Why do people insist on taking their entire family to the store, when they can't control their kids in public?

Question

I just stood in a huge line at the store for 40 minutes, with frozen food melting before my eyes because the family (mother, father and five kids) in front of me could not get their sheet together. Instead of having all their items (2 baskets of junk food) ready when they got to the check out lane, they kept sending one of their kids (like 5 and 6) back to get something. Then they lost track of their kids, and wasted more time sending the oldest (9) to find them. Then they had to send back some sugar and to top it all off, one of the little angels dropped a huge bottle of salsa where we're supposed to pay. The tears and screams! The drama! You would've thought someone chopped off a limb, instead this 6 y.o. was crying because she had hot sauce on her leg. So she cried until finally her mother got some sense & moved her out of the way.

There's some exceptions, where I can understand a single parent having no choice but to take the kids. But why w/2 adults? why torture us? why?

Answer 1

I am a single parent and when my kids were younger if they acted up at the food store and I couldn't get them in control
(sorry to all the clerks) I would leave a full basket. i would not tolerate that. They quickly learned if they wanted food, they would behave or be hungry!

Answer 2

Are you positive it was the father? And did he live with the mother? Did they have needs that only the father could provide and maybe met at the store to get items needed?
Life is complicated...worry about more important issues...did you die by waiting, of course not...it bothers me that people worry about things like this, and don't care about poverty, or the fact that most people are having trouble getting work that pays bills. The terrible fact that there are hardly any families that do anything together, even going to the store is sad.

Answer 3

As much as I'm really trying to search for a good explanation, I just can't. There's as many reasons as there are people. We just don't know what is happening in our lives sometimes much less the live of others. Who knows what is happening.....or not happening.....in these peoples lives. Did you offer to help somehow? Maybe just entertain the kids a bit? That's what I do. It helps the parents, the kids and yourself.