Why do whole families grocery-shop together?

[Anonymous]

with two WOHP, we only go to the grocery store once a week and that is usually a weekend morning. Before kids, we'd usually go together. My DH has a habit of not adding things to the grocery list, so he likes being at the store so he can grab his snacks, cereal, etc. Yet he also cannot follow a grocery list, so I pretty much have to go to make sure we get everything. We didn't change that once DC was born.

Since DC has been going to the grocery store every week since birth, DC knows how to behave in a store. There's no yelling, no screaming, no running, no whining, no demanding candy.

And I'd like to think there's a greater chance of DC trying new foods if involved in the shopping. That is what the so-called experts claim, at least.

We do other "chores" together too. Yard work. Washing the cars. Folding laundry. If you have to do chores, may as well make them enjoyable by having good company. Hmmm.... maybe OP doesn't enjoy the company of her DH, or he doesn't enjoy her company. Or they don't enjoy their kids. That would explain her inability to understand how others might find it nice to go grocery shopping together.

And FWIW, DC is in bed at 7:30 at night. Not so that we have adult time, but b/c DC needs 11 hours of sleep at night. Used to be even earlier when DC was an infant. Read up on sleep deprivation in kids. The effects are fascinating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:with two WOHP, we only go to the grocery store once a week and that is usually a weekend morning. Before kids, we'd usually go together. My DH has a habit of not adding things to the grocery list, so he likes being at the store so he can grab his snacks, cereal, etc. Yet he also cannot follow a grocery list, so I pretty much have to go to make sure we get everything. We didn't change that once DC was born.

Since DC has been going to the grocery store every week since birth, DC knows how to behave in a store. There's no yelling, no screaming, no running, no whining, no demanding candy.

And I'd like to think there's a greater chance of DC trying new foods if involved in the shopping. That is what the so-called experts claim, at least.

We do other "chores" together too. Yard work. Washing the cars. Folding laundry. If you have to do chores, may as well make them enjoyable by having good company. Hmmm.... maybe OP doesn't enjoy the company of her DH, or he doesn't enjoy her company. Or they don't enjoy their kids. That would explain her inability to understand how others might find it nice to go grocery shopping together.

And FWIW, DC is in bed at 7:30 at night. Not so that we have adult time, but b/c DC needs 11 hours of sleep at night. Used to be even earlier when DC was an infant. Read up on sleep deprivation in kids. The effects are fascinating.

Not the OP, but wow - you are just not a very nice person. Why on earth would you go here? Clearly your repeated exposure to humans hasn't made you any kinder or less judgemental. Not taking the entire family grocery shopping is not a commentary on how much you enjoy each other's company. The lack of humanity in your post makes me really sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever I see a whole family at the grocery store I see one of those cartoon-thinking-bubbles over the husband's head that says "I wish I was anywhere else but here. I hate my life."

haha. I think the same thing. Somehow I don't think the words in the bubble are "Family time is too precious. I can't imagine being anywhere but here."

Sometimes, I take a kid grocery shopping with me on the weekend to give my husband a break. He words 12 hours a day during the week. Somehow I don't think he minds an hour alone to surf the internet or ahem, be with himself.

Or to surf the internet WHILE being with himself? Nice. I don't think I've ever taken a kid on an errand so that my DH could have some free time to spank the monkey.

Oh lighten up. It was a joke. I just think some women don't understand that men aren't like women. Maybe b/c I have brothers I get it. But some of my girlfriends I can't help but think, GOD, I so get why your husband is a miserable SOB.

Geez, my tone came through all wrong - I was trying to say that it's kind of awesome that you do that!

[Anonymous]

I admit it. I am a mother who thinks grocery shopping with just a baby and a toddler is too much work.

Since becoming a parent, going to the grocery store by myself has become an errand I look forward to.

[Anonymous]

IMO how you grocery shop is a little window into how you live...

Peapod delivery to nanny = hyper-educated two income family fearful that any moment junior spends not doing educational activities will keep him out of Yale.
Peapod delivery to SAHM = mom who watches Sanjay Gupta too much while EBFing and has developed an intense fear of whooping cough, and avian flu.
Mom alone going slowly down the aisle = a woman either SAHM or working for whom this is the only solitary, exercise, or social experience of the week.
Dad alone = hopelessly lost soul trying desperately to figure out what he should be doing and dreading the return home to the invetible you forgot X.
Mom and Dad together without kids eating samples = date night when you have to pay your nanny time and half, too expensive to afford dinner on top nanny cost.
Mom with kids = mom who is tired of watching WonderPets and has decided picking out cereal is a life learning experience.
Mom, Dad, and kids = two income family that share things 50/50 including the horror of the grocery store trip with kids but convince themselves it is good family time.

[Anonymous]

We go to Costco as a family (3 kids) once a month. I go because I enjoy foodshopping and I need my husband to help lift some of the big boxes. I have taken the kids foodshopping since they were born so they are used to it and don't misbehave. I can't send my husband by himself because he doesn't follow the gorcery list

[Anonymous]

PP, you forgot me. I'm a FTWOHM with kids who shops alone because it's faster and cheaper than bringing DH and/or the kids with me.

[Anonymous]

My DH is completely capable of handling the grocery store. He even takes the kids, which I don't. All the piosts that dads in the grocery store are clueless are sad.

[Anonymous]

I bring my screaming babies with me to do the shopping just to piss people like you off. While we are there our favorite game is I can scream louder than you

[Anonymous]

to carry more stuff home. We walk to the gym on the weekends..kids love the gym daycare. Afterwards, we usu. hit the Whole Foods. This is all on-foot and it is all within a 2-block radius of our house. It helps to have extra hands to carry the groceries home. While it is not the '1week/week' supply...sometimes it is a fair amount. It usu. starts out as 'lets grab something for lunch and dinner tonight'...but then quickly evolves into other things we've run out of.

I try to do really big shopping by myself.

[Anonymous]

Trust me, I would rather poke a hot iron through my eyball than take my kids to the grocery store - with our without DH. I understand people's reasons for doing that, but if I have a choice, I shop afer they are in bed and DH stays at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO how you grocery shop is a little window into how you live...

Peapod delivery to nanny = hyper-educated two income family fearful that any moment junior spends not doing educational activities will keep him out of Yale.
Peapod delivery to SAHM = mom who watches Sanjay Gupta too much while EBFing and has developed an intense fear of whooping cough, and avian flu.
Mom alone going slowly down the aisle = a woman either SAHM or working for whom this is the only solitary, exercise, or social experience of the week.
Dad alone = hopelessly lost soul trying desperately to figure out what he should be doing and dreading the return home to the invetible you forgot X.
Mom and Dad together without kids eating samples = date night when you have to pay your nanny time and half, too expensive to afford dinner on top nanny cost.
Mom with kids = mom who is tired of watching WonderPets and has decided picking out cereal is a life learning experience.
Mom, Dad, and kids = two income family that share things 50/50 including the horror of the grocery store trip with kids but convince themselves it is good family time.

Let me go out on a limb here - you are the latter. Way to go with your wild over-generalizations and self-congratulation. It's hard for me to imagine being so smug and judgemental toward anyone who doesn't do things exactly the way you do. Because you know, a Dad grocery shopping alone is of course a clueless moron with a mean wife at home. WTF?!

[Anonymous]

I feel like the OP was referring to families as Mom, Dad, and Kids. Like, whole family going shopping. I take my son shopping with me many times and it is fun when we do it together. However, I prefer to run as many errands as possible while DS is at school so our family time can actually be doing something more enjoyable (for us, grocery shopping is not enjoyment, but I am sure it can be for some people). I work from home, so I am very lucky to have that flexibility.

That said, I do NOT enjoy shopping with DH. He likes to be in and out, but I have to read labels b/c of my celiac disease...so it can be more stressful than anything. Shopping with DS=fun. Shopping with DS and DH=not so fun.

To each their own. I have never had an issue with whole families shopping together. Though, I have to agree with one of the posters who said something about the Dads wanting to be anywhere else but there. Not all, but many just look plain miserable! That would be my husband...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bring my screaming babies with me to do the shopping just to piss people like you off. While we are there our favorite game is I can scream louder than you

I believe you are also the one who brings her screaming kids to restaurants, long flights where they never stop screaming, changes dirty diapers on floor and tosses diaper in corner or under shelf in grocery and/or any kind of store, and if you kids aren't breaking eardrums with their screams and tantrums, you pinch them really hard and then they can scream above a symphony grocery. I know you because you and you kids, who, if they were lost, normal, rational people would not look for them, stalk me. Someday all of this will be returned to you when you have to visit your kids in the Federal pen.

[Anonymous]

That should by symphony orchestra, not grocery. I couldn't think because your kids were screaming in my ear.