crying babies/kids-whats your worst(loudest) story?

[danegrous_21]

today i was off, and my bro in law wanted to go to my store, so i went with him for the heck of it, after 10 mins of being there, i hear a cry/yell, so loud so....piercing,idk what to describe it as. at of all my CS rep jobs(heh i only have this and another job as exp)this takes the cakes of cakes for kids making a scene. the noise went on for at least 2 mins. screaming bloody murder was taken to a all new high. i was literally on the other side of the store and heard this. working with the public, crying kids happen all the time, but this...wow, by now i ignore them, this one made its presence know to me. my eardrums felt like they got roundhouse kicked by chuck norris. i never want to be that parent with the loud kid.

[batmoody]

I cant think of any one particular screaming kid. We get lots. They come through the checkstand and want candy, you know all that impulse stuff they have at the registers. I've had kids scream bloody friggin murder becasue mom won't get them a pack of m&m's or whatever. The worst part is, these kids are throwing these tantrums, and just as the mom is ready to pay and LEAVE, she gives in and buys the stupid candy! AAAARG! If you were going to get it anyways, why didn't you just get it to begin with and save all our eardrums and sanity? You were soooo close to getting out of there and teaching your kid a lesson, and you just.gave.in.

[Rubystars]

.

One time this little boy was with his mom and he wanted a bag of chips, and his mom said no, and so the little boy got angry and put the chip bag back down, and started punching it as hard as he could, saying "Pow!" "Pow!" every time he hit the bag.

I guess if he couldn't have it, no one could! The mom made him stop, and apologized. When they were gone, I checked the bag. It was fine, because the boy had been hitting the air pocket.


Another time there was a horrible noise through the whole store, other customers were commenting on it, some laughing a little, some annoyed. It sounded like a child was being held down and tortured with red hot pokers. Aaaaaahhh! Aaaaaaaahhhh!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! This went on for over thirty minutes straight. A constant, steady roaring sound! The mom and the child, who was now being quiet, came to my line. The mom had said the reason that her daughter had been screaming was that she wouldn't let her get a character-themed toothbrush. I told the mom that at least she didn't give in. I really think that she should have taken the kid out of the store after the first five minutes though. That was horrible...


One time a girl who looked like she was too old to throw temper tantrums had the whole front end staring at her, staff and customers alike. She was probably around 5th grade level. She kept screaming at the top of her lungs at her mother "I don't have anything to eat! I don't have anything to eat! You want me to starve! I hate you! I hate you mommy! You didn't get me anything to eat!" At first I was a little concerned, but then I saw the child looked well cared for and fed... and it was just like watching some kind of freak show. She didn't look thin or unfed or anything like that. She just looked like a 5th grader throwing a preschooler's fit. Another customer commented to me that the girl didn't look like she was starved. She must have had some kind of disability to be that underdeveloped, either that, or she was just a spoiled brat.

[Barefootgirl]

i never want to be that parent with the loud kid.

Hands up all those who do want to be the parent with the loud kid....Well, look at that!

[Jester]

She must have had some kind of disability to be that underdeveloped, either that, or she was just a spoiled brat.

I personally vote for spoiled brat.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The worst kid ever was this little boy who just went "AAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAH!" for at least an hour. Now, most parents now are probably thinking "Give him a break, small kids do scream and it's not the parents' fault!" Well, get this; this kid was not screaming out of pain, fear, hunger or anger. He was screaming purely cuz he liked the sound of his own voice. And his mum did nothing; she just pushed his pushchair all round the supermarket with her brat shrieking all the time.

[blas]

It's always the same when I go shopping.

For instance, when I was getting steel toes for my new job (I know, Wal-Mart shoes are crap, but I wasn't about to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of steel toes for work! Work isn't a fashion show!). Anyways, I got to the shoe section (which is right next to infants/toddlers section) and I heard a baby screaming bloody murder. I figured in a few seconds I'd hear someone trying to soothe the baby or at least try and shhh it. Nope. The blood curdling scream went on and on, as if someone was literally beating the living hell out of the child. I looked around the corner and saw a deserted baby stroller with said baby, face as red as a tomato, tears streaming down its face, mouth wide open, screaming louder and louder.

About 10 feet away from the abandoned stroller were two teenaged girls (one for sure appearing VERY pregnant, and the other maybe just chubby, maybe pregnant), and two very skeezy looking guys, probably around my uncle's age (26). I wanted to throw my steel toe shoes at the retarded broads (yes, I know it's wrong to hurt a pregnant woman, but still) and tell them to attend to that baby before I call CPS on them. Honestly, if you are going to have sex, use protection! If that baby is such a detriment and such a burden to your social life, you should have considered adoption. Fertility problems are not as rare as people think. There are so many people out there who would give anything, pay any price, just to have a baby to call their own. I know I'm preaching to the deaf congregation (especially when I'm preaching to teenage girls where I live), but come on here.....abandoned strollers with screaming babies is nothing that anyone wants to see.

That's not the only time, but I don't want to hog up the entire thread with more stories about abandoned strollers and baby's mommas chit chatting and flirting away off in the distance, completely ignoring their children. It makes me sick.

[erik316wttn]

My worst one was about 3 months ago...

There was a woman in with four kids, not one over the age of 6. She had about 7 WIC transactions, and of course those take longer. Over the course of her time in my line, no less than two of her children were screaming at any given time. They'd scream in turns, too. And I'm not talking like regular "I want candy and I'm not getting it" screaming. I'm talking like "the buxom blonde is face to face with the psychopathic killer" scream. Ear piercing, blood curdling screaming. For a brief time, all four were going. There were many customers who stopped what they were doing to just look over in my direction and see this woman standing there with this not so bright look on her face. I got many sympathy glares from co-workers and managers.

At least the CSM on duty was nice enough to let me go on break right afterwards. I needed it.

[ArenaBoy]

Never dealt with any screaming kids at work but when I was out I saw a kid throw a tantrum that went on for about 5 minutes and that I could hear on the other end of the store. The reason he was throwing a fit was because mommy wouldn't let him buy a video game, a violent one at that.

[Department stores *sigh*]

its kinda freaky now with kids screaming. Like this past weekend there was peobably the thre worst kids i have EVER heard in my two and a half years in retail. But the freaky thing is i managed o tune them out no problem. Didnt bat an eye. Its like i have finaly learned to tune out kids

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Saw a kid pitching one in a store once that was a doozy. Mom, to her credit, pretty much ignored him (this was a "give me attention" tantrum...not the sort of thing one wants to encourage with...well...attention.)

When it was clear mom wasn't playing, he ramped it up, screaming "Shit! Shit! Shit!" That's when mom, very calmly, took him by his little hand and dragged him out of the store.

Bet she gave his little ass some attention.

[Sunsetsky]

I have several...

1) Yesterday I was on a register and I heard this kid screaming and crying. His mother was checking out in the register behind me. He's crying about a toy. I figured that his mother wouldn't buy him one and he was pissed off. OR that he already had a toy but his mother told him he couldn't have it until he got home. Well, his crying was beginning to get on my nerves and I was quite happy when him and his mother finally left. Later the cashier tells me that his mother had indeed bought him a toy. He was actually holding it. The reason why he was screaming and throwing a tantrum was because his mother wouldn't buy him TWO toys. I say he was lucky that he even got one. If he was MY kid I would've snatched the toy out of his hands and taken it off. The cashier said that the mother mentioned that he was spoiled rotten. Yea...we could see that.

2) Then there was the little girl who was just screaming because she can. She did it for almost half an hour (I actually kept track of it). Her mother was at the portrait studio. The girl was just screaming and screaming. One of the cashiers eventually came over to me and muttered "someone needs to shut that kid up." It was so freaking irritating.

3) Another time I was coming off my break. One of the CSMs mentioned a boy screaming at the top of his lungs for around 20 minutes. Customers were getting pissed and were starting to complain. I heard it myself and I couldn't blame them at all. It must have lasted another 15 minutes while I was on a register. The couple walked by with their kid (ignoring his screams) while people shot them nasty looks.

[thegiraffe]

A few years ago, we had a kid screaming bloody murder throughout the whole store. Mom was going up and down each aisle....and the kid was still screaming. Screaming through the checkout, and out the door. When they left, the whole store broke out into applause.

I also saw a 10 or 11-year old boy throwing a tantrum one day. He wasn't so much screaming, but stomping, crying, etc. I felt embarrassed for him....imagine if one of his classmates walked in and saw him acting like that. Though...that'd probably get him to straighten up in no time flat. Mom did a good job though. She told him to go sit on the bench in no uncertain terms, and when he refused, she told him to do it again. He quit eventually.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Sunsetsky, I'm not singling you out here, but you illustrate my point pretty well, so I'm going to use your post as an example.

The same people who complain about kids being spoiled also complain when kids are ignored by their parents when they throw a tantrum.

Probably the parents are ignoring a screaming kid because NOT ignoring them teaches them that that's the best way to get attention. The 5 year old in the earlier post most likely has parents who do whatever they have to do to avoid a scene, and dirty looks. If the girl throws a tantrum, she gets what she wants.

On the other hand, the parents letting their kid scream are most likely pretty embarassed. They'd just rather be embarassed than raise a manipulative brat. Their kid will eventually learn his tantrums are ineffectual. In the meantime, the same people complaining about bratty kids in stores will continue to give them dirty looks.

They can't win.

I'd also like to point out that I've learned that if you get a few minutes to get to the store with your baby, it's golden time. Your outings are few and far between, so you better make it count. You get a cart mostly full of groceries, no way are you willing to just abandon the cart and take your child home. Odds are good, you need that stuff and you need it now.

I was trying to shop for a couple new bits of clothing for work the other day and ended up having to leave before I tried anything on. Took me a while to find some suitable stuff, only to have to quickly put it all away and take my baby home because she started to cry loudly in her stroller. I hated it, but it wasnt' stuff I needed right then. But a parent with a cartful of diapers, formula, and tonight's meal might have to just endure it.

I think folks ought to try and be a little more understanding. It's not always a matter of slack parenting.

[HappyCthulhu]

Probably the parents are ignoring a screaming kid because NOT ignoring them teaches them that that's the best way to get attention.

In my day, if I'd ever pulled anything like screaming non stop, my mom would have given me something to scream about.
Spanking should never go out of fashion.