Having kids is a wonderful experience, but one thing that all parents need to learn is that the kids are their responsibility. Anyone who has worked in retail knows that way too many parents just let their kids run around basically unsupervised, causing all sorts of trouble.

What makes the situation worse is that the kids can cause serious damage or even hurt people when they aren’t being watched, which is what could have happened in this story. A worker ended up having to basically babysit a child who was running around and getting into things. The parents knew what the child was doing, but decided to ignore them instead of actually parenting.

To top it all off, once the parents finally decided to step in, they actually acted annoyed with the employee who had been trying to keep their kid out of trouble. The nerve of these people. Read through all the details below to see what you think should have happened.

You have to hope that the trend of ‘hands off’ parenting comes to an end before long. It is not only annoying to everyone around the kids, but it is also very ineffective when it comes to raising well-behaved children.

Your Parenting Style isn’t Working

Last week a family came in, one of the kids who was probably about seven years old didn’t speak and acted odd.

Well, I should hope she still loves him.

For whatever reason, or no reason, out of nowhere the mother had to announce to me her child has extreme autism, but she loves him.

While looking through the store, both parents seemed to completely ignore said child, the kid is running around tearing everything apart while the parents are far from the kid.

Just because a child has autism doesn’t mean you can ignore him.

The kid ends up behind the counter with me, FINALLY the mother gets a little panicked not knowing where her kid is, I yell to her it’s fine her kid is with me.

Now most people would most probably still come and retrieve their child, but nah they don’t. She just sighs with relief and says “okay good” and now I’m the babysitter to their child.

The parents really need to come and take their child.

This kid is banging computer keyboards, his kid grabs a bottle of cleaner and is trying to open it. Of course, I now being the charge of this kid kindly get it away from him and instead give him something far less hurtful to bash around.

Then he gets Windex, of course he does. Now he’s spraying the walls and cases in the store and when I try to nicely ask for the bottle he grunts and makes distressed sounds, so seeing as this isn’t my kid and I’m not being paid to take care of their kid I give up and decide I’ll only take it away from the kid if they try to spray themselves in the face with it.

He should really go get the parents at this point. The child is a danger to everyone.

So, off this kid goes spraying Windex on everything. EVENTUALLY his parents find him and chastise him for ‘somehow’ getting window cleaner and seem a bit irate at their tantrum throwing son, but also irate at me for not properly watching their kid.

To parents who don’t watch their kids or smack their kids or try to keep a handle on their kids; WHAT YOU’RE DOING ISN’T WORKING, MAYBE TRY PARENTING YOUR KID, BECCAUSE IT ISN’T MY JOB.

I can certainly understand this person’s frustration. Some parents just think the world needs to help watch their child, and that just isn’t fair. Sadly, there isn’t much you can do about it in most cases.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a teen who has spent a decade raising her younger siblings, and thinks it’s time to walk away from her family for good.

Read on to see what the people in the comments had to say about this all too common story.

I agree with this commenter. Parents were different (and better) back in the day.

If it wouldn’t get you fired, this would be a great way to handle it.

I think this commenter is on to something here. Only put the parents in a box instead.

This commenter says to call security and report that the child is abandoned. I think this is a great idea.

Employees work for the store; they are not babysitters. This really shouldn’t be that hard a concept for parents to learn.

What on Earth gives parents the idea that strangers want to watch their kids for free? I hate to be one of those ‘back in my day’ type of people, but honestly, my parents would have never let me run around like this when I was a kid.

If I started getting into things or causing issues in a store, it would have embarrassed my parents, and they would not have allowed it. If I didn’t stop when they told me once, I would sure stop when they dragged me out to the car. Hopefully, this trend of terrible parenting will end soon.