"I am not a babysitter!"

[tignish]

everybody out of the gene pool...

[Becks]

These stories remind me of the post of the woman who ditched her young child at the movie theater....Anyone else remember that one? Was it on this version of CS, or an older one?

[Banrion]

These stories remind me of the post of the woman who ditched her young child at the movie theater....Anyone else remember that one? Was it on this version of CS, or an older one?

I don't know what incarnation of the board my story was on. But it happens at least 5-10 times a day on the weekends at the movie theatre. My theatre actually had to get a radio code for the kids left behind without parents. We called it Code Bambi, once that was called, if we couldn't locate the parents for 30 mins or more by paging the lobby and parking lot and bathrooms, the police were called, and those parents got to have fun with DCS.

[Canadian In Maine]

I served four years at the toy store that has a giraffe as a mascot and parents used to dump their kids in there all the time while they went off to shop at other stores.

My manager got to the point where he would call the police too.

[Lulu]

I get this a lot too, the bookshop I work in is, like nearly all of them, wedged between a supermarket and a coffee shop. The amount of times a week I end up calling mall security to deal with LITTLE kids who have no idea where mummy is frankly saddens me. We're not talking pre-teens here, we're talking under 8 years old.

I know for a fact I'd not have been allowed out of my mothers sight when out shopping at that age, I really do not understand why people expect us as shopkeepers to mind their kids just so they can have five minutes peace! You want peace, get a bloody babysitter!

[South Texan]

I wish I was joking; but when I worked at a Six Flags park, parents would buy their children season passes, then dump them every weekday for the entire summer at the park with a ten dollar bill for food. Some of these kids were no older than seven. We in effect were expected to be their day care while the parents went to work. I guess the parents thought we were some kind of fantasy world where everything was happy and sweet and loving and safe.

A lot of us came to know these kids by name. After a few days, most of these kids became bored with the rides and shows and the park in general. Too much of anything becomes boring after a while and theme parks are no exception. We soon had lots of vandalism, pranks, injuries caused by kids trying stunts, thefts, and assorted other problems. When the park had to call the parents to come get their troublesome child, the parents usually blamed the sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds who worked most of the attractions for not paying attention to these poor kids.

It was a very sad thing to see.

[Becks]

I wish I was joking; but when I worked at a Six Flags park, parents would buy their children season passes, then dump them every weekday for the entire summer at the park with a ten dollar bill for food.

Does $10 really allow ANYONE to purchase food at a theme park?

[chainedbarista]

you have to remember that these aren't just scs, but parent type scs; their scope of reality is so narrow that they see a theme park as a form of day care (cps mass call, anyone??), so understanding that a measly $10 won't feed their kid is outside their scope of understanding.

speaking of cps, why weren't they ever called?

[South Texan]

Does $10 really allow ANYONE to purchase food at a theme park?

speaking of cps, why weren't they ever called?

This was several years ago and prices were lower. Still, the amounts these sad kids were given did not buy them much. After a month of seeing them every weekday, the employees really resented the parents. Most of the kids were otherwise good, but got into trouble as they ran out of things to occupy themselves (riding the same rides everyday and watching the same shows is not much fun) and had no adult supervision.

I really do not know why CPS was not called. It may be that park management feared such calls could have sparked other investigations into the park - and that does NOT mean that anything was wrong in the park, but anytime an amusement park is entered by government inspectors like CPS for non-routine stuff, it generates a lot of negative publicity as the public makes assumptions that something HAD to have been wrong in there for an investigation to have been started.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I got this a lot in the candy store, too. Our mall didn't have a toy store so the candy store was the dumping grounds.

I didn't get to see my revenge, but I know it came later. Since the store employees got to graze all we wanted, I would just ask the kid what candy they wanted, get a BIG bag full (especially of the liquid sugar that is gummi bears), and watch them gobble it down in five minutes. I'm guessing those parents had their hands beyond full later.

Hey, it's not the kids' fault they got dumped, why should I not treat them well? How was IIIII supposed to know little Johnny has ADHD? If I were a REAL babysitter, you'd have told me that before you left him here...but oh yeah, you didn't tell me, because that would have meant admitting you were dumping your kid on me to watch...so you thought you were sneaky, huh? Have fun paying for all the merchandise your newly manic son is going to break in the Hallmark store...

[South Texan]

Since the store employees got to graze all we wanted, I would just ask the kid what candy they wanted, get a BIG bag full (especially of the liquid sugar that is gummi bears), and watch them gobble it down in five minutes. I'm guessing those parents had their hands beyond full later.

You are EVIL!!! I can only imagine the churned up sugar rushes you generated.

I guess my only fear would have been that one of the kids was diabetic; but then again, why would the parent leave such a child in an environment where such dangers could be ingested? Oh silly me. That presumes the parent was thinking.

[MystyGlyttyr]

You are EVIL!!! I can only imagine the churned up sugar rushes you generated.

I guess my only fear would have been that one of the kids was diabetic; but then again, why would the parent leave such a child in an environment where such dangers could be ingested? Oh silly me. That presumes the parent was thinking.

I know I'm evil. I accepted this long ago. Fortunately, I'm too lazy to try and take over the world so I just wind up unleashing it on the poor saps in my line of sight. Nature does establish checks and balances...but not real well.

I debated that, too, but then I figured that a parent couldn't be SO cruel as to drop their diabetic child into a store full of forbidden fruit. ...granted, this was three years ago when I was far less experienced...

[phillippbo]

Erm... 'heifer', and I don't believe her weight has any factor in the story. I don't even think it was mentioned.
*finger wags mockingly*
Sorry, I couldn't help being a little parental there.

Ree was right, I didn't mean to infer anything about her weight (and I wouldn't have any room to talk in that instance - ). Anyway, among my group of friends "heffer" is a derogatory term meaning just about anything, but usually a very stupid or otherwise inane person. I sometimes forget for the rest of the world it means someone who's a fat cow.

Incidentally, we came up with that because we generally think of cows as one of the world's dumbest animals. I don't know about anybody else, but when I look into a cow's eyes, I see a complete vacant stare and a creature completely unaware that they even exist. Could just be me though...

[TonyDonuts]

In '92 or '93 when I was a supervisor for Hardee's, we called the cops on a young woman who had been dropping her three or four year old off at our play room in the morning and coming back for him eight to ten hours later, when she was done with classes.

She did this for a couple of days. The second day she yelled at me and at the assistant manager for not assigning an employee to look after her child.

The next day, one hour after Mother of the Decade left, the manager called Child Protective Services. They took the child, and told us to call them when Mummy showed up again. This was a little after nine in the morning. A little after eight Supermom came in, and started yelling about what an imcompetent bunch of bastards we all were, and where was her child.

Note the mood: She's not frantic, "OHMIGOD! Where's my BABY!" She's ANGRY! "Why aren't you keeping my child amused?!?!"

The cops arrive, and explain, not very gently, that abandoning her VERY SMALL CHILD in a public place is a BAD THING calld child endangerment.

She seemed incapable of grasping that she was the one at fault for abandoning her child, and not us for NOT having a full-time day-care staff on hand. She seemed to think that the cops were giving her a ride to talk to somebody about filing a complaint against us, and NOT that she was, in fact, under arrest. I wonder if she ever sorted that out.

Anywhoo, the kicker is that the college across the street offered subsidized (cheap or free) daycare administered by the early childhood development department, and staffed my early childhood and education majors. Hmmm, professional, cheap daycare, or fast-food joint??? What to do? What to do?

[XCashier]

Had lazy parents drop their children off at the Novelty Store at the Run Down Mall more than once. Thing is, despite the funny merchandise, that was NOT a place for children: there was a large Adult Section, and several less-than-stable displays the miserly manager couldn't be bothered to correct. I honestly had no idea what to do about these children.

Many years later, I am now a mother, and would no more consider dropping my child off at a store for employees to watch than I would consider letting him run around in the middle of a busy street. I feel sorry for any child whose parents think so little of him that they drop him off willy-nilly with strangers in a strange store.