Sweetie, please don't play with that...

[XCashier]

I used to date a cop, and you can imagine the comments when I met him for lunch somewhere if he was in uniform. It used to annoy the heck out him, and frankly, it annoyed me, too.

"You better behave or that policeman will put you in jail."

Way to go, Mommie Dearest, teach your child to be terrified of police officers. That way, if he's ever lost, or in danger, he WON'T go to the person who can help him. Bloody stupid parents.

I've introduced my son to police officers and firefighters, and let him know that these are the good guys, and the ones to go to when you are in trouble. I would NEVER consider using them as a threat.

[myswtghst]

My response is going to be twofold on this.

For one, I was an obnoxious child--I have ADD, and have always been loud. I liked to talk to strangers, and climb on things. Somehow, my mom managed to keep me in line, and keep anyone else from having to discipline me. She was just always firm, and made sure I knew that she was in charge of me, but also that I was rewarded when I behaved well. I plan to do the same with my future children, whom I'm sure will be little hellions as well.

For two, I've worked with kids most of my life--as a camp counseler and a babysitter. It isn't that hard to keep most of them in line--where there's a will, there's a way. You should never need anyone else to help discipline your kids or to do the job for you, regardless of what our society (and all those crazy nanny shows) might say differently. I can't stand going to the grocery store/Walmart/Target/etc anytime other than late at night on weeknights, because the rest of the time there are unsupervised kids running amok, tearing stuff off shelves, making a mess, getting in my way and running in to me, along with being snotty to anyone who gets in their way. What happened to teaching our kids manners? Also --> to those of you who posted above me, who are raising/will raise your kids to be polite!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Exactly. Teaching your kid to be afraid of cops isn't exactly a good way to ensure his safety. One of many reasons this pissed me off.

[PhotoChick]

I used to work as an EMT/firefighter. One night we get a residential automatic fire alarm (adt and the like). Turns out 11 year old son was playing with matches and paper. He put out the small "fire" by himself but the smoke caused the alarm to go off. When we got there the mother was yelling at him that the police were coming to arrest him for starting the fire, blah, blah, blah. We got the mother out of there but the kid started screaming bloody murder as soon as we tried to get him out. I went in calmed him down, got him out of there and into the ambulance. All the while reasuring him that it was an honest mistake, no ones gonna arrest him, this is why you shouldn't play with fire and most importantly if there is ever a fire GO WITH THE FIREFIGHTERS. So what does the mom do but reappear and start her ranting again.
*sigh*

[GayleShy]

I don't understand these parents who expect CSRs to do the bad parent act, in the way of the good cop bad cop routine. What happens when the child acts up at home? Do they expect to use the threat of "Be good or I'll take you shopping!"?

More than likely they always have the other parent be the bad guy. My aunt used to do that all the freaking time with her kid. She never wanted to seem like the bad guy, so it was always, "____ when your father gets home he's going to spank you." So the kid grew up with no respect for his mother and scared to death of his father.

[Misanthropical]

When I worked security at the mall, a guy told his son to behave or I would yell at him. I bent down to the little boy and told him I wouldn't yell at him at all, but I would yell at his father if he didn't stop talking to him that way. The guy called me a bitch, grabbed his son and left.

[Imogene]

"How about watching your child?" That's what would have leapt to my mind and struggled desperately to escape my mouth.

When I was no longer worried that there'd be repercussions from my words, I spat, "Hey, how about you give me your daughter, I'll raise her for you, since you obviously can't handle raising a polite child. I can only imagine what a holy terror your house must look."

[Mighty Girl]

At my last job, I was walking down the isle where we had the toothpaste and there was this woman and her baby girl. The girl had to been like one or so. And I look over and she's sucking on children's toothpaste! She was eating that stuff right up! There were so many things wrong there...

Uh yeah, never mind feeling sick, getting that much fluoride in your system is quite bad. That's why the toddler toothpaste doesn't have fluoride in it. I swear, they'll let anyone give birth these days.....

[Arachne]

A lot of the kids I see in my shop are well-behaved, but I've seen some horrifying examples of hooligans-in-the-making. The worst are defiantely the kids whose mothers (I only see the mothers, since I work in a yarn store) seem incapable of making definate statements. They're always bargaining with the kids, bending, telling the kids it's time to pick up and then caving and picking everything up for them, telling them not to touch something (after I imply that it's fragile and expensive and mom will be buying it if it becomes unsellable) and then issuing no consequenses when the child completely ignores them.

The kids whose mothers flat-out ignore them do come in a close second, although they sometimes break my heart, too.

Shortly after I started my job, I had a woman come in with her little daughter. At first, I thought the girl was badly behaved. She kept taking yarn down, carrying it around, etc. Gradually, watching her, I realized that she was starved for attention. At one point, she took to bringing balls of yarn to me, one by one, to show me. I took them the first couple of times, and then started sending her to show her mother. This went on for a couple of balls of yarn before mom got the hint and left. But I felt sorry for that little girl, who was reduced to trying to get affection from a total stranger (me) rather than her own mother.

But generally, it's just the spoiled bratty little kids, getting their sticky slobbery fingers all over my beautiful mohair. Grrr. I really hate it when their mothers look helplessly around at the HUGE FREAKING MESS their monsters made, then shrug and take their kids and leave. Thanks a lot, lady. I guess I'm your spawn's personal servant now.

Another quickie: One time, one of the first days I was training a co-worker, a couple of women and a whole hoarde of kids came in. I watched where those kids went in the store, and then after everyone had gone, told my co-worker to please go and clean up the huge messes she would find in a few certain locations. She asked me how I knew a mess would be there. I said: "Those are the places those kids stayed at the longest." (Sure enough, huge mess.)

[Lace Neil Singer]

Once at the supermarket, there was this mother with a huge trolley and an adorable little girl. The little girl was playing on the trolley as tho it was a climbing frame when a collegue of mine (since left for anothe job) told the girl's mother nicely to keep her daughter in the child seat provided and not to let her climb all over the trolley cuz it was dangerous.

The mother retorted, "She's my child not yours!" in a nasty tone of voice and walked off. Now, the second part of the drama was the part I witnessed, as it happened next to my till. The little girl misjudged her climbing and fell forward, hitting her forehead right on the metal rim of the trolley, cutting her head open. She shrieked, her mum screamed "Oh my god!" I tried to calm the woman down while buzzing for a supervisor and first aider.

I really felt sorry for the poor little girl; it wasn't her fault her mother was an idiot who put her little girl's safety at risk just cuz she couldn't bear to be told she was wrong.

[protege]

I had a cousin like that. Her parents tended to spoil her, and later her brother, a bit. You name it, they had it. No matter what the toy, or how much it cost. Anyway, she was allowed to do whatever she wanted. Needless to say, she, along with her parents, soon found themselves unwelcome at most family events

In fact, I put her in her place at a reunion 25 years ago. We were playing outside, and she took a swing at me. I told her to knock it off. She didn't, so I smacked her in the face She screamed, and ran to her redneck father...who promptly laughed at her. From then on, she never gave me a hard time. That's all she needed--someone to kick her ass.

Fast forward 25 years, and she has a daughter...who acts the *exact* same way for the *exact* same reasons. Apparently, the grandparents, and great-grandparents spoil her, and my cousin can't figure out why she's such a handful... Karma's a bitch like that

[RecoveringKinkoid]

One of my cousins, who has since grown into a truly wonderful young man, was a holy terror when he was little. His mother never disciplined him. She had miscarried before she got pregnant with him, and out of some sort of weird guilty thing, refused to discipline him. Her older daughter, my best friend growing up, was not like this at all, so it was how his mother dealt with him only. If my cousin's father disciplined him, he was in for a bunch of fighting with his wife. If his sister tried it, she got yelled at and berated.

Nobody liked having my cousin around because he was disruptive and awful.

Interestingly enough, there were two people who he would jump to attention for: the boy's older sister's boyfriend, and myself. The reason? We were the only two people who would dare snatch the kid up and tell him no and make it stick. Neither of us gave much of a damn if his mom liked it or not.

And guess what? The boy loved us. So I guess we didn't scar him too badly.

[DesignFox]

Some parents are the worst. And I hate the ones that you warn them to watch the kid or ask the kid to not do something and then the kid gets hurt and mom is all over you like you personally caused the incident.

At my old photo job- I was taking pictures of two little boys. One was maybe 4, the other just learned to walk. The little one is stumbling around, and I asked Mom (repeatedly) to keep him in reach, but at the same time, I would warn her just before I hit the button to take the shot so her arms wouldn't be in the photo...details are fuzzy as this was a long time ago...

anyway- two of us were taking the photos because the little one was running around so much, it took one person to man camera, and another to get expression (and the older kid was being a HUGE pain in the ass, otherwise two people would not have been necessary). We were up to the point of trying to get both children together in the shot for a close up. We have props and boxes around, not to mention the big backdrop...but I made sure there was enough clear space to move in... well- the stumbling one year old manages to trip over his own two feet during the shoot and hit his head on a box anyway

Mom immediately FREAKS OUT claiming he tripped on the backdrop- (which he didn't! both of us saw him trip on his freaking sneaker!) She rants and raves about how unsafe it is, and how that backdrop shouldn't have a wooden lip...and on and on. I told her, "well, I did ask you to stay within arms reach..." (my mistake) she freaks out because when I was actually trying to TAKE the picture BEFORE the kid ran, I asked her to move her arms just as I was hitting the shutter... NOT MY FAULT once he left the backdrop and she didn't grab him... AND I had stopped anyway as soon as the little one ran off the backdrop! it just made me so mad, because as this poor little boy is crying his mother is more busy yelling at me, the mean evil photographer, about our dangerous backdrop than tending to him and soothing his hurt.
We filled out a report just in case she decided to go total lunatic and threaten to sue, or demand freebies, but fortunately, she came to her senses later and didn't demand anything. Of course, she didn't thank my partner for having the good sense to get ice and take care of her child while she was busy screaming at me...but that's beside the point.

and that is one of many reasons I no longer work retail photography.....

[HYHYBT]

What happens when the child acts up at home? Do they expect to use the threat of "Be good or I'll take you shopping!"?

Would have worked on me!

[bean]

I think I posted about it in another thread, but I had to turn on asshole mode last week. My counter is surrounded by a glass sneezeguard - it's about chin high on me (I'm about 5'8"). A customer was making an order from me, and her kid was STANDING in the shopping cart. Okay, this I can ignore, I did the same thing as a kid. Then he leans forward - while in a shopping cart with wheels - and grabs the top of the glass and tries to pull himself up on it.

I stopped what I was doing and told the customer "Ma'am, this glass is not very sturdy and will fall if he does that" (something similar anyway) while looking the kid in the eyes. The kid stared at me, then sat down in the cart with a pissed off look on his face. I was expecting the mother to chew me out - she actually said "Thank you, he never listens to me". I went on to explain that I just didn't want him to get hurt and showed her how the glass was secured and how easy it pops out. Phew.