Working in retail can be a great job for many people, as it offers some great perks. On the other hand, it can also be absolutely miserable when you have to deal with terrible customers.

One of the worst types of customers is the parents who absolutely refuse to supervise their kids. While the kids might be making the messes and causing the damage, it is really the parents’ fault for allowing it to happen.

The store manager in this story experienced a horribly perfect example of what happens when kids aren’t properly parented in public, but he handled it perfectly. The child was left to terrorize the store unsupervised while his parents were looking at furniture, and terrorize he did.

After multiple warnings from the manager (which were all but ignored by the parents), he finally demanded that they clean up the mess their child had made and leave the store forever. Whether you are a parent or a store manager (or anyone else), this story is a great learning opportunity. Parents should learn why they need to watch their kids, and managers can learn how to put their foot down and enforce rules.

Read on to see what you think of this great, but disgusting, story for yourself.

Parents, not their kids, should be punished

I have got to say, after working 4 years in retail, parents should be responsible for their children’s actions.

You can’t blame the kids for bad parents. But they sure can be frustrating.

I have seen so many kids acting like demons that have just spawned from a dimension full of pointy sticks being shoved up their ***, but I never blame the kids.

I usually don’t even blame the parents, because kids are kids, but when customers blatantly let their kids run around like Sonic on meth, I blame the parents.

Announcing this is a smart move.

That is why we have an announcement that plays every few minutes, reminding customers to keep their little kids in line.

So, when a customer like the one I had comes in, I usually inform my manager (who will be called Jared) of the situation and he watches the kid from a distance.

He immediately knows that this kid is going to be trouble.

A middle-aged couple stumbles into the store with their 7 year old son. They head off to furniture, but their son makes a bee-line to toys.

I immediately call Jared, and let him know that this little tornado is heading to toys and he should try to contain the damage as much as possible.

Of course, the parents are nowhere to be found.

Before the kid makes it to toys, he stops over in the Halloween section and starts putting on masks and runs around the store trying to scare the other customers.

After 4 complaints, Jared stops the kid, and drags him to his parents, who don’t seem to care about what my manager has to say and wave him off.

How could any parent think that this is in any way acceptable?

The kid bolts towards toys, and stars ripping toys down off the shelf. The floor looks like a miniature Antietam by the time he is finished.

Now he has an armload of toys and decides to take them to the bathroom. Once in there, he places them on the floor, and proceeds to urinate on them.

Oh, I would be so angry.

Jared walks in on him finishing up, and drags the kid back to his parents, leaving a trail of urine footprints behind him.

Jared tells the parents what he did, and that they have to clean up the mess. This switches the parents into rage mode.

Parents like this never think their kid can do anything wrong. But Jared is spot on, the parents are the problem.

They just cannot BELIEVE that their kid would do this! And he will be punished severely when they get home.

Jared tells them calmly “I am punishing you, not your child. You guys made no effort to control him, and even brushed me off after the first incident. You guys will clean up every mess he has made, and then you can leave. You are no longer welcomed here.”

I’m shocked that they actually cleaned up the mess.

They start yelling profanities at him and their kid, saying how this is ridiculous and they shouldn’t have to put up with this.

After they cleaned up, they left empty handed. Jared received many compliments on how he handled the situation.

I can’t imagine how people put up with parents like this when working in retail or restaurants. It just doesn’t make sense how a parent thinks that this type of thing is at all acceptable. It really isn’t that hard to keep an eye on your kids, but some parents can’t even be bothered to do that.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a third-generation business owner who is thinking he might know the people in his community a bit too well.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this disgusting story.

I 100% agree with this commenter. The parents should have to pay.

The parents should have punished the child way earlier in this story.

A rude parent usually raises rude children.

Do these parents not even care about the safety of their children?

This commenter makes a funny observation.

If anything, the manager should have been even harsher on the parents. This idea of hands-off parenting definitely doesn’t work with some kids. If you are unwilling to discipline your children and make sure they behave, then don’t take them into public.

Sadly, parents like this are not only terrible today, but as the children grow up, they will turn into terrible adults. Kids need structure and discipline to learn how to live in a civilized society. The child in this story will likely have a difficult time adjusting as he grows up.