Care to explain exactly what your metaphor is supposed to mean?
I was wondering when someone was going to raise an eyebrow at that one.
At to the OP:
You have to teach kids really early the value of personal property. I teach my daughter about it all the time. Whether in the home with stuff I don’t want her playing with that belongs to my wife and I, or on the playground with other kids toys, or in the grocery store when she wants to grab things off of the shelf. She’s only a toddler, and right now is the time to teach her about stealing and property rights. I do not approve of stealing either. I have ‘mostly’ stopped pirating music/movies/software, unless I miss an episode of some show and want to see it before the next week, then I download it. It’s kind of amazing how much we all feel entitled. So many of us in this thread outraged at the grocery store have probably pirated IP.
You played it when she wasn’t around.
Well, look at the lesson you learned.
Yeah, I’m out robbing banks and shit. :rolleyes: I haven’t stolen a thing since the eighth grade.
Then the kid gets slapped with a nice little fine, and lacking any income, guess who gets to pay for it?
Dude! That is definately a great mini-rant subject! I mean, it is a little lazy to leave your excess can of soup in the soap aisle, but leaving the steak out to get warm and thus tossed means everyone has to pay higher prices.:mad:
Nikki Tikki Tavi: too damn often.:mad:
I think just about any child will do something like that at least once. When I was about 6 y.o., I picked some flowers from a neighbor’s garden and took them home. My mom made me take some flowers from our own garden, go to the neighbor’s house, admit what I had done and apologize. By myself. I was sooooo embarrassed.
When arriving home from a shopping excursion, I noticed my older daughter, who was about 6 or 7 at the time, trying to conceal something. It was a pack of gum that she had obviously appropriated from the store. I put both kids back in the car and drove immediately back to the store, where I made her return the item and apologize. Of course, since she was a very sweet and adorable child, the clerk was all nice and said things like, “Oh, that’s all right.” “That’s NOT all right!” I insisted. They asked if I just wanted to pay for it and of course I refused because it would not be a good idea for her to get rewarded for her misdeed!
I myself have reprimanded children in public places once or twice. I saw two youngsters opening up shampoo products, and snapped at them to leave that alone, adding “That doesn’t belong to you!”
Please. In the unlikely even there’s a fine, rather than the police taking the hint and chewing you out, you’ll be sent out to mow neighbor’s lawns until you earn it or your folks figure you’ve learned the lesson but good.
Then you got the message it’s not ok to steal from somewhere (or someone) else or your mom was able to communicate to you in a different way. This is not the case with many kids. IMO, you were lucky. But you said yourself, you stole it and then you went behind your mother’s back and played the very game you stole. Where is the lesson here? There isn’t one, despite your grounding. In case it’s not clear, I don’t approve of what your mother did. I think she handled it wrong. Obviously, YMvaries.
When I took my 4 year daughter back into Venture (a proto-Target) with the nail polish she had stolen, I approached the service desk. Not only did they not contact the police, they seemed amazed that I had come back in (it was raining). She never stole again, after having to say sorry to the manager and handing it back. She was very nice to my daughter, but firm–IOW, she was age appropriate. I did not then lecture her on the evils of stealing-she had an immediate consequence and it was over. As a teenager, she refused to go along with her friend’s “dares” to steal from Target. One of her friends was caught and this time the police were called–what is regrettable at age 4 is despicable at age 14.
Why would the parent pay the fine? Where are consequences for kids in this? Why is this ok? 
I had a friend that got caught stealing in the sixth grade. His fine was something on the order of $150, IIRC, and this was in 1990. Even mowing lawns or shoveling sidewalks, most kids aren’t going to be able to come up with that kind of money in a short enough period of time to pay the fine, so the only one who can really do so is a parent.
I don’t blame my mom at all for not risking a fine that she couldn’t afford. She and Dad lived paycheck to paycheck working not-so-great jobs and successfully hiding a loveless marriage* in order to raise the four us in the best environment that they could manage.
- I had no idea that they hated each other until my dad told me years after I moved out.
I’ve noticed there are frequently bottles missing from those 4 packs of ‘mini’ wine bottles. I assume it’s teenagers or alcoholics stealing them. I’m actually surprised they sell those at all. If I were a homeless alcoholic that’s what I’d go for.
They have microwaves?
-Joe
These would be edible cold - the microwave just heats them up to a temperature people are accustomed to.
Er. Do you mean just opening the cap of a shampoo bottle? Because I do that all the time with any new brand/formulation/variety. Because I’m very particular about scents, you see. So I unscrew the caps and take a sniff before I buy. If I like it, I buy. If the smell displeases me, I don’t. I do, of course, screw the caps back on the bottles firmly, and stick rejected ones back where they belong on the shelf. I also do this with other scented items that come in containers with non-sealed openings, like body wash, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, etc.
I really don’t see how that damages the store or product in any way.
Well, the children in question were young boys, so I doubt they were selecting among various hair products. For all I knew, they were spitting inside before putting them back. Once a package has been opened, it can be contaminated in any number of ways, some harmless, some not.
That’s a non sequitur. Poor people are not necessarily immoral.
I would think what was meant was that they could have afforded to buy the item, so the theft was motivated by greed, not need.
It made perfect sense to me. She didn’t say anything about the morality of poor people. If anything, she implied that stealing might be excusable, or at least explainable, if poverty made the theft necessary – a POV that most people understand and many share. Even if we’re not talking about necessities, a child who steals candy because otherwise he or she never gets any candy, ever, would probably garner more sympathy than a child who can buy their own candy but elects to steal it instead.
I’ve noticed this with (blush) feminine protection products. Often someone’s torn the bag or box open and taken one product out and left the rest. :mad:
I am reminded of a scene I witnessed some time ago in a coffee shop. A group of women were having a good time and being somewhat loud. A couple of them were leaving, said goodbyes, etc. and then, as they were almost at the door, one who was leaving yells back across the room to one of the ones who was staying:
- “Hey! Judy! Do you have a Tampon?”
- Yes!
- Can I have it?
- No!
- Why?
- Because I’m using it!
Not too long ago, on the same day, I saw a kid open a glass jar, put his finger inside and sample the contents and then just close it and put it back on the shelf. A few minutes later a kid, almost a baby, was taking some items outside through the entrance way to his parents who were waiting. I told the kid off and got a dirty look from the family. I really felt sorry for the kid.
I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to me when I got violently ill after eating a frozen dinner with shrimp in it once. I couldn’t make myself eat shrimp for quite a while after that, and I love the stuff.