standing beside her cart reading a magazine she grabbed off the impulse racks, in her own little world. To my satisfaction, I finally heard some customers nearby the parent loudly exclaim that 'it is dissapointing some idiots cannot keep their children quiet nowadays.'

[LostMyMind]

I've always wanted to walk up to those kinds of parents with the screaming child(ren) and say. "Excuse me, I'm deaf and I can hear that." But I'm tooo nice.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Sorry, guys, but it sounds like these moms did exactly the right thing.

Yes, glares from strangers is indeed attention. But the child isn't trying to get their attention...she's trying to get her MOM'S attention. She knows mom doesn't want a commotion and is likely embarrassed. In fact, she's banking on it. She's hoping mom will be so embarassed, she will relent and get her what she wants.

Mom knows she can't paddle Junior's ass in public, like say, my mom would've. Junior probably has figured that out, too. The same people giving mom the stink eye will then turn and call DYS on her on their cell phones for "child abuse." She can't win. The only thing she can do is teach her little darling that it is completely useless to act like that in public. And the best way to do that is to completely, totally, ignore her.

Cut mom a break. She's not enjoying it either.

[LostMyMind]

I almost agree with you RecoveringKinkoid. However, experiencing my sister's kids. One sister out of four don't "control" their kids, althrough she starting to now. Some actually don't hear the kids, they just tune em out. My sister did it for almost 6 years of her kids life.