Anyone who has worked retail knows the children’s section is usually the hardest area in the entire store to keep organized. Between scattered clothes, abandoned items, and kids treating displays like playgrounds, employees often spend entire shifts trying to clean up the same messes over and over again.

The clothing store employee in this story says they finally understood exactly why the kids’ department always looked like a disaster after encountering three particularly chaotic children during a shift. While the worker tried to tidy the area, the kids followed behind, undoing the work almost immediately by tossing clothes on the floor, shoving items onto the wrong racks, and generally creating as much chaos as possible.

The most frustrating part? Their parents stood nearby watching the entire thing happen without stepping in once, even after one of the kids managed to knock an entire clothing rail off the wall. Read on to share in the frustration of this worker.

Those parents who let their kids run wild

I work for a fairly cheap clothes retailer, and during my shift today my manager asked me to quickly tidy the kids section.

I think it is easy to guess why the kids’ section is always a mess.

Kidswear is always a nightmare. It’s nowhere near as organised as menswear or ladieswear, and is always a mess. Today I found out why.

I walked into the section and it was like a bomb had gone off. But being a good little retail slave, I rolled up my sleeves and dug in.

Kids seem to make messes naturally. That’s why it is important for parents to teach them to clean up after themselves.

As I was going around picking up clothes and sorting out the rails, three kids (probably about 12) were hovering around, and whether deliberately or accidentally, making a huge mess.

Picking up several different garments to look at, leaving them on the floor, putting things in the wrong places etc. Going over where I’d just tidied and generally messing up the place.

Sometimes they seem to intentionally try to make the biggest messes possible.

This culminated in the head brat knocking an entire rail off the wall.

The kicker? The kids’ mum/supervising adult was watching them do it the entire time!

I don’t know when this trend of hands-off parenting started, but it really needs to end.

If you can see your brats making a mess and generally being obnoxious, whilst a worker is trying to tidy up, do something about it!

When did this become okay? Just because it’s my job to make sure the shop floor is tidy, it doesn’t mean it’s alright for your little kids to add to my workload.

Stores should start kicking parents (and the kids) out if they are going to be so disrespectful.

I was relaying this story to a colleague who was working fitting rooms, and she told me that the same kids had been there as well, throwing underwear at each other, whilst mummy dearest was browsing nearby.

It is simply awful to see parents ignoring their children while they are making a mess. When you are out in public, you need to take extra care to ensure the kids are on their best behavior. Sadly, it seems like parents today do the opposite.

Let’s take a look and see what the commenters had to say about this story.

In these areas, kids could really get hurt.

This person works in kids areas too.

I doubt the parents even clean the house.

I can only imagine how bad it is in a bookstore.

Parents like this drive everyone crazy.

There have always been bad parents in the world, but the number of them seems to keep going up. What makes people think that it is ok to just let their kids run wild in a store? Why do they think that other people should have to clean up after them?

It really doesn’t make sense, and hopefully the trend will end soon. If you are going to bring kids out in public, they need to be on their best behavior. If they do happen to make a mess, the parents need to make them clean it up (or clean it up themselves). This really shouldn’t be that controversial.