# Exasperated man buys everyone in Burger King an apple pie to teach boy throwing a tantrum a lesson. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267 "2014-08-10T21:21:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/21 "2014-08-11T03:28:12Z")
> [@Antinor01](#): > > If that’s all the better the kid can behave, then he got exactly what he deserved. He should have turned around and told the kid in a calm, reassuring voice: “Hang on son; you’ll get your deserts in a moment.” ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/22 "2014-08-11T03:29:42Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > There are only two sorts of people who heap scorn on those who have lost control of small children in public. Those who have never had responsibility for controlling small children and are thus free to say how easy it is and those who have had such responsibility and are hypocrites. That’s ridiculous. What do you think is so hard about picking them up and taking them away? You’re bigger than them. Use that to your advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/23 "2014-08-11T03:35:04Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > There are only two sorts of people who heap scorn on those who have lost control of small children in public. Those who have never had responsibility for controlling small children and are thus free to say how easy it is and those who have had such responsibility and are hypocrites. All parents fail at their responsibility to raise decent little human beings? Do you really believe this? It sounds more like a rationalization; I’m not a tweeker, everyone uses meth socially from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/24 "2014-08-11T04:19:45Z")
I’m the same way. I’m always happy to encounter well behaved and polite kids. Yes Sir, No Ma’am goes a long way towards showing respect. That’s not as common these days but just simple courtesy, like saying thank you and please leaves a good impression too. Correcting bad behavior has to be done at a young age. Helping them to learn basic rules and boundaries. Someone up thread mentioned taking a screaming child out to the car and just letting them cry it out. Eventually the young kid realized what he was doing didn’t work as planned. So he adjusted his own behavior. Such a simple and elegant lesson for a child. > [@Shakes](#): > > During the last Girl Scout cookie season, I was accosted by an all Muslim Girl Scout troop. When they asked me if I’d like to but some cookies and I told them “No thanks, I’ve already got six boxes at home.” BOTH the girls who approached me responded in sync: “Okay, thanks anyway, have a great day!” > > Softie that I am, I pretty much HAD to do an about face and buy some cookies off of those girls. All the while gushing to their troop leader why polite girls she had. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/25 "2014-08-11T04:28:10Z")
> [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](#): > > All parents fail at their responsibility to raise decent little human beings? Do you really believe this? It sounds more like a rationalization; I’m not a tweeker, everyone uses meth socially from time to time. No, but at least some of them are able to teach their children to read and comprehend. Your parents unfortunately… Actually that’s unfair. You probably just failed to read on this particular occasion. Which is ironic really, as you will realise when you go back and read my post, this time trying harder to do so properly. > [@Rick](#): > > When my oldest was about 2 1/2 he threw a tantrum in the super market. > I left my wife took him to the car…etc > [@AnaMen](#): > > That’s ridiculous. What do you think is so hard about picking them up and taking them away? You’re bigger than them. Use that to your advantage. These things work OK some of the time and all of us can trot out the cute trite little anecdotes that allow us to smugly believe that time we saw that struggling parent they were a failure. These tricks don’t work always. Sure **Rick** , your wife was there so you could just walk out. What if she wasn’t and you absolutely had to do whatever it was you were doing when your kid had the tanty? Not so easy now is it? And what if your kid doesn’t want to be where you are and wants to be picked up and taken somewhere? So now you are rewarding them by leaving. Oops. How’s your strategy going now, **AnaMen**? Trite cute smug little stories and simplifications notwithstanding, as I said, there are basically no parents who haven’t lost control of small children in public. It doesn’t mean they always do or are hopeless parents. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/26 "2014-08-11T04:31:29Z")
Most observers CAN distinguish between a parent who’s trying to deal with the problem and a “parent” who’s too busy with the precious phone or some such to bother noticing her/his offspring’s antics. The “mother” of the BK tantrum brat was clearly of the latter variety. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/27 "2014-08-11T04:45:31Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > Most observers CAN distinguish between a parent who’s trying to deal with the problem and a “parent” who’s too busy with the precious phone or some such to bother noticing her/his offspring’s antics. The “mother” of the BK tantrum brat was clearly of the latter variety. Yep. We were at a restaurant about 2 weeks ago and there was a family 2 tables over. The adults were all sitting and talking while the 3 kids were running laps around the dining room, yelling and basically acting like they were in a park. There is a huge difference in a parent of small kids actively working to teach them proper public behavior and ones that let them do whatever the fuck they want. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/28 "2014-08-11T05:14:14Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > No, but at least some of them are able to teach their children to read and comprehend. Your parents unfortunately… > > Actually that’s unfair. You probably just failed to read on this particular occasion. Which is ironic really, as you will realise when you go back and read my post, this time trying harder to do so properly. > > These things work OK some of the time and all of us can trot out the cute trite little anecdotes that allow us to smugly believe that time we saw that struggling parent they were a failure. > > These tricks don’t work always. Sure **Rick** , your wife was there so you could just walk out. What if she wasn’t and you absolutely had to do whatever it was you were doing when your kid had the tanty? Not so easy now is it? > > And what if your kid doesn’t want to be where you are and wants to be picked up and taken somewhere? So now you are rewarding them by leaving. Oops. How’s your strategy going now, **AnaMen**? > > Trite cute smug little stories and simplifications notwithstanding, as I said, there are basically no parents who haven’t lost control of small children in public. It doesn’t mean they always do or are hopeless parents. Had I been there by myself I would have left the cart and taken him outside. Same result. Like I said this isn’t rocket surgery. Some people know how to parent. Others don’t. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/29 "2014-08-11T05:35:46Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > No, but at least some of them are able to teach their children to read and comprehend. Your parents unfortunately… > > Actually that’s unfair. You probably just failed to read on this particular occasion. Which is ironic really, as you will realise when you go back and read my post, this time trying harder to do so properly. > > These things work OK some of the time and all of us can trot out the cute trite little anecdotes that allow us to smugly believe that time we saw that struggling parent they were a failure. > > These tricks don’t work always. Sure **Rick** , your wife was there so you could just walk out. What if she wasn’t and you absolutely had to do whatever it was you were doing when your kid had the tanty? Not so easy now is it? > > And what if your kid doesn’t want to be where you are and wants to be picked up and taken somewhere? So now you are rewarding them by leaving. Oops. How’s your strategy going now, **AnaMen**? > > Trite cute smug little stories and simplifications notwithstanding, as I said, there are basically no parents who haven’t lost control of small children in public. It doesn’t mean they always do or are hopeless parents. From my observation, there’s only one poster in this thread who has a corner on smugness. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/30 "2014-08-11T06:45:48Z")
Jesus fucking Christ, dopers. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/31 "2014-08-11T07:06:46Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > From my observation, there’s only one poster in this thread who has a corner on smugness. You? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/32 "2014-08-11T07:23:24Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Trite cute smug little stories and simplifications notwithstanding, as I said, there are basically no parents who haven’t lost control of small children in public. It doesn’t mean they always do or are hopeless parents. Yup. Sometimes you will do exactly the right thing and the situation is still horrible. Sometimes, onlookers will regard the necessary and unavoidable mess of your best-practice parenting as tragic failure to parent (even in **Rick** ’s scenario, there will be onlookers tutting and judging as he drags a screaming child to the car for timeout). There is no universal, simple, perfect, infallible method for anything, in parenting. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/33 "2014-08-11T07:39:52Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > From my observation, there’s only one poster in this thread who has a corner on smugness. My message is basically everyone fails at parenting on occasion. If it isn’t totally clear that this includes me, then it should be. If you think that’s a smug message, well, I think you need to recalibrate your smug-o-meter. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/34 "2014-08-11T07:42:37Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Had I been there by myself I would have left the cart and taken him outside. Same result. You missed the “absolutely had to do what you were doing” bit. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/35 "2014-08-11T07:47:38Z")
There are plenty of situations where _there is little alternative but to ‘fail’ at parenting_. It’s not always possible to drag the misbehaving child out to a quiet place where no bystanders will be impacted - for example, if another, younger child needs feeding; between stops on a crowded train; when buying truly essential items in a supermarket, etc. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/36 "2014-08-11T08:24:31Z")
First time I went grocery shopping for myself, just out of high school, there was a little kid in the cereal aisle begging his mommy for Cookie Crisp; she kept saying no, you can’t have that cereal, it’s bad for you. So I made a big, exaggerated show of picking out the biggest box of Cookie Crisp, putting it in my cart, and merrily going on my way. True story. > [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](#): > > I’m not a tweeker, everyone uses meth socially from time to time. lolwut? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/37 "2014-08-11T09:34:31Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > There’s no way that happened. It’s just some dude that posted to reddit what he wished he had done. Why not? I don’t know exactly how much Burger King charges for their apple pies, but ~$30 is certainly cheap enough that I could imagine someone paying that to teach a stranger to quit being so bloody annoying, do something nice for a bunch of other strangers and make themselves feel a bit happier. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/38 "2014-08-11T11:49:33Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Had I been there by myself I would have left the cart and taken him outside. Same result. And see, that sounds to me like a parenting fail, because now I’m thinking about what my grocery cart looks like when I’m doing weekly family shopping, and I’m thinking about how some poor schmuck at the grocery store is going to have to put $100+ of groceries back on shelves, just because I decided that making a point to my kid was more important than not being a huge pain in the ass to that worker. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/39 "2014-08-11T11:53:25Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > There are plenty of situations where _there is little alternative but to ‘fail’ at parenting_. It’s not always possible to drag the misbehaving child out to a quiet place where no bystanders will be impacted - for example, if another, younger child needs feeding; between stops on a crowded train; when buying truly essential items in a supermarket, etc. This. We certainly have a lot of perfect parents who have never had a bad afternoon on the Dope. That’s probably because of their kids’ enormous IQs and early reading skills. ---
**Author:** ![ctnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@ctnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctnguy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267/40 "2014-08-11T12:05:15Z")
All this talk about “every parent fails at parenting sometimes” etc. is a total red herring in this case. According to the original reddit post: > [@](#): > > I calmly turn and ask her nicely if she can please calm or quiet her child down. Immediately she gets up in my face telling me I can’t tell her nothing about raising her child and to mind my own business. I nod and turn around, shes still yelling at the back of my head That’s not a parenting fail, that’s a failure of basic politeness. Even if dragging the kid out of there wasn’t an option in the circumstances, there was no need to snap at the guy like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exasperated-man-buys-everyone-in-burger-king-an-apple-pie-to-teach-boy-throwing-a-tantrum-a-lesson/695267.md?page=3)