Your son was breaking all the cookies on the counter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't care if Starbucks lady is the Worst Mother Ever. OP, your OWN HUSBAND was embarrassed by your behavior. You know, the person who is supposed to love you more than anyone else? EMBARRASSED BY YOU. And yet you are so smug that you can't even begin to concede that you might have handled the situation better-- no, you just insult posters who point that out.

You've showed us loud and clear what kind of person you are. Great example you're setting for your daughter.

Now go ahead and tell me how stupid I am.

This is the crux of it all for me. Sorry OP but you embarrassed your husband, it doesn't get much worse than that. I would maybe work on being a better person, one he isn't ashamed to be with in public. If you seek confrontation, like you stated previously, and your husband avoids it then you are on a bad path. Passive aggressiveness and negativity will destroy your relationships and will model bad behavior for your child. Fix what you can in your own life, not the lives of other mothers zoning out at Starbucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents have an obligation to the rest of the public to teach their children to behave, special needs or not. Breaking up the cookies rendered them unsalable and money was lost by the store. Perhaps they should put up a sign that says "if you or your child breaks cookies, you will have to buy them." Similar to the one in gift shops: "Love to look at, delightful to hold, drop and break it and then its sold."

I totally agree with this with an exception - grocery store check out lines. The stores put all that candy at kid level and while I try to make sure my kids keep their hands down, I'm not buying any candy they handle. The stores should know better than to put that there. Yeah, there may be one candy free check out line but I'm going to whatever line is shortest.

All stores have candy free lanes and there is also self-checkout. More importantly, however, is that you, as a parent, should teach your children not to grab the candy. Better still, don't take them grocery shopping with you.

Are you offering to babysit? I would LOVE to go grocery shopping without my kids but they're too young to leave home alone. Are you free Saturday or Sunday morning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I have read through all of the posts and am both surprised and confused that so many are angry with the OP. Before I get flamed ( and I know I will, so I'm bracing for it) please just let me finish and read on, before you stop here and just start flaming.

I have two sons (3 and 5), do I've been through my fair share of tough days, just as so many of you have, and know all about having to teach children to keep little hands to themselves. I know about being cranky myself, about being preoccupied and o standings, and I know about having my DS be cranky, tired, and a handful (often those things overlap). None of that has ever observed me of having to keep an eye on one (or now both) of my children. I really dislike it intensely when I am sitting in a restaurant (and yes, I take my children out to eat) and children are RUNNING around the tables. It gives me indigestion. My sons sit at the table, quietly, until it is time to leave. Why? Because we have TRAINED them to behave that way. No whips and chains or leg irons. We just worked at it. And other parents just look at their charging 5 and 6 and 7 year olds who knock into our table (last week spilling my son's water glass into his lap) and shrug and tell me how "lucky" I am. No. I'm not "lucky". It wasn't any EASIER for me to stop MY child from crushing cookies in Starbucks than it was for YOU, I just DID it. I didn't make EXCUSES and I didn't make excuses for other parents either. We need to hold people accountable. The OP isn't being a witch.

I know you think you've trained your child and it is through hard work that he sits at a table, and that is probably partially true. However, AS A FORMER KINDERGARTEN TEACHER (sorry I had to put that in caps, as to offend someone that apparently finds that phrase annoying) I know that when I trained a classroom full of children to walk in a straight line (or whatever), there were always 2 or 3 that seemed incapable of doing it, despite the positive reinforcement, negative consequences, etc. that worked like a charm with the others. Some kids have trouble with impulse control, some are not developmentally ready to perform the task at hand. Some of these kids had troubled parents, and some had stellar parents with perfectly behaved older siblings. Despite my "training" and hard work, some kids are more difficult than others to manage. I'm sorry that this is so hard for some to grasp!

So those "untrainable" kids are excused to misbehave and ruin property, Mrs K Teacher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don't care if Starbucks lady is the Worst Mother Ever. OP, your OWN HUSBAND was embarrassed by your behavior. You know, the person who is supposed to love you more than anyone else? EMBARRASSED BY YOU. And yet you are so smug that you can't even begin to concede that you might have handled the situation better-- no, you just insult posters who point that out.

You've showed us loud and clear what kind of person you are. Great example you're setting for your daughter.

Now go ahead and tell me how stupid I am.

This is the crux of it all for me. Sorry OP but you embarrassed your husband, it doesn't get much worse than that. I would maybe work on being a better person, one he isn't ashamed to be with in public. If you seek confrontation, like you stated previously, and your husband avoids it then you are on a bad path. Passive aggressiveness and negativity will destroy your relationships and will model bad behavior for your child. Fix what you can in your own life, not the lives of other mothers zoning out at Starbucks.

OP here and that was not my question.

How hard is it to FOCUS? Hm.. maybe you're the mom who can't multitask, right? My question is what would you have done if your kid was the cookie crusher and what would you have done if you saw it happening.

And the day (if it ever comes) I need marriage counseling rest assured that DCUM is not the place I'll come to. DH and I have been together for a great amount of time and we're doing very well, thanks. As I said before, we know each other and we're used to each other's strengths and weaknesses.

LOL

Thanks for the laughter, though.

[Anonymous]

OP, you don't care what anyone else would have done. That is quite apparent by your responses here. You're looking for validation and you've gotten plenty of it. You seem to think your detractors aren't very intelligent, so why continue to argue your point? You're saving the world from bad parenting, one Starbucks at a time... congrats.

Happy now?

[Anonymous]

I also wonder why the op started this thread. Why not let what happenned be in the past and move on. What is the point of this thread?
Does she want us to say she is way more of a parent than someone else?

[Anonymous]

I know you think you've trained your child and it is through hard work that he sits at a table, and that is probably partially true. However, AS A FORMER KINDERGARTEN TEACHER (sorry I had to put that in caps, as to offend someone that apparently finds that phrase annoying) I know that when I trained a classroom full of children to walk in a straight line (or whatever), there were always 2 or 3 that seemed incapable of doing it, despite the positive reinforcement, negative consequences, etc. that worked like a charm with the others. Some kids have trouble with impulse control, some are not developmentally ready to perform the task at hand. Some of these kids had troubled parents, and some had stellar parents with perfectly behaved older siblings. Despite my "training" and hard work, some kids are more difficult than others to manage. I'm sorry that this is so hard for some to grasp!

And really, how does not teaching a child when his behavior is completely unacceptable do ANYTHING to teach him the correct behavior?! And, FWIW, I taught K for 7 years before having children. I'm well aware of what children are and are not developmentally able to handle. Children can sure as heck be taught not to mangle cookies in a store. Parents know what the developmental level of their child is and act accordingly. At least they should. It's their resposibility to do so.

[Anonymous]

pp, you sound psycho

[Anonymous]

So how does one respond to someone like the OP when they try to call you out when you are in the right (not the case in this instance obviously). Earlier this week I was boarding a flight when they called first class to board. A passenger lurking at the beginning of the line looked at my boarding pass and said "are you in first class?", implying I was jumping the line. I said yes and she remarked "must be a big first class", obviously not believing that my row 5 seat (which she could see on my boarding pass) was in first class (which was 7 rows on this particular plane). I just kept walking but her snide final comment was annoying. Probably best to let it go, which is what I did, but what would you have said?

[Anonymous]

K teacher again. My response was to the posters claiming that there is no "luck" or "nature" involved when it comes to a child's behavior. There is nature and nurture, and you are a smug fool if you think your easy to manage child is well-behaved because of your remarkable parenting skills alone.

It isn't that the difficult-to-manage kids' poor behavior should be excused, or tolerated, or ignored. It is that assholes in Starbucks should keep the varied levels of manageability in mind before they smugly critique the parenting skills of a misbehaving child, or pretend to empathize with what it is like to have one (or two) of these children to manage day in and day out when they have a quiet wallflower passively taking in the world from her stroller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how does one respond to someone like the OP when they try to call you out when you are in the right (not the case in this instance obviously). Earlier this week I was boarding a flight when they called first class to board. A passenger lurking at the beginning of the line looked at my boarding pass and said "are you in first class?", implying I was jumping the line. I said yes and she remarked "must be a big first class", obviously not believing that my row 5 seat (which she could see on my boarding pass) was in first class (which was 7 rows on this particular plane). I just kept walking but her snide final comment was annoying. Probably best to let it go, which is what I did, but what would you have said?

I think I read it on DCUM long ago, that a poster's dad would always comment with something like, "Madam, I hope your day improves!" I thought it was hilarious. I was verbally assaulted by a lady at a gas station because I hadn't pulled up to use the pump at the front of the line. She was totally in the wrong, a real dummy. Someone was getting gas ahead of me and left before she pulled up. It was lunacy. She actually interrupted my making faces through the window at my 2 infants while I pumped gas. I looked at them, looked at her, smiled a huge condescending smile, and calmly said "Lady, have a nice day." Then turned away. It was absolutely perfect and I'm so darn proud of myself I think it is the second time I've posted about it! It's one of those moments that could have been horribly, and ended with me kicking myself for not saying the right thing.

[Anonymous]

Do any of you have any idea how ridiculous you all sound? OP scolds another adult in a public place and looks for kudos? People chime in that Starbucks can afford it? How about the irony of the OP feeling that she needs to call out strangers for what she considers bad behavior only to come on here and display even worse manners? Lemme tell you something, if you all feel you arguing about something more important than cookies, you're not. This is just one big silly judgefest and if this is the freaking village, beam me up Scotty-NOW! (Please)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don't care if Starbucks lady is the Worst Mother Ever. OP, your OWN HUSBAND was embarrassed by your behavior. You know, the person who is supposed to love you more than anyone else? EMBARRASSED BY YOU. And yet you are so smug that you can't even begin to concede that you might have handled the situation better-- no, you just insult posters who point that out.

You've showed us loud and clear what kind of person you are. Great example you're setting for your daughter.

Now go ahead and tell me how stupid I am.

This is the crux of it all for me. Sorry OP but you embarrassed your husband, it doesn't get much worse than that. I would maybe work on being a better person, one he isn't ashamed to be with in public. If you seek confrontation, like you stated previously, and your husband avoids it then you are on a bad path. Passive aggressiveness and negativity will destroy your relationships and will model bad behavior for your child. Fix what you can in your own life, not the lives of other mothers zoning out at Starbucks.

OP here and that was not my question.

How hard is it to FOCUS? Hm.. maybe you're the mom who can't multitask, right? My question is what would you have done if your kid was the cookie crusher and what would you have done if you saw it happening.

And the day (if it ever comes) I need marriage counseling rest assured that DCUM is not the place I'll come to. DH and I have been together for a great amount of time and we're doing very well, thanks. As I said before, we know each other and we're used to each other's strengths and weaknesses.

LOL

Thanks for the laughter, though.

Ok OP, to answer your what WWYD question. The answer is in you shoes, NOT what you did. In my shoes, I would have crouched down and asked the boy why he was breaking all the cookies to gently call attention to it. That way I would not embarrass myself by being crass and rude, nor would I embarrass my husband with such an uncouth attitude towards a mother accompanied by her child!

[Anonymous]

Mom of cookie-destroyer, future criminal = oblivious and will raise an entitled brat

Mom of angelic kid strapped in stroller = passive aggressive, judgmental, will raise a mean spirited child

me= superior to both, he he he.

---
in fairness, I have a child who, if left to his devices, would be on a 'search and destroy' mission in any store (he's 19 months), despite our constant reinforcement of appropriate behavior. He is not screamer, hitter, or biter, but he will sometimes turn into Satan spawn if he cannot walk around, and that usually leads to lots of product testing if I am trying to balance watching him and doing anything else. Usually I am able to prevent breakage or damage or squishy toddler handling, but if occasionally he gets to something before I do, I use it as a teachable moment (no grabbing, that does not belong to you, etc) and remove him from the situation/temptation. I would appreciate another parent noting if my child is about to tip over the rack of coffee mugs (as nearly happened once in starbucks), and I would do the same, but I would not appreciate a bitchy, passive aggressive slam at my parenting.

[Anonymous]

Not the "luck" poster or the K poster, but I think the point is that the "luck" poster was trying to say that there was a lot of work that goes in to training children behind the scenes, no matter how well behaved those children and how "easy" they look or "lucky" those parents look. My DD is like that. I only have one and she's 3. Sometimes she is really terrible. I take her outside. I don't make anyone else listen to her scream. If we are in a store, that means shopping ends. I have had to leave a cart behind and that stinks, but I'm not going to make an entire store listen to my child shriek. I know what hours are best for her. She knows not to touch candy in the aisles and she doesn't run in stores or restaurants. I think that's the point.